Senior Reporter
Priya Raghunathan
Priya Raghunathan covers financial technology companies: payments infrastructure, lending platforms, banking-as-a-service arrangements, and the venture money moving through all of it.
Her reporting focuses on what a product actually does versus what its marketing claims, which means she spends more time reading term sheets, licensing records and bureau reporting formats than attending demos. She previously covered enterprise software.
Recent work
- FintechEquipifi adds risk-based pricing to its bank and credit-union BNPL decision engine
- FintechVesta raises $30 million Series B to expand its AI-native mortgage origination system
- FintechNoah raises $38 million seed round, including $16 million extension, to build out stablecoin payment rails
- FintechHomeward raises $120 million Series D led by Saluda Grade, adds $330 million in asset-backed debt
- FintechKlarna brings full installment lineup to Wayfair shoppers in Canada for the first time
- FintechAbu Dhabi Islamic neobank Mal wins in-principle central bank approval after record $230 million seed
- FintechFedEx and Stripe strike data-sharing deal to underwrite small business financing from shipment activity
- FintechSingapore payee-verification startup IPID raises $16 million Series A with Citi and HSBC as strategic backers
- FintechPlaid launches Instant Link and a new LendScore 2 model family for cash-flow underwriting
- FintechCoinbase completes Deribit integration, creating a combined Coinbase Global Exchange for derivatives
- FintechAnchorage Digital acquires payout platform Routable to add stablecoin settlement
- FintechValon raises $150 million Series D at $2.3 billion valuation to build AI agents for mortgage servicing
- FintechNEOPAY agrees to buy a 65% stake in noon payments, pushing into Saudi Arabia and Egypt
- FintechMonarch acquires banking infrastructure firm MBI, folding former HMBradley team into a new Monarch Labs unit
- FintechFiserv’s new digital asset platform goes live with a stablecoin built for North Dakota’s community banks
- FintechCircle and Volante will let banks test USDC payments without building separate crypto infrastructure
- FintechTrustly secures $40 million-plus from existing backers to build AI tools on top of its payments data
- FintechValley National Bancorp agrees to buy small-business digital bank Bluevine for $340 million
- FintechElio Mortgage raises $5.1 million pre-seed to build an AI-native mortgage brokerage from the inside
- FintechJeeves raises $110 million Series C led by CoinFund to expand stablecoin-native banking
- FintechRiyadh’s erad raises $22 million to expand Shariah-compliant SME financing across the Gulf
- FintechHIFI raises $37 million Series A to expand stablecoin payout and card-issuing infrastructure
- FintechConfido raises $55 million Series B for AI platform unifying CPG brands’ finance, sales and operations data
- FintechMoonPay agrees to acquire North Capital in $60 million-plus deal for regulated securities infrastructure
- FintechNumeral raises $100 million Series C to expand AI-powered sales tax compliance
- FintechPayPal launches PYUSDx, letting businesses issue their own custom stablecoins backed by PYUSD
- FintechAlchemy adds support for Mastercard Agent Pay, letting AI agents check out with real payment credentials
- FintechAffirm rolls out a transformer-based underwriting model, says it lifted checkout approvals 3.4%
- FintechGrab agrees to buy 60% of Atome Financial for $1.49 billion, with a path to full ownership
- FintechSokin launches an MCP connector letting AI assistants prepare — but not send — payments
- FintechQupital lands $300 million in new capital to expand AI-driven trade finance
- FintechPayTabs to acquire Amazon Payment Services’ Middle East operations for more than $100 million
- FintechRipple rolls out governed AI agents for corporate treasury, with a mandatory human-in-the-loop check
- FintechEnvestnet agrees to acquire wealthtech rival Vestmark
- FintechSavvy Wealth raises $100 million Series C at a $600 million valuation for its AI-native advisor platform
- FintechNubank enters the U.S. market with a Lead Bank partnership, 3.50% APY savings and a no-fee card
- FintechAnt International, Visa and Mastercard team up on a shared standard for verifying AI payment agents
- FintechChime agrees to acquire Stride Bank for $590 million, securing a national charter
- FintechDBS and Stripe partner on agentic commerce and cross-border payments in Asia
- FintechBlock opens Cash App Score to outside lenders through Nova Credit partnership
- FintechRillet raises $100 million at a $1 billion valuation for AI-native ERP
- FintechFasset reaches $1 billion valuation with $68 million round led by SBI Group
