San Francisco is undoubtedly world leader in fintech innovation. The Bay Area has become synonymous with financial innovation because of its fertile ecosystem of multi-billion dollar unicorns, recently developed startups and everything in between. Whether it’s banking software, money transferring tools, progressive credit reporting or insurance, San Francisco has the experience, talent and passion to innovate.
Check out Bay Area’s leading fintech companies making their mark on the future of finance.
Fintech Companies in San Francisco to Know
- Cash App
- Afterpay
- Stripe
- Plaid
- Clover Network
- Affirm
- Toast
- Opendoor
Top Fintech Companies in San Francisco
Founded: 2013
Fintech Services: Peer-to-Peer Transfers, Direct Deposit, Personal Loans, Tax Filing, Investing
What they do: Cash App is a financial services app that enables peer-to-peer money transfers, stock and bitcoin trading and banking services for more than 55 million users. The app offers features including direct deposit, a debit card, loans and tax filing, while expanding access to financial services across income levels. Cash App is owned by Block.
Founded: 2010
Fintech Services: Payment Processing, Fraud Detection, Agentic Commerce Infrastructure
What they do: Stripe enables businesses to accept digital, in-person and recurring payments. The San Francisco-based company processes more than $1 trillion in payments annually and uses artificial intelligence to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions. Stripe has also partnered with OpenAI to develop an agentic commerce protocol, allowing ChatGPT users to discover and purchase products from select retailers without leaving the platform.
Founded: 2013
Fintech Services: Financial Data APIs, Bank Account Verification, Payment Processing
What they do: Plaid provides an API that enables companies to securely connect their customers’ financial accounts to other applications and services. The platform connects thousands of financial institutions globally, powering fintech partners including investment platforms, payment services and lending applications. Plaid’s infrastructure supports account verification, payments, fraud prevention, identity verification and personal finance insights, allowing businesses to build financial services without manual verification processes.
Founded: 2011
Fintech Services: Point-of-Sale Payments, Restaurant Management Solutions
What they do: Toast’s wide array of restaurant solutions are designed to make serving customers, running kitchens and overseeing employees more efficient. Its product lineup includes a point-of-sale system along with compatible hardware devices for managing orders, sales and payments. The company also provides food and drink establishments with solutions for setting up online ordering and table reservation systems as well as handling payroll.
Founded: 2015
Fintech Services: Travel and Expense Management
What they do: Navan’s corporate travel and expense management solutions have uses for small businesses all the way through global enterprises. For example, its platform provides real-time insights on corporate card spending and employee reimbursements, which can drive policy and business decisions. Navan started out as a corporate travel platform, but through acquisitions and the incorporation of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, it has since grown into a “multi-faceted business solution.”
Founded: 2012
Fintech Services: Lending Marketplace, Student Loan Refinancing, Mortgage Comparison
What they do: Credible is a marketplace that allows consumers to compare and receive pre-qualified offers from multiple lenders for student loans, personal loans, mortgages and credit cards. Operating as a subsidiary of Fox Corporation, the company integrates with lenders and credit bureaus to provide personalized rate quotes based on a borrower’s credit history. Credible expanded beyond student loan refinancing to include loan origination, mortgages and insurance products following its 2021 acquisition of digital insurance platform Young Alfred.
Founded: 2014
Fintech Services: Buy Now Pay Later
What they do: Afterpay operates a buy-now-pay-later platform that lets customers purchase items and pay them off over four interest-free installments. The service integrates with major retailers including Adidas, Fenty Beauty, and Ulta — charging retailers a partner fee rather than passing costs on to consumers. Afterpay is now part of Block, the San Francisco-based payments company, and processes transactions across its payments ecosystem.
Founded: 2020
Fintech Services: Alternative Asset Valuation, Asset Trading, Asset-Backed Loans
What they do: Alt transforms collectible cards and other alternative assets into investable instruments for retail investors through its platform. The company enables users to research, buy, sell and manage assets including sports cards, watches, sneakers and art, while offering liquidity and loan-against-portfolio services.
Founded: 2012
Fintech Services: Blockchain Cross-Border Payments, Foreign Exchange Liquidity
What they do: Ripple provides blockchain-based financial infrastructure for cross-border payments and digital asset services. The company operates stablecoin-powered payment solutions, digital asset custody and treasury management tools designed for banks and fintech companies. Ripple’s platform enables institutions to settle payments in seconds across multiple currencies and digital assets, while maintaining compliance and security standards required by regulated financial institutions.
Founded: 2017
Fintech Services: Corporate Credit Cards, Expense Management
What they do: Brex, now a subsidiary of Capital One, is a finance platform offering corporate credit cards, business banking, expense management and accounting automation. It serves startups and established companies alike, with features including higher credit limits than traditional cards, automated expense reporting and AI-powered spend controls. Brex works with thousands of companies, including DoorDash, SeatGeek and Lemonade, helping finance teams automate manual work and manage global spending.
Founded: 2015
Fintech Services: Cross-Border Payments, Multi-Currency Accounts, Spend Management
What they do: Airwallex provides a global payments and financial platform with embedded finance APIs, multi-currency payment acceptance, business accounts and spend management tools. The copmpany operates with dual global headquarters in San Francisco and Signapore, serving businesses across travel, e-commerce, software and financial services industries.
Founded: 2013
Fintech Services: Real Estate Investment Loans, Short-Term Financing
What they do: Kiavi provides short-term loans for real estate investors financing fix-and-flip, rental and new construction projects. Its platform uses machine learning and real-time property data to streamline underwriting and approvals. Kiavi has originated over $30 billion in loans across more than 100,000 transactions nationwide.
Founded: 2009
Fintech Services: Subscription Billing Management, Revenue Optimization
What they do: Recurly is a subscription management and billing platform that automates recurring revenue operations for digital commerce businesses. The company serves thousands of global brands, including Paramount, Twitch and NerdWallet, processing millions of subscription renewal events annually. Recurly’s platform handles subscription launches, payment recovery through intelligent retry logic, dunning management and revenue recognition compliance. It also offers Recurly Compass, an AI tool that helps businesses configure billing plans and detect anomalies in subscriber data.
Founded: 2006
Fintech Services: Global Payment Processing, Digital Wallets, Payment Data Insights
What they do: Adyen enables enterprise companies to accept card payments, digital wallets and other payment methods online and in person. The platform provides end-to-end payment capabilities, data analytics and financial products through a unified system. Adyen serves major clients including Microsoft, eBay, and Uber, processing significant transaction volumes across global markets.
Founded: 2014
Fintech Services: Digital Real Estate Transactions, Home Financing Solutions
What they do: Opendoor operates a digital platform for residential real estate transactions, enabling users to buy and sell homes with instant cash offers, pricing transparency, and access to financial resources and agents within a single interface. The company has served thousands of buyers and sellers by streamlining the home purchase and sale process. Beyond real estate transaction, Opendoor also connects users with title insurance, home warranties and home equity lines of credit providers.
Founded: 2016
Fintech Services: Life Insurance
What they do: Ethos offers no-medical-exam life insurance with instant quotes and online applications. The company provides term, whole and universal life policies with coverage up to $3 million, matching customers with options from multiple carriers based on their needs. It also offers free estate planning tools including wills and trusts through its subsidiary, Ethos Estate Planning. Headquartered in Austin with a San Francisco office, Ethos delivers personalized coverage in approximately 10 minutes through its fully digital platform.
Founded: 2012
Fintech Services: Crypto Trading/Storage
What they do: Coinbase is a digital currency platform that allows users to buy, sell and manage their cryptocurrency portfolios. The company gives users insights into real-time and historic pricing, time-delayed storage vaults for security and the ability to set up recurring buys to passively build portfolios. Coinbase offers users the ability to buy and sell hundreds of cryptocurrencies, including popular currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Monero and Dash.
Founded: 2015
Fintech Services: Digital Banking, High-Yield Savings, Personal Loans
What they do: Varo Bank is a mobile banking platform offering no-fee checking and high-yield savings accounts, cash advances and personal lines. Users have access to more than 40,000 fee-free ATMs, can receive their paychecks up to two days early through direct deposit and can deposit cash at thousands of CVS locations nationwide. The company also offers the Believe credit-builder card to help users establish credit history. Varo operates as an independent bank with FDIC insurance protecting deposits.
Founded: 2019
Fintech Services: Consumer Rewards, Market Research Data Analytics
What they do: Attain operates a proprietary, permissioned purchase data ecosystem that captures real-time consumer commerce behavior. The company builds and manages consumer applications through which it maintains direct relationships with millions of individuals, then extends that data across the advertising ecosystem to help brands, agencies, retailers and media platforms connect marketing investment to verified sales outcomes.
Founded: 2017
Fintech Services: Loans
What they do: Oportun provides credit-building loans to underbanked or low income communities. Instead of relying on credit score alone, the company takes into account several other factors when issuing a loan and provides borrowers with personalized financial information to make sure they take concrete steps to improve their scores. To date, Oportun has reported that the average borrower’s credit score rose by 312 points from the first to the second loan.
Founded: 2018
Fintech Services: HELOCs, Mortgage Refinancing, Personal Loans via Blockchain
What they do: Figure uses blockchain technology and artificial intelligence to streamline consumer lending, offering home equity lines of credit, cash-out refinancing and personal loans. The company went public in September 2025 and operates OPEN, an on-chain public equity network, alongside its lending platform. Figure serves borrowers seeking home improvements, debt consolidation and other financial needs through blockchain-native infrastructure.
Founded: 2012
Fintech Services: Equity Management, Cap Table Management, IPO Services
What they do: Carta manages equity ownership for private companies, public companies and investment funds. It provides cap table management, valuations, SAFE financings and secondary transaction services for private companies, while offering fund administration, portfolio analytics and deal management tools for investors. The company also operates Carta Law, an AI-native legal services platform for compliance and contract workflows.
Founded: 2009
Fintech Services: Supply Chain Invoicing, B2B Payments, Procurement Management
What they do: Tradeshift automates accounts payable, e-invoicing and procurement for supply chain buyers and suppliers. The platform specializes in global e-invoicing compliance across 70 countries, and offers AI-powered invoice automation, virtual credit cards and procure-to-pay solutions on a single networked platform.
Founded: 2010
Fintech Services: Point-of-Sale Systems, Invoicing, Payment Processing
What they do: Clover is a cloud-based point-of-sale software that serves small and medium-sized businesses across retail, food and beverage and service industries. Owned by Fiserv, the platform enables businesses to accept payments, manage inventory, track employees, process gift cards and handle online ordering through integrated hardware and software. Clover processes billions in annual card transactions and provides analytics tools to help businesses optimize operations from a single dashboard.
Founded: 2012
Fintech Services: Loan Application Software, Digital Mortgage Origination
What they do: Blend is a digital lending platform that helps banks, credit unions and mortgage providers streamline loan and account opening processes. It processes more than $1 trillion in loan applications annually, serving dozens of the top 100 U.S. Federal Reserve institutions and majority of the top 10 credit unions. Its tools include omnichannel customer engagement, automated risk management and AI features like Blend Autopilot, which automates document review and underwriting tasks. Customers including Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank use Blend to accelerate closings and reduce processing times.
Founded: 2011
Fintech Services: Pay-Per-Mile Auto Insurance
What they do: Metromile, a Lemonade company, offers pay-per-mile car insurance designed for low-mileage drivers. Rather than charging a fixed monthly premium, it charges a base fee starting at $29 per month plus six cents per mile driven. This usage-based pricing model allows drivers who log fewer than 12,000 miles annually to reduce their insurance costs compared to traditional plans. Operating in eight states, Metromile applies data science and telematics technology to assess driving behavior and risk, enabling the company to offer personalized rates tied directly to actual vehicle usage.
Founded: 2016
Fintech Services: Debt Collection
What they do: January uses AI to personalize debt collection interactions — a method it claims leads to greater debt recovery than traditional agencies. Its platform helps borrowers set up payment plans to resolve past-due debt while enabling creditors to modernize their collection strategies. January’s approach combines humanized engagement with data-driven recovery techniques to improve outcomes for both borrowers and creditors.
Founded: 2009
Fintech Services: Merchant Payment Processing, Digital Banking, Crypto/Stock Investing
What they do: Block operates a financial services platform providing payment and commerce solutions for merchants and consumers. Its flagship product, Square, is a point-of-sale system that allows sellers to accept card payments and manage operations including payroll, inventory, bookings and e-commerce. And Cash App, a consumer digital wallet launched in 2013, enables users to send and receive money, invest in stocks and bitcoin and file taxes. Block also owns Afterpay, a buy-now-pay-later service.
Founded: 2012
Fintech Services: Buy Now Pay Later
What they do: Affirm enables flexible payment options for online and in-store purchases through installment plans. The platform partners with thousands of merchants to offer consumers transparent, fixed-rate financing with no hidden fees, allowing them to pay over time instead of upfront. Affirm processes billions in annual purchase volume and serves nearly 27 million users. The company further expanded its platform with the Affirm Money Account, giving users seamless ways to save, spend and get paid.
Founded: 2021
Fintech Services: B2B Financing, Buy Now Pay Later for Tech
What they do: Gynger allows businesses to access quality tech tools without hurting their cash flow. Users can apply for flexible payment terms and once approved, they upload invoices for their tech purchases to Gynger, which pays the vendor upfront and then lets the customer choose a repayment plan. The company is headquartered in New York but hires remotely in San Francisco.
Founded: 2020
Fintech Services: Private Market Investment Management
What they do: Opto Investments’ platform enables financial firms and professionals to build, fundraise and manage private markets investment programs. The company automates workflows across fund formation, client allocation planning and portfolio servicing, allowing firms to scale alternatives offerings without having to proportionally expand their teams. Opto’s technology integrates curated datasets with investment selection and due diligence tools, and it covers various markets and asset classes.
Founded: 2016
Fintech Services: Digital Mortgages, Real Estate Services
What they do: Better.com operates an mortgage and home equity finance platform that streamlines the lending process through digital and AI operations. The company offers instant loan estimates, transparent pricing and online mortgage funding while matching clients with real estate agents suited to their needs. To date, Better has funded more than $110 billion in loan volume.
Founded: 2014
Fintech Services: 1-Click Checkout, Payment Processing, Fraud Protection
What they do: Bolt provides merchants with one-click checkout technology to reduce cart abandonment and increase conversion rates. It operates an intelligent identity network that enables shoppers to complete purchases across multiple retailers without re-entering payment and contact information. Bolt’s platform includes fraud prevention, subscription managementand payment processing capabilities. The company serves e-commerce merchants, SaaS platforms, app developers and digital goods retailers across the United States.
Founded: 2002
Fintech Services: Debt Settlement, Debt Consolidation Loans, Mortgages
What they do: Achieve is a personal finance company that offers debt consolidation, personal loans, home equity loans and financial education to help consumers manage debt and move toward financial freedom. A subsidiary of Freedom Financial Network, Achieve provides unsecured personal loans ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 with flexible terms. The company serves borrowers across credit profiles and has helped individuals resolved consumer debt through its suite of financial products and services.
