Top Fintech Startups in the Midwest 2022

The Midwest is rapidly becoming home to some of the best fintech startups in the country. 

Chicago, for instance, is becoming a top tech hub for fintech startups, seeing massive growth and funding for its companies. 

In Columbus, the city’s long history with top banking institutions has created a fertile ground for fintech startups to launch and grow. 

Whether it's in payment processing, mortgage or lending, personal finance or B2B finance tools, many top fintech startups are growing in the Midwest. And as the fintech market is predicted to continue to grow, so will the fintech startups in the Midwest.

Here are our top 30 picks for the best Midwest fintech startups. And yes, they’re hiring!

 

Top fintech startups: Chicago fintech companies

Halo Investing

Top fintech startup Halo Investing, Courtesy of Halo

Based in Chicago, Halo Investing is a top fintech startup that gives financial advisors a new way to find and manage outcome-based investments. The team believes defined outcome investing is for anyone who wants to create a better financial future. It’s all about democratization through technology.

 

SpotOn

Top fintech startup SpotOn, courtesy of SpotOn

Headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices around the world, including Chicago and Detroit, SpotOn is one of the fastest-growing software and payment companies. Its comprehensive suite of payment solutions helps restaurants and retail businesses. Last year, SpotOn raised $300 million in Series E funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

 

M1 Finance

M1 Finance is another fintech company based in Chicago, helping people manage and grow their money with control and automation — for free. The company has raised over $323 million, bringing in $150 million of that this year. This raised their valuation to $1.45 billion. 

 

Amount

Fintech startup Amount is on a mission to accelerate digital transformation for financial institutions. This year, Amount announced a partnership with Marqeta to help banks accelerate “buy now pay later.” They also raised $99 million in Series D, bringing their total funding up to $243 million. 

 

Avant

Avant is a top Chicago fintech startup, dedicated to premier digital banking solutions for the middle class through a combination of technology, analytics and superior customer service. Last year, Avant acquired Zero Financial, Inc. and Level, the company's neobank. With $659M in funding under its belt, this unicorn tech company is just getting started.

 

Stacked

Stacked is a fintech platform built to help everyone invest smartly in crypto. The app can help you manage your assets and instantly invest in pre-built portfolios and strategies from leading hedge funds and traders — all in one place. At the end of 2021, Stacked announced a $35 million Series A funding round and is continuing to grow. 

 

GeoWealth

Top fintech startup GeoWealth, Courtesy of GeoWealth

GeoWealth is a turnkey asset management platform (TAMP) and financial technology solution with more than $18B in platform assets and $8B in AUM, built specifically for the needs of modern RIAs. Serving over 1,000 independent advisors, GeoWealth’s user-friendly, cost-efficient, integrated technology enables advisors to access a diversified lineup of model portfolios and fully offload mid-and back-office responsibilities, including performance reporting, billing, portfolio accounting and more. Via its customizable open-architecture platform, GeoWealth enables advisors and firms to grow faster and serve clients more efficiently.

 

Enfusion

Enfusion is a fintech startup that helps investment managers solve their most pressing business challenges by looking at innovation from a fundamentally unique perspective. The cloud-native platform uses one golden source of truth to unify the front, middle, and back offices: from portfolio management and accounting all the way through to order management, execution management, and analytics. It’s all about giving them the power to see clearly — so that they can act confidently.

 

YCharts

Top fintech startup YCharts, Courtesy of YCharts

YCharts is an investment research platform built to help people make smarter investments and visually communicate insights. On a mission to democratize investing (both in strategy and execution), YCharts has rapidly grown since its 2009 founding with expansive tools rooted in their mission. 

 

Klover

Top fintech startup Klover, Courtesy of Klover

Founded in 2019 in Chicago, Klover’s platform helps millions of consumers access their earned wages, savings tools and rewards in seconds. Unlike other financial institutions, Klover has no interest, no credit check and no hidden fees, but instead has a business model that revolves around leveraging consumer-permission data and insights in concert with trusted partners. It’s all about leveling the financial playing field.

 

Paro.ai

Paro.ai is a growth platform helping businesses find success with better finance and accounting tools. Using AI technology and in-depth industry expertise, Paro matches businesses with the best-fit finance/accounting expert and solution to solve problems and drive growth. 

 

Early Bird

EarlyBird is a Chicago fintech startup. Its investing platform allows loved ones besides parents to invest in their child’s financial future. The company recently raised $4 million in a seed funding round led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six. Its other investors include some names you might know: the venture arm of Gemini, a crypto firm owned by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss; Rarebreed Ventures; Fiat Ventures; Network Ventures; NBA Player Thaddeus Young's Reform Ventures; and Alex Lieberman, the co-founder of Morning Brew.

 

Finix

Finix is a fintech platform helping SaaS companies build a world-class payments experience. The platform enables simplified and fast payments, so companies can move money, and make money. While headquartered in San Francisco, Finix has a new Chicago office (plus remote positions). Also, Sean Donovan, the company’s co-founder, has Midwest/Ohio roots. 

 

Top fintech startups: Detroit fintech companies

Autobooks

Top fintech startup Autobooks, Courtesy of Autobooks

Autobooks is the first fully integrated payments and accounting platform for business, delivered through online banking. Based in Detroit, Autobooks offers a number of wellness benefits, plus great financial and educational benefits. Last year, Autobooks raised $25 million in Series B funding and are continuing to grow their team, hiring in Detroit and remotely.

 

Nickels

Nickels is an early stage startup that draws on years of behavioral science research to build white-label digital products for credit unions and banks. They help banks grow their businesses through improving their customers’ financial health. Designed in collaboration with the country’s leading behavioral scientists at ideas42, Nickels' behaviorally-informed products help to improve users’ financial decisions by tackling the behavioral pitfalls that often lead to suboptimal outcomes. Their first product, Credit Card Coach, helps credit unions and banks support their customers' credit card health.

FUTUREBANK

FUTUREBANK has built unparalleled services for anyone who hates their current bank or is one of the millions of American freelancers, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, or small businesses who need help starting and operating their financial ecosystem. The company is based in New York with a growing team in Detroit. 

Horizon Finance, as part of SkySpecs

SkySpecs, parent company of top fintech Horizon Finance, Courtesy of SkySecs

As part of SkySpecs, an Ann Arbor startup transforming the renewable energy industry, the company provides fully outsourced financial asset management services, delivered on Horizon Finance — their dedicated financial management platform for renewable energy. They take away the administrative and fixed-cost burden of SPVC & HoldCo management. Companies trust SkySpecs to manage their assets, report on their performance, and optimize their cash position so that they can scale with confidence. Their mission is to simplify the management of renewable energy asset management so that less can do more for the planet.

Pocketnest

Pocketnest is an award-winning fintech startup in Detroit that aims to bring financial wellness coaching to the masses, aimed at millennials and younger audiences. The software can be licensed to corporations to benefit employees and uses behavioral science to understand the reasoning behind the financial decisions people make and to help democratize financial advice for the masses. Since 2020, the company has been rapidly growing, partnering with new banks, and seeing a 375% increase in users, growing at a monthly rate of 41%. 

Plinqit

Based in Ann Arbor, Plinqit is an innovative fintech company serving banks and credit unions across the country, with the goal of helping them to easily and cost-effectively introduce new services for attracting and retaining customers. The Plinqit team believes that digital innovation and customer engagement are key to the success of banks and credit unions, and they strive to provide those financial institutions—both large and small—with simple, affordable solutions. 

Top fintech startups: Ohio fintech companies (Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati)

Lower

Top fintech company Lower, courtesy of Lower

Lower is a local fintech that helps consumers create wealth through homeownership. Based in Columbus with remote team members across the country, they’ve grown from their 2014 founding to more than 1,300 team members in just a few years. Their tech and engineering teams are poised to quickly scale in 2022 as the company looks to transform from a successful tech-enabled lender into a company focused on optimizing the customer experience through technology.

Provide 

Provide is a digital finance company built specifically for healthcare practice owners, primarily dentists and veterinarians. Its tech-enabled, streamlined financing helps aspiring practice owners start or buy a practice, and current owners expand, remodel, relocate, or refinance. It aims to help healthcare providers realize financial independence and improve the industry’s standard of care. Founded in 2013 by Dan Titcomb and James Bachmeier III, Provide is headquartered in San Francisco, with a rapidly growing office in Columbus, Ohio, and remote team members located across the country. In August of last year, the company was acquired by Fifth Third Bank and has continued to grow since the merger. Learn more about Provide, the people-first fintech company. 

T-CETRA

Top fintech company T-CETRA, courtesy of T-CETRA

T-CETRA is a leading fintech company in the Midwest that converts cash payments into secure, auditable, cashless transactions at over 10,000 retail locations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico that primarily serve cash preferred customers. Their payment solutions bridge the digital divide for these underserved communities and are used by Fortune 500 companies within the various sectors, connecting them to the 84.8 million underbanked individuals in the U.S.

River Financial

Top fintech startup River Financial, Courtesy of River Financial

Founded in 2019, River Financial is a premier Bitcoin technology and financial services company. River offers the full suite of Bitcoin brokerage, custody, and mining services in one easy-to-use mobile app and on river.com. Following a $12 million Series A round, River announced back in August 2021 that it picked Columbus for its new global operations center. The River team now works out of offices in San Francisco and Columbus, as well as remotely around the world

Fund That Flip (now Upright)

Top fintech startup Fund That Flip, courtesy of Fund That Flip

As a real estate fintech with a two-sided marketplace, Fund That Flip specializes in short-term residential loans for real estate development projects and gives investors the opportunity to invest in fractional shares of those loans to earn passive income. Fund That Flip uses technology, data, and access to capital to modernize real estate financing. The venture-backed real estate platform, with offices in New York and Cleveland, has grown by more than 50 people (to more than 200 total) since the start of the year and could double its headcount by the end of the year.

Tribevest

Tribevest is a collaborative, group investing platform that enables friends and family to organize as an investor group, pool money, and manage joint investments together. Tribes create a multi-owner vehicle for their investor group in as little as 48 hours. This includes a Multi-Member LLC, Business Banking Account, Operating Agreement, and a Collaborative Dashboard, all items necessary to spread the risk of investing as a group. Tribevest has launched over 1366 Tribes, seen $26.6M capital pooled on platform, and celebrated 1112 Tribe deals. Tribevest has secured $3.5M in total funding with a $3M seed round in January of this year. 

Splash Financial

A top fintech startup in Cleveland (and hiring remotely), Splash Financial helps students and other loan borrowers compare loan offers and refinancing options. As part of their mission to create a faster, less expensive financial world, there’s no fees, no commitments and no impact on your credit. 

Pay Theory

Pay Theory is a Cincinnati fintech company focused on how schools and other future building service providers interact with families around money. They work with SaaS vendors to help these service providers save time by integrating with their existing systems and processes. This year, Pay Theory partnered with another Cincinnati startup, Abre, to help them better achieve their shared mission of breaking down socioeconomic and technical barriers to education.

Dolr

Based in Columbus, Dolr is a fintech startup on the rise, helping people beat student debt. The platform uses contributions from anyone in “Your Village” (like Venmo) to split payments or make larger payments. It can also automate weekly habits with weekly payments and help you get cash back. The Dolr team believes that your education benefits everyone, so why should you pay for it alone?

Rhove

Rhove is a rising Columbus fintech startup democratizing commercial real estate investing. The platform helps anyone invest in properties and manage a portfolio, all in one place and while gaining insight from the investing community.

Luma

Based in Cincinnati with offices around the world, Luma’s financial technology platform helps financial advisors learn, buy, create, and track structured products and annuities. Designed by advisors, for advisors, Luma has over ten years of experience in giving advisors smart solutions. 

Payload

Payload is a fintech company that offers a set of developer toolkits used to integrate payments and automate invoicing for any business or marketplace. The tool is used by law firms, insurance brokers, gyms, real estate agencies, retailers and many more. Based in Cincinnati, Payload recently raised $1.5 million in funding. The fundraising marks the first investment round of outside money for the company.

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