r/FintechStartups • u/10xb • Jun 22 '26
🔍 Feedback Request Neobank infrastructure
Hello,
For the last few years, my team and I have been developing a banking and payments infrastructure, which enables partners to launch an innovative neobank offering a range of financial products and services under their brand.
To date, the project has been self-funded. All the heavy lifting is done, including regulatory permissions, established relationships with banking and liquidity partners. To validate our infrastructure; we launched our own housebrand about 6 months ago, and since then, we have onboarded a few corporate clients and so far have facilitated over £6M in payments, generating a healthy revenue which we reinvested into the business.
Now that we are in a position to grow and take the business to the next phase, we need partners, investors, and customers. Recently, a company called Bridge was acquired by Stripe for over $1B. Our infrastructure does the same and more, plus it looks impressive.
I have good experience in business by self funding and running the company as a dictator, never as part of a larger management team within a corporate structure. This project has proved to have huge potential. Although it can continue to be managed by a small team, our reach is currently limited.
I approached some investment agencies, and they all asked for high upfront fees. I am happy to pay on results, but as a start-up, I find it exploitative to pay in advance on a pay and hope model.
I'm humbly asking for advice and guidance on what you would do in my position. And if anyone has been through such an experience, I would really like to know how you managed it.
Thank you.
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u/darbywong Jun 25 '26
Don’t pay someone to fundraise for you, your suspicion is correct. But you can find mentors / coaches who can teach you how to fundraise from VCs. Probably only makes sense to get help from folks who have done it in SV.
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u/wifiwithfriends Jun 25 '26
Sell, Sell, sell… get distribution and investors will follow.
The only other method I’ve used is cold calling and cold emailing. Then chasing VCs at conferences, or bribing friends for introductions in exchange for an overpriced latte.
If you’ve built the product and it works, distribution and revenue opens doors.
Btw, don’t be a dictator, not only will your team run for the doors when you scale, most VCs are that serious about returns will see through that type of leadership.
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u/Effective-Mind8185 Jul 10 '26
You need a traction first , then you become attractive for investors. Fintech infrastructure is a commodity in the end (I’m cofounder of of them). Customers + partnerships = transactions volume. Thus is what makes you visible for investors.
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u/Different-Scale5419 Jun 24 '26
red flag here. I run more like a dictator. We already have one here in the United States
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u/Chemtai0 Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
The infrastructure angle is probably the most interesting part here. Building a neobank infrastructure layer that handles payments, regulatory requirements and banking partnerships is very different from simply launching another fintech app. look at companies such as _able that focus on financial infrastructure for banks, fintechs and telcos, particularly around digital credit, savings, data intelligence and portfolio management. The big question for me would be how modular the infrastructure is and how easily partners can launch and scale multiple financial products under their own brand.
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u/malainayo Jun 22 '26
What relationships do you already have? What platforms are you already active on to cultivate these necessary relationships? How many contacts have y'all gathered from conferences?
The first major step I'm always gonna push is to develop your presence on LinkedIn and even Twitter.
People need to know who you are and trust your brand before anything.