Today’s most exciting fintech companies are building for a financial system that does not yet exist. At the same time, AI is redefining what companies can create and how fast they can scale. Stablecoins have long since become mainstream, and agents are increasingly adept at automating complex financial tasks.

For Samantha Wulfson, principal at FinTech Collective, working in this rapidly changing landscape means looking ahead. The challenge is developing a viewpoint on how financial services will change throughout the next decade and beyond and finding founders who can build for that future.

About FinTech Collective

FinTech Collective is a global venture capital firm that backs entrepreneurs changing how money moves worldwide. Founded in 2012, it has offices in New York City and London and invests in areas including capital markets, wealth and asset management, banking, payments, insurance, cyber, and DeFi. The co-managing partnersmet in their mid-20s and have helped launch, grow, and exit four companies.

About Samantha Wulfson

Samantha Wulfson is a principal at FinTech Collective’s London office, where she leads the firm’s European investments. She entered venture capital through international relations, after studying Science, Technology, and International Affairs at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Previously, she worked on Wall Street and on the founding team of a payments startup in East Africa.

From international relations to FinTech

Samantha didn’t start life with a focus on finance. She studied Science, Technology, and International Affairs at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. While many classmates joined the World Bank, IMF, or Foreign Service, she wanted to combine her interests in a different dynamic setting. After graduating, she worked as an operator and a banker before entering venture capital, where she has spent the past six years.

Samantha sees her background in international relations as a strength, since finding founders who can change how the world works requires a perspective on what will shape it. Geopolitics, AI, and regulatory regimes all influence which technologies emerge and how quickly they are adopted.

This approach matters now more than ever, as issues like European sovereignty, AI infrastructure, and technological independence are becoming increasingly important.

“The greater your understanding of historical precedents combined with existing geopolitical dynamics, the better prepared we can be to actually intercept the future.”

How AI is redefining fintech

For Samantha, AI isn’t just another area fintech investors are evaluating; it’s a force changing the boundaries of the entire sector.

She is seeing interesting opportunities in companies built with AI at their core, especially those targeting financial data and infrastructure, often pushing the boundaries of a traditional fintech definition.

Financial services also abound with legacy workflows where AI can make a real impact.

Tasks like reconciliation, claims processing, KYC and AML checks, dispute management, servicing, and compliance monitoring still rely heavily on documents and manual work. Agents are already working toward handling these processes end to end and delivering measurable results.

This shift is dramatically changing what startups are expected to do.

AI-native companies need fewer people and less capital, especially at the application level. Samantha sees this as positive, but it also raises the bar. Founders must now show more productivity, faster time to revenue, and strong unit economics to underpin it. The faster technology develops, the more important the fundamental principles remain.

“These document-heavy, labor-intensive, margin-dilutive workflows are exactly where agents can close the loop and show ROI in months rather than years.”

Selling the work, not the tool

Samantha is closely watching the rise of AI for traditionally labor-intensive services.

Instead of offering just another tool, these companies sell the results, essentially replacing both the software and human operator. As models improve, the complexity of outsourced tasks will rise, and the financial services industry will be drastically affected. This evolution could fundamentally shift where value sits in the financial services stack.

Pricing is already shifting from traditional SaaS models to outcomes-based pricing tied to real work delivered. At the same time, established financial institutions are increasingly becoming customers of new tech companies, not just their competitors.

For founders, this could change both the size of the market opportunity and eventual exit paths

“The next generation of companies will be AI-native services, since selling the work rather than the tool means model improvements strengthen the business rather than threatening it.”

Stablecoins as financial infrastructure

Stablecoins are one of the best examples of how quickly a fintech category can evolve.

What began as a subset of the crypto universe has become a major focus for banks, payments companies, and regulators. The benefits of stablecoins are already widely acknowledged: they offer greater transparency, enable instant settlement, and require fewer intermediaries.

Regulatory changes worldwide are now helping stablecoins move into mainstream finance. Buy-in from established financial institutions adds even more validation.

Samantha continues to believe in the innovation potential surrounding cross-border payments. Even after decades of fintech investment, moving money across borders is still costly and inefficient. Programmable money and stablecoins offer a more promising future.

What matters more is what this shift means. Technologies that were once on the edge of financial services are now quickly becoming essential infrastructure.

For investors, the key is spotting that shift early.

“In general, cross-border flows are a problem that we have not yet managed to solve.”

Backing founders who can see around corners

Even as technology changes quickly, Samantha still sees the founding team as the main factor that sets companies apart in early-stage investments.

She compares starting a company today to an extreme sport. To handle the challenges of building from scratch, entrepreneurs need resilience, agility, and strong motivation. 

The most skilled founders Samantha meets share another trait: they clearly understand the world’s problems and have a clear vision of how their company can solve them. However, they’re not tied to one particular way of doing things; they are coachable and open to feedback.

Another key quality is attracting and keeping top talent. While AI agents will join the workforce, Samantha believes people making decisions will still determine a company’s success or failure.

“They all have a very clear, precise vision of something that is wrong with the world and exactly how their company will build to change that.”

Investing in categories before they become obvious

Samantha acknowledges that many of FinTech Collective’s best investments have come from looking several years ahead.

In 2014, the fund invested in the financial data company Quovo before it was acquired by Plaid; it also supported the digital asset infrastructure company NYDIGbefore the sector reached its current scale, as well as the retirement platform Vestwell.

Looking back, some of those opportunities seem obvious now, but they weren’t at the time.

What excites Samantha about venture investing is setting aside what you know now and forming a strong belief about what will be needed in the future.

AI makes this harder, but the impact could ultimately be more rewarding. Companies that will define future categories might be building for customer groups, workflows, or markets that barely exist today.

“The best success stories are often born from building for a customer segment that does not yet exist.”

Quick-fire round

A tool you can’t live without?

“Ideally nothing. Realistically, WhatsApp.” 

How do you recharge?

“Playing tennis or going for a run.”

Founder or start-up that you admire:

“Nik Storonsky at Revolut.”

Advice that stuck:

“Leave people better than you found them.”

Investing in a future that has yet to be built

The next wave of financial services companies won’t look like the fintech firms exist today.

AI is blurring traditional lines between industries. Agents are now doing the work, not just supporting it. Stablecoins are already mainstream financial infrastructure, and financial institutions that once built their own tech are often buyers rather than competitors. 

For Samantha, investing in this new landscape means looking beyond current categories and thinking about what the financial system will need in coming years. This takes both conviction and imagination.

Visit the FinTech Collective website to learn more about their work, and contact Samantha on LinkedIn if you know of a fintech start-up she should know about.