Not Fintech Investment Advice: Symphony, Spoolis, Piston, MoneyStack cover art

Not Fintech Investment Advice: Symphony, Spoolis, Piston, MoneyStack

Not Fintech Investment Advice: Symphony, Spoolis, Piston, MoneyStack

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Summary
 Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I offer up fintech startups that caught our eye and offer absolutely no investment advice. First up is Symphony, which rewards people with travel points for setting money aside rather than spending it, with returns available in cash, points, or both. The wrinkle? Its yield comes from investments rather than FDIC-insured deposits, which sends us down a rabbit hole about where saving ends and investing begins. Next is Spoolis, an early-stage company exploring guarantees for the outcomes of work delegated to AI agents. We explore how the software-plus-insurance model from cybersecurity might translate to agentic AI, and whether insurance is even the right mechanism for every workflow. Then there’s Piston, which handles fuel payments for fleets without fuel cards. Simon sees the potential to build a payments network around geographically concentrated fleets, while I see the Ramp ethos applied to a gas pump. A surprisingly compelling real-world application of open finance. Finally, we close with MoneyStack, which brings financial counseling into behavioral health recovery, starting with gambling addiction treatment programs. We talk about the vicious cycle between debt and mental health, and how prediction markets sidestep the state taxes that fund this kind of treatment. Plus, our closing manifestation: more companies like MoneyStack in every corner of financial services, please. --- This episode is brought to you by Increase. Increase offers API-first banking for ambitious technology companies. Companies like Coast, Gusto, and Ramp rely on Increase technology to process more than $500B annualized in payments, card transactions, and loans. Learn more at https://increase.com/ --- Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: https://fintechtakes.com/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Simon: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sytaylor/ Newsletter: https://brainfood.xyz As mentioned in this episode: Fintech NerdCon: https://fintechnerdcon.com Tokenized podcast: https://www.tokenizedpod.com/ Predicted newsletter: https://predicted.co/ --- Companies featured: https://www.symphony.io/ https://spoolis.com/ https://www.piston.com/ https://www.moneystack.com/
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