Context:

Last week, Techcrunch featured an article on five of the most important fintech VCs investing heavily in the sector written by the very excellent Mary Ann Azevedo. But while I have a lot of respect for Azevedo’s writing and for featuring fintech funds that are focusing on our ecosystem, this article didn’t really do the fintech VC network justice.

What’s on the TechCrunch Top 5 fintech VC list today:

• I agree that Better Tomorrow Ventures and QED Investors should be on this list as two established players that have pushed hard for the industry and have a lot of capital to invest

• I like to see Infinity Ventures on here as a newer entrant even though I don't know too much about them because at least they have a sizable fund and some recent investments to their name

• While I respect the hell out of Nik Milanović and what he's done with This Week in Fintech, The Fintech Fund 🚀 is a $10M fund. By definition, it can't be "investing heavily" in the space so it feels misplaced if this is a top five list.

• I'm sure TTV Capital is great and all, but why are they among the top five? Besides one single investment in 2024, the last one they can speak to is Charlie in 2023? Notable investment is Green Dot?

What I thought the true top 10 fintech VC list should look like

I had my own ideas of what this fintech list should look like, so I initially built my own version of a top 10 list for fintech VCs and here were the ones I thought should be added:

• Fin Capital: I mean their motto is "fintech nerds with capital" - how are they not in this list?

• Left Lane Capital: Broader focus but fintech is still core and tons of names to mention

• Matrix Venture Capital Inc: Matt Brown has contributed more in his 1000 word fintech primers than many VC funds through money

• Pathlight Ventures: Technically newly launched in 2023 but already 29 investments to their name and led by an all-star team with Mahdi Raza and Charley Ma

• Portage : Can't forget about the global fintech VCs like them especially given AUM- Primary Venture Partners: Diversified seed investment mandate but Emily Man leading the effort in fintech

• Ribbit Capital: The list can't exist without them. They are large and in charge

Separately, there was a whole host of fintech VCs that I thought served an important function around fintech community building. In that list, I named Nik Milanović, Cristina Ciaravalli from Valli Ventures, Rex Salisbury, Primary Venture Partners, Jacob Schulman and Fiat Ventures among others.

I posted this perspective and my revised top 10 to Linkedin and was blown away by the engagement on the post (VCs protecting their reputation, go figure). But the back-and-forth sparked a new and better idea for keeping track of fintech VCs.

Introducing: Interspace Index - Fintech VCs

Starting today, I’m sharing a publicly available index of the top Fintech VCs known for investing in fintech generally, global fintech investing and community building. The list was aggregated and consolidated from a number of other lists, founder experiences, my background and vetted submissions. I use AI to help fill in the data fields and audit periodically to ensure accuracy.

Link: Interspace Index - Fintech VCs

The Index focuses on these fields:

• Location

• Known For

• AUM

• Recent Fund Size

• Recent Investment

• Notable Investments

The criteria for being on this list are simple:

1. The VC firm needs to focus entirely or primarily on fintech; while multi-discipline VCs are allowable, fintech needs to be a top investment vertical

2. The VC firm needs to have made at least one investment in the prior year to be included

3. If the VC firm is known for community building, it must be nominated by a founder / operator in that community, rather than by the firm itself

I will commit to updating this periodically and commenting on new additions in future posts. If there are funds here that you think are missing, respond to this post or feel free to message me directly at @heyinterspace on Twitter.

Hopefully this serves as a resource for builders in the fintech ecosystem. Onward!