Fintech is entering a new phase. Consumer-facing apps are no longer the main battleground. Instead, the real competition is happening deeper in the stack around infrastructure, platforms, and AI-enabled systems that allow financial institutions to move faster and operate more efficiently.
To explore what this shift means in practice, Vin Solo, CEO of INSART, sat down with Martin Walker, Principal at Curql, a strategic investment fund backed by credit unions and focused on fintech companies building technology for the credit union ecosystem.
Read on for practical insights you can borrow, from how fintech platforms win, to how AI is being used behind the scenes at credit unions today.
Why Credit Unions? Understanding the Market Opportunity
You focus on investing in fintech startups that enable credit unions. Why credit unions?
To answer that, we need to go back to how Curql was created. Curql started as a collaboration between credit unions that were already working together on fintech research, bulk buying, and contract negotiations. Some of them were also making small, individual investments in fintech companies, but investing wasn’t their full-time job.
They looked at what banks were doing with bank-backed venture funds and realized credit unions needed something similar. That’s how Curql was born. A group of credit unions came together, launched the first fund about four and a half years ago, invested in 29 companies, and recently closed Curql Fund II. The goal is to give credit unions a real seat at the table and help fintechs build solutions that truly work for them and their members.
From Point Solutions to Platforms
Recently, there’s been a strong shift in fintech, from consumer-facing apps to infrastructure. Faster integrations, SDK generation, launching products in weeks. Do you see the same trend?
Yes, very much so. What we’re seeing is what I’d call the platformification of fintech.
Over the last several years, there was a huge proliferation of point solutions, many of them consumer or member-facing. Each solution did one thing really well, but over time credit unions ended up managing hundreds of different technology partners. That created a lot of operational and integration complexity.
Now, especially among credit union technology leaders, there’s a strong push to simplify. Instead of working with 200, 300, or even 500 vendors, they want fewer, stronger platforms that already have a lot of infrastructure built under the hood. These platforms handle things like integrations, data orchestration, and workflow management, which means credit unions don’t have to stitch everything together themselves. With the right infrastructure in place, they can accomplish much bigger initiatives with far fewer partners.
The other big shift is speed. If a credit union has a solid platform underneath, they don’t need to wait months to roll out a new product. They can build and configure a product very quickly, sometimes in a day; then focus on marketing, go-to-market strategy, and member adoption. Instead of building an entire company or technology stack around a single product, the platform enables them to launch, test, and iterate much faster. That efficiency is becoming critical, especially as expectations from members continue to rise.
AI in Practice: Beyond the Hype
Since infrastructure is becoming the foundation for faster product launches and simpler ecosystems, another theme that seems tightly connected to this shift is AI. AI is everywhere now, but the real question is how it’s being used in practice. What AI use cases are you seeing across your portfolio today?
We’re really seeing AI show up in two main areas.
The first is on the member-facing and business-user-facing side of the platform, especially around data access and insights. Many of our portfolio companies are layering generative AI on top of their existing data platforms. Instead of requiring someone to write SQL queries or submit a request to a business intelligence team and wait days or weeks for results, users can simply ask the platform what they want to see.
For example, a credit union employee can ask for a list of members in a certain age range, in specific ZIP codes, who don’t have a mortgage with the credit union but likely have one elsewhere. The platform can generate that audience instantly. That removes friction, cuts time dramatically, and allows teams to act on insights in real time rather than waiting for another department to deliver a report.
The second major area is agentic AI focused on operational efficiency. This is especially powerful in back-office workflows. We’re seeing companies apply AI agents to areas like lending automation, compliance checks, and sanctions screening. In these cases, AI isn’t fully replacing humans. Instead, it’s handling repetitive, rules-based tasks and moving work through the workflow automatically.
How Curql Invests: Signals of a Scalable Fintech
Let’s zoom in on how fintechs can create real value for credit unions and how this translates into your investment strategy. What stage startups are you typically looking for at Curql?
Our current fund is about $360 million, and we’re targeting roughly 30 portfolio companies. That naturally puts our initial check size in the $5 to $10 million range, which means we’re usually investing at the Series A stage or later.
In terms of what we look for, there are two primary signals. The first is traction within the credit union ecosystem. We want to see that a company has started engaging with credit unions in a meaningful way: whether that’s running pilots, proofs of concept, or signing their first customers. That early validation tells us there’s a real fit and that the company understands how to sell into this market.
The second signal is overall business maturity. Typically, that means a minimum of about $1.5 to $2 million in ARR. At that stage, companies are usually looking for the kind of capital and strategic partnership we provide, and they’re ready to scale both their product and their go-to-market motion.
Founder Playbook: How to Win with Credit Unions
Early-stage founders often struggle to validate demand with credit unions. What advice would you give them?
Founders need to clearly understand how their solution solves a real credit union problem. Don’t show up to sell a product — show up to solve a problem. It’s also critical to get a few credit unions, ideally three, to run pilots with you. Case studies matter a lot. If possible, publish them and let credit unions tell their story in their own words. Credit unions trust other credit unions, and that peer validation creates momentum.
Where Innovation Is Still Needed
To wrap up, what are the biggest challenges credit unions still need innovation for?
AI-enabled fraud prevention is a major one. Deepfakes and biometric attacks are becoming real threats, and credit unions need better tools to fight them. Another big area is digital relationships. Credit unions are relationship-driven, but today those relationships start digitally. Members expect AI-powered, conversational experiences similar to what they see in other apps. Delivering that while keeping the human touch is a huge opportunity for fintech startups.
What This Means for Fintech Founders
What comes through in this conversation is that fintech is growing up. Credit unions are moving away from a patchwork of point solutions and toward scalable platforms that make operations simpler, product launches faster, and everything a lot less complicated.
AI is already embedded in production workflows. From generative BI that puts data directly into the hands of business users, to agentic AI that streamlines lending, compliance, and back-office operations, the focus is on speed, efficiency, and real-world impact.
If you take one thing away from this conversation, let it be this: as a founder, focus on solving a real problem. Understand how credit unions operate. Prove traction through pilots and case studies. And build technology that fits into a broader platform strategy rather than standing alone.
