Money20/20, the world’s leading fintech show and the place where money does business, today unveiled the startups selected for its 2026 Start-Up Media Session, held live at the event in Amsterdam. This year’s cohort represents breakthrough innovation across AI-native finance, fraud prevention, digital assets, trust infrastructure, and modular banking technology.
The selected companies – Aviel Intelligence, Fraudio, Vouchsafe, Softbees, SAPI, and Serene – were showcased as part of Money20/20 Europe’s broader Startup Hub, the premier platform for early- and growth-stage fintechs to gain visibility, forge critical connections, and accelerate their path to scale.
Money20/20 Europe brings the entire fintech universe together: banks, VCs, regulators, infrastructure companies, payment providers, government representatives, and accelerators, creating an efficiency multiplier for startups by compressing months of outreach into days of high-value meetings with decision-makers.
At the heart of this ecosystem, the Money20/20 Europe Startup Hub serves as the premier launchpad for early- and growth-stage fintechs, giving founders unparalleled access to investors, partners, customers, and global media while accelerating visibility and deal-making. The Hub also hosts the industry-leading Start-Up Pitch Competition, where emerging companies compete for recognition on one of fintech’s most influential stages. Together, these platforms empower startups to rapidly build connections, unlock opportunities, and scale within the world’s most concentrated gathering of fintech leaders. This year’s winner, Aviel Intelligence, provides solutions to detect scam-related bank accounts and outgoing payments.
“Startups are the heartbeat of fintech innovation, and this year’s group demonstrates just how fast the industry is evolving. The Startup Hub is designed to compress months of conversations into days of meaningful progress, and the momentum we’re seeing from these founders is extraordinary. Their breakthroughs in AI, trust, digital assets, and payments signal where the industry is heading and Money20/20 Europe is where that future begins.” Bryony Naylor, VP of Europe, Money20/20
The 2026 line-up showcases founders and companies shaping the next decade of financial services:
Startup Pitch Winner – Aviel Intelligence
AVIEL Intelligence is a UK-based anti-scam intelligence company that identifies and engages with active scammers at scale. Since 2024, AVIEL has been extracting thousands of live ‘mule’ accounts and supplying them to the UK financial sector in real-time. This live feed of intelligence is used by major banks and PSPs to both minimise mule risk and protect customers from sending money to scammers.
Peter Griffin, Co-founder, Aviel Intelligence, said, “We are thrilled to win Money 20/20’s Start-Up Pitch competition against such a phenomenal group of finalists. The problem of financial scams is escalating rapidly with the rise of AI; over £450 million is stolen annually in the UK alone and it sits at over $10 billion internationally. This is where AVIEL ‘enters the chat’. We find scammers and engage with them using synthetic AI personas; what we call the ‘honeybots’. Scammers are chatting to our honeybots right now – thinking they are real victims. Through these chats we capture hundreds of bank ‘mule’ accounts everyday and supply them to bank and PSP partners to take action. It’s precision intelligence, that stops scams and protects victims. Winning this award is such an honour. It’s a recognition that sets the stage perfectly as we look to execute our seed round this year and roll out our ‘honeybots’ to stop even more scams around the world.”
Fraudio provides AI-powered fraud detection and risk intelligence for the entire payments ecosystem, helping PSPs, acquirers, and issuers identify and prevent fraud across every stage of the transaction lifecycle. Its cloud-native platform leverages network-wide intelligence to deliver real-time insights, reduce losses, and strengthen compliance. Built by payments and machine-learning experts, Fraudio enables financial institutions to stay ahead of evolving threats with scalable, enterprise-grade protection.
“It’s been incredible to be here at Money20/20 Amsterdam showcasing our technology alongside Europe’s top innovators. The global risk landscape is compounding rapidly, and our scale reflects that—we grew 4x last year and have already doubled our footprint this year to protect over 2 million merchants globally. Over 90% of modern fraud isn’t localized revenue fraud; it’s orchestrated by large-scale criminal organizations exploiting vulnerabilities on the acquiring and issuing sides of the rails. As AI makes it cheaper and easier for criminals to fabricate fraud, our platform helps financial institutions control risk without suffocating growth. Having payment veteran Robert Kraal of Adyen, currently with Silverflow join our board signals exactly who we are targeting, and the incredible platform Money20/20 has given our startup accelerates our ambition to make real-time risk control universally accessible straight through existing payment rails.” João Moura, Founder & CEO at Fraudio
Vouchsafe is AI-era anti-fraud infrastructure that makes it safer and easier for businesses to trust their customers, and vice versa. Its platform combines security and compliance, with accessible design and inclusive fallbacks for users without standard evidence. It provides user-friendly verification flows that meet the strictest global standards. Built by experts in emerging fraud and financial inclusion, Vouchsafe enables AI-native businesses to scale confidently with smarter, more equitable identity and risk decisions.
“We’re thrilled to be selected for the Start‑Up Media Session at Money20/20 Europe. The rising tide of AI-powered fraud means that re-establishing the broken trust between regulated businesses and their customers is priority one. We are doing that by finding the people in the tech, and proving that compliance and inclusive design can work together. Trust and safety are becoming defining challenges for every digital business, and Vouchsafe is proving that strong compliance and inclusive design can go hand in hand. As more of the world gets locked behind strong identity verification, and as a single check at onboarding is no longer sufficient, it’s more important than ever that the processes work for everyone, not just a privileged few.” – Chloe Coleman, CEO at Vouchsafe
SoftBees is a Ukrainian-Polish fintech company helping banks and financial institutions launch digital banking products across different markets with a significantly shorter time-to-market. Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all platform, SoftBees combines reusable fintech modules with deep banking expertise. Its modular architecture covers digital onboarding, payments, cards, compliance, customer experience, middleware, and back-office operations, enabling financial institutions to build market-specific solutions faster and more efficiently. Over the past four years, SoftBees has launched seven fintech projects across Europe, Africa, and Ukraine. The company specializes in helping financial institutions accelerate digital product delivery without building everything from scratch. Today, SoftBees is transforming into an AI-native company, combining reusable fintech technology with AI-powered expertise to accelerate localization, delivery, and innovation in digital banking.
“It is an honour for SoftBees to join the Start-Up Media Session at Money20/20 Europe. After launching fintech projects across Europe, Africa, and Ukraine, we have learned that there is no universal digital bank. Every market has its own regulations, infrastructure, and customer expectations. That is why we combine reusable fintech modules with deep banking expertise to help financial institutions launch digital products faster while adapting them to local market requirements. Today, we are taking the next step by transforming SoftBees into an AI-native company. We believe AI can help scale fintech expertise in the same way technology helped scale software. Technology matters. AI matters. But in the end, people choose people, and investors invest in people,” said Tetiana Dashevska, CEO & Co-Founder, SoftBees.
SAPI provides payment-linked financing for small businesses, working in partnership with payment companies to provide working capital directly via their existing payment relationships. Repayments flow automatically as a percentage of revenue, so capital access moves in step with how a business is actually performing. SAPI handles the end-to-end process, from origination, underwriting, servicing, and collections – so its partners can offer capital products without building lending operations of their own. Underpinned by AI-assisted origination and disciplined institutional underwriting, SAPI has advanced millions to small businesses since its founding, with 90% supporting immigrant and woman-owned businesses. Its mission is to expand fair access to capital for the businesses that mainstream finance most often overlooks.
“Being selected for the Start-Up Media Session at Money20/20 Europe is a real marker that what we are building at SAPI matters beyond our corner of the market. Ninety per cent of the capital we have deployed has gone to immigrant and woman-owned businesses, because our payment-linked model works for business owners that are genuinely creditworthy and consistently underserved. We are now building toward end-to-end AI-native lending to make that access faster and broader, and this recognition is a reminder of why we started and how large the opportunity still is.” – Mai Le, Co-Founder & CEO, SAPI
Serene is a behavioural intelligence platform that helps financial institutions identify customers at risk of financial distress, vulnerability, fraud and poor outcomes earlier than traditional approaches. By analysing patterns and changes in transactional behaviour, Serene uncovers emerging risk signals that are often invisible to conventional models, enabling firms to intervene proactively rather than reactively. Working with organisations including NatWest and Mastercard, Serene helps banks, lenders, and insurers improve customer outcomes, strengthen risk management, reduce losses and meet evolving regulatory expectations through explainable, data-driven behavioural insights.
“The biggest risks in financial services don’t start with a missed payment or a fraudulent transaction, they start much earlier in customer behaviour. We’re proud to be recognised by Money20/20 as one of Europe’s most promising startups as we help institutions move from reactive risk management to proactive prevention.” – Savannah Price, Founder & CEO, Serene
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