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With GFF around the corner, I wanted to reflect on what we have actually learned from our fintech portfolio, especially since fintech was the very first area we focused on when we started the fund. A core part of how we work at Better has been to identify a microtrend early, build conviction in it, and then back multiple companies around that microtrend before it becomes obvious to everyone else. It has served us well over the years. The very first microtrend we started with was neobanks. In 2018/19 in India, it wasn't really a term yet. My conviction came partly from a vivid memory of a company called Simple from the late 2000s, whose vision was to build a modern digital bank for small businesses. As a small startup founder myself back then, that was something I related to deeply. By 2018/19 it felt like the ingredients were finally in place in India. A smartphone-first, data-connected, UPI-led population was ready for a genuinely modern banking experience. A number of teams started building around this time and we made several investments: a neobank for Gen Z, one for NRIs, one for SMBs, and a few more. Soon there was broader conviction in the market and many companies got funded around the same idea. The next several years were about watching them all build and navigate a hard set of constraints. The hardest one was structural. You cannot easily get a banking license in India, and that single constraint shaped everything. Without a license, delivering a true full-stack customer experience was very hard. Companies had to depend on bank partnerships, and those dependencies caused delays across product, launches and the ability to control the core experience. Compliance and infrastructure constraints added more friction. Consumer and business adoption was genuinely strong, but the path to the fuller vision kept hitting the same ceiling. Slice was the one that broke through it. By acquiring a bank and becoming a full-stack neobank, it unlocked the vision many of us had held on to for years. Today, Slice is one of the top credit card issuers in the country within about a year of going full-stack, ahead of many large banks, and posted a PAT of around ₹46 crore in Q1FY27. And Slice is not the only story here. Several others from this cohort are still very much in play, and they have delivered genuinely incredible improvements in customer experience along the way. I am excited to see how they navigate the next chapter and unlock more of the vision we all started with. This is exactly why we invest the way we do. Get the microtrend right, back multiple shots at it early, and stay long enough for the category to be redefined. Neobanks were our first real proof of that. *This is the first of a five-part series by Vaibhav Domkundwar on the microtrends that have shaped his investment journey. Neobanks were the starting point, and the experience reinforced a simple thesis: identify a shift early, back the right founders, and stay patient as a category evolves. The next three parts will explore the other microtrends and the lessons they offered.
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