A look ahead at 2026 and what's on the horizon for IPOs and M&A activity within the Fintech sector was one of the major themes at the Benzinga Fintech Day & Awards 2025.
A panel of experts shared their thoughts on what past trends show and what's ahead for the upcoming year.
Themes Playing Out
The growth of cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFi) is one of the key themes the fintech sector is seeing.
"One of the big themes is convergence of DeFi and TradFi. That is really playing out," FT Partners Managing Director Roshan Punjabi told the audience.
Punjabi said recent M&A in the space is showing the connection between the two.
"There's a regulatory environment that is clearly favorable for them right now. The Trump administration has definitely made that a big part of their story here as well."
Merchant Seven Managing Partner Pierce Crosby said there are companies looking for homes instead of going the IPO route. He used the example of crypto startup Zerohash being bought by Mastercard (NYSE:MA).
"A lot of businesses are available for sure, and I think a lot of investors, especially in the VC world, are getting a little like antsy, if you will, about liquidity," Crosby said.
Crosby said the sector could face greater risk as more deals are made.
"You have to buy, you have to buy in order to get ahead of whatever trend that is occurring in the market, because most teams, if not 99% of teams, do not have the capability to see what's going to happen and then be able to build ahead of the trend."
Not focusing on an IPO could be a solution for companies when building out their roadmaps, Tickblaze CEO Sean Kozak said.
"Less than 8 to 10% of all companies go public," Kozak said. "So that build out is very, very different depending on the roadmap of the company."
Kozak said his preference for "a bootstrapped organization" is to focus on acquiring instead of just building.
"We were very aggressive with our roadmap and that means going out and raising capital because it really is about speed of execution and being able to deliver on revenue."
AI in Fintech
The rise of artificial intelligence has helped create new use cases for consumers and businesses.
Punjabi argued that AI should be able to help with issues such as how much paper and manual checking are still used in financial services.
"AI should solve or help solve a lot of those aspects and speed up," Punjabi said.
Punjabi said AI may not solve all our problems, but it should be able to help with automation.
While AI has only recently surged in popularity across the business world, Crosby said the finance industry has used it "way before it became a consumer trend."
"I don't think that AI is going to be the silver bullet in 2026, I think it will definitely change multiples," Crosby said.
Kozak said AI is changing so rapidly that companies need to be careful how they strategize integrating AI into forecasts, while at the same time paying attention to the emerging trend.
"I think any businesses that's trying to grow, if they don't incorporate AI, I mean, they're really not listening to what the industry in the world is saying," Kozak said.
Kozak said AI is an "add-on" that can help scale infrastructure, but "it's not the replacement to a good business."
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