Fintech and blockchain technology has seen its fair share of boom and bust cycles in the past decade, from the cryptocurrency explosion during the COVID pandemic to the AI era launched by ChatGPT. But the tech has continued to evolve in step with it all, and the work being done in this space is exciting—from companies that are challenging social norms to those that are betting on futuristic visions.
Mesh
For connecting crypto’s fragmented payment ecosystem
Even as cryptocurrency matures, a pain point for consumers remains: The system is fragmented by design. Hundreds of different blockchains, digital wallets, exchanges, and payment platforms exist as islands on their own. That may be frustrating for the more than 900 million global crypto users—who made over $27 trillion in transactions with stablecoins alone this year—as moving money around often requires custom engineering. Mesh bridges the islands. It built a layer of infrastructure that links wallets, exchanges, and platforms at a single point, turning a cacophony into a harmonious orchestration—a shopper in Lagos could pay in Bitcoin, Solana, or any other token owned, and a merchant in Manila could instantly settle in USDC, dollars, euros, yen, or any currency preferred. With Mesh, those conversions are automatic rather than manual. The company stands as a neutral party—it does not mint tokens, run a trading desk, or hold custody itself—and bills itself as future-proof for the age of AI agents, even giving a live demo of an AI-driven e-commerce transaction at Singapore’s TOKEN2049. In January, Mesh raised $75 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation. It powers crypto payments for PayPal and Kalshi, and partnered with Google for the emerging autonomous payments economy.
Seon
For making fraud intelligence portable across AI models
AI might enable more fraud, but Seon is enabling more fraud protection across AI bots. In June, the company released a fraud detection and anti-money-laundering tool that can be freely layered onto any existing AI model—from Anthropic’s Claude to OpenAI’s ChatGPT to Google’s Gemini. That’s in stark contrast to other fraud tools on the market, which lock customers into proprietary experiences that don’t talk to each other. According to Seon, companies often stack those disconnected tools—one for identity checks, one for activity monitoring, et cetera. But Seon’s “portable intelligence layer,” or “Model Context Protocol,” sends its 900 real-time signals to any AI, allowing it to seamlessly reference them across the full user journey. And that makes fraud detection more effective—for example, it could catch criminal rings by flagging clusters of activity that only seem suspicious when put together versus being viewed in isolation. Seon processes 15 million transactions daily and is used by more than 5,000 businesses globally across fintech, retail, and gaming, including Afterpay, Bally’s, and Tecovas. It helped a top fast-casual restaurant chain across North America, Europe, and the Middle East cut fraud by 40%. In 2025, it grew its annual recurring revenue by 80%, from new customers and deeper adoption.
Wealth.com
For bringing estate planning into the digital age
Nearly 3 in 4 Americans regard estate planning as important—yet simultaneously, nearly 3 in 4 Americans lack even a basic estate plan, according to Caring.com. That’s begotten unfortunate consequences: More than half (58%) of families have squabbled over inheritances after a death in the absence of a proper estate plan—which has, counterproductively, locked up that wealth for months if not years, InvestmentNews reports. Why don’t Americans plan for post-mortem? Studies suggest it’s a combination of confusion about the process, concerns that it will be too costly, and the belief that they don’t have enough net worth to justify an estate plan. But with new AI technology that cuts expensive attorneys and lengthy paperwork out of the equation, Wealth.com is hoping to de-frictionize the process. Its engineering teams leveraged artificial intelligence to translate thousands of pages of state-specific legislation and factor in decades of estate-planning logic, creating a platform that can walk clients in all 50 states (plus Washington, D.C.) through the whole journey, end to end. It claims that what once took months can now be done in 30 minutes. Since its founding in 2021, Wealth.com has delivered 100,000-plus estate plans and is used by 5 out of 7 of the nation’s largest private banks, representing more than $15 trillion in client assets. Following four consecutive years of over 300% revenue growth, in 2026, the company raised $65 million from Google Ventures, Charles Schwab, Citi Ventures, and other investors.
The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2026. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process.
