The Great Fintech Reset: How leading players are reimagining their core identity and making big changes

This special report reveals how Brex, Ramp, and Plaid are executing parallel transformations that signal a new industry-wide shift away from hypergrowth toward precision, intentionality, and deeper value creation.

In early 2024, a pattern began emerging across the fintech landscape that few industry observers connected at first. Three of the sector’s most prominent players — Brex, Ramp, and Plaid — each initiated fundamental transformations that went beyond typical product updates or market expansions.

These weren’t isolated pivots but rather signals of a deeper industry-wide shift: successful fintechs were systematically dismantling the “growth at all costs” paradigm that had defined their early years. In its place, they’re constructing more intentional, focused organizations capable of sustainable growth and deeper value creation.

This pattern of reinvention across companies in different segments of the market reveals the emergence of “Fintech 2.0” — a maturation phase where underlying fundamentals matter more than growth metrics, customer experience outranks feature proliferation, and strategic focus trumps channel omnipresence.

The end of “Grow at all costs”: Brex’s 3.0 moment

Why would a company that became the poster child for hyper-growth — hitting $100 million ARR in 18 months after launching in 2018 — decide it was time to rethink its entire approach?

“Being in a period of hyper-growth and rapid success can mask areas needing improvement,” says Brex’s President and CFO, Benjamin Gammell. “Unlike financial struggles or slow growth, where longevity is the goal, hyper-growth requires striking a balance between scaling and execution.”

By late 2023, the warning signs were becoming impossible to ignore:

• Revenue plateaued at approximately $279 million in Q4 2023
• A significant cash burn averaging about $17 million monthly
• Internal inefficiencies hidden beneath rapid expansion
• Challenges serving enterprise companies with complex needs

Brex 3.0 emerged as the response, built on three core pillars:

1. Flattening the organization: Brex removed two management layers to ensure leaders remained hands-on builders who “operate at all levels.”

“Brex’s new operating model, Brex 3.0, is a complete reinvention of how we work,” says Gammell. The company promoted internally across key departments to reconnect leaders with their craft.

2. Creating ONE clear roadmap: The company established a new, single roadmap strategy to prioritize the most impactful initiatives within its core corporate credit card business.

3. Building less to build better: Since January 2024, the company has prioritized depth over breadth, rolling out three major releases, launching four new products, and establishing key partnerships.

“Because we now build fewer things per release, we can afford to spend more time designing each product surface, which is the only way to build high-quality software,” says Gammell.

– What’s notable is what Brex didn’t change: “The Brex 3.0 vision was less about technological upgrades and more about refocusing the approach to leadership, product, and go-to-market strategies,” Gammell explains.

Over a year into the transformation, the results are improving:

• Revenue growth nearly tripled year over year
• Net revenue retention up 15+ points
• Cash burn reduced by 82%, extending the company’s runway to 10 years

“Moving forward, we’re treating growth like a marathon, not a sprint, shifting our focus to how we serve customers, starting from within,” Gammell notes. “This transformation has positioned us as the only player that can credibly serve companies from every stage, from founders starting out to the trillion-dollar companies.”

AI as the new financial operating system: Ramp’s strategic automation

While Brex was reorganizing, Ramp was fundamentally rethinking how AI could transform financial workflows. In a revealing conversation, Ramp’s Chief Product Officer Geoff Charles laid out a vision that goes far beyond smarter corporate cards.

“The job to be done here is how you allocate capital within the company in the most effective way,” explains Charles. Effectiveness means “taking the least amount of time” while maximizing ROI on every dollar spent.

Ramp’s AI strategy offers several crucial blueprints for financial services professionals:

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