Financial institutions have spent years talking about digital transformation. Yet many still rely on fragmented systems that make product launches slow, integrations expensive, and operational upgrades risky. That gap is becoming harder to ignore as AI adoption accelerates across financial services.
Stitch, a company building cloud-native infrastructure for financial institutions, announced a $25 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The investment is notable not only because of the size of the round, but because it represents Andreessen Horowitz’s first investment in the GCC region.
The round also included participation from existing investors Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, Raed Ventures, and SVC, bringing Stitch’s total funding to $35 million.
A modern operating system for financial institutions
Stitch positions itself as an operating system for modern financial institutions. Instead of forcing banks and fintechs into costly “rip and replace” migrations, the company offers a modular infrastructure stack covering lending, cards, payments, and ledgers. Institutions can adopt components gradually while continuing to operate existing systems.
That approach matters. Many financial institutions operate across disconnected platforms built over decades. Adding new products often requires complex middleware layers, manual reconciliation processes, and long implementation cycles.
Stitch is targeting that operational complexity directly by becoming the system of record underneath financial products and workflows. The company was founded by operators with experience at organizations including NPCI, FIS, Barclays, Santander, and Azentio. That operational background is visible in the positioning: infrastructure first, AI second.
AI adoption depends on clean infrastructure
One of the more important themes in Stitch’s announcement is the connection between infrastructure modernization and AI readiness.
The AI conversation in fintech often focuses on interfaces, copilots, or automation layers. But financial institutions still struggle with fragmented data environments and legacy cores that were never designed for real-time intelligence.
AI systems are only as useful as the infrastructure feeding them. Without centralized, reliable systems of record, financial institutions face limitations around data quality, compliance visibility, and operational consistency. That creates a ceiling for meaningful AI deployment.
Stitch is betting that infrastructure modernization will become a prerequisite for the next phase of financial services transformation.
Growth signals across emerging markets
The company says more than $5 billion has been transacted on the platform in the last six months alone. Stitch also reported 10x customer growth and 20x revenue growth in 2025.
Its footprint already spans the GCC, Africa, including Egypt and Kenya, and Southeast Asia. Customers include Raya Financing, LuLu Exchange, Noqodi, and Foodics.
The new capital will be used to accelerate product development, deepen regional expansion across GCC and MENA markets, and scale global go-to-market operations.
For investors, the opportunity appears tied to a broader trend: financial institutions globally are searching for infrastructure that can support faster product development, regulatory resilience, and AI adoption simultaneously.
Before wrapping up, here are a few key takeaways fintech startups should pay attention to:
Key takeaways for fintech startups
- AI adoption in financial services increasingly depends on infrastructure quality, not just AI tooling.
- Modular modernization approaches are gaining traction over full core replacement strategies.
- Infrastructure startups solving operational pain points continue to attract significant investor attention.
- Emerging markets are producing globally relevant fintech infrastructure companies.
- Systems of record remain one of the most strategic layers in financial services technology.
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