Venture capital deal activity in retail Fintech reportedly pulled back in Q3 2025 but saw several positive developments, according to an update from PitchBook. The research report noted that overall funding reached $1.9 billion across 131 different deals, down a considerable 20.8% in value and 16% in volume from Q2 as investors increasingly doubled down on B2B fintech and AI.
The PitchBook report also mentioned that retail fintech is now seemingly on the cusp of its next transformation. And agentic finance is becoming more of a reality, enabled by a new wave of AI-native payment protocols, digital assistants, as well as financial intelligence tools transforming how consumers spend, save, and invest their money.
Meanwhile, emerging developments like stablecoins, tokenization, and public-to-private convergence are fueling momentum in wealthtech, positioning it as a major growth segment to watch. Exits also appear to have told a positive story, with Klarna and Figure’s IPOs extending the public market rebound from the past quarter.
The report from PitchBook also stated that with interest rates stabilizing and banking institutions seemingly back on the offensive, the IPO window and M&A pipeline appear set for increased activity.
The research report from PitchBook added that AI is now redefining consumer credit and data intelligence: Traditional machine learning drives the majority of credit decisions, but generative AI helps with further enriching data, simulate borrower behavior, “stresstest portfolios with synthetic data, and enable context-aware credit offerings.”
The report also stated that Fintechs are deploying these types of tools in order to “modernize credit infrastructure and expand access in underserved markets.”
In September of this year, India’s Oolka had acquired $7 million for its agentic AI platform that monitors credit health and autonomously negotiates loan terms. Another significant example is LemFi, which has now launched “Send Now, Pay Later” and leverages AI to extend remittance credit to immigrants lacking traditional credit histories. Spinwheel, backed by Citi Ventures, uses AI to unify “fragmented credit data across 165 million accounts into real-time borrower profiles.”
