Last week, RevTech Labs hosted its Fintech + Insurtech Generations (FIG) conference as the official “anchor event” of Charlotte Fintech Week.
With a 2026 slogan of “From “Hype” to Reality,” the event brought together thought leaders and industry success stories hailing from Charlotte, Northern Ireland, and in between to speak to the current realities (opportunities and complications alike) in modern fintech and Insurtech innovation. The conference also featured pitches from the RevTech Labs Accelerator’s “Class 24” cohort.
Here’s a look back at what Team GrepBeat experienced throughout the day.
PitchBreakfast
The day began with a sort of sister program. As those familiar with the Charlotte ecosystem are well aware, PitchBreakfast is its own recurring event, spearheaded by Executive Director Juan Garzón, at which local founders pitch their startups to a friendly room and receive feedback from investor panels.
Amid Charlotte Fintech Week, the June installment of PitchBreakfast essentially functioned as a pre-FIG program, with RevTech Managing Director Dan Roselli joining Garzón in opening remarks. They ceded the stage to a three-person panel (Chris Halligan of Good Human Partners and Lucid Bots; Kevin Mosley of Jurassic Capital; and Leslie Vander Baan of Multiplyher) with the following three startups presenting:
FFERM Technologies (Charlotte)
Presented by Founder and CEO Dr. Jeffrey Edwards, FFERM assists financial institutions with an AI-powered risk management platform revolving around four factors: the traditional Likelihood and Severity, alongside Compounding and Predictability.
Block Convey (New York)
Presented by Founder and CEO Arun Prasad, Block Convey helps banks and financial entities evaluate the AI models they’re implementing for things like fairness explainability, and drift, so that increasingly necessary (and required) risk assessment can be conducted.
Sail (remote)
Presented by Founder and CEO Danny Friday, Sail is solving for the estimated $91 billion in HSA and FSA funds going unused. Their platform aims to make these funds more visible, accessible, and versatile to use.
Following these presentations, much of the PitchBreakfast crowd crossed the street from the UNC-Charlotte CO-LAB to the Dubois Center, where the FIG conference programming would take place throughout the rest of the day.
FIG was effectively split into three parts: the NextGen Startup Expo, where a handful of company teams were on hand to interact with attendees; speaker sessions, split into keynotes and “innovation talks” featuring a range of leaders in the fintech and insurtech space; and a two-part showcase for the RevTech Labs “Class 24” showcase.
NextGen Startup Expo
The NextGen Startup Expo was spread across a few floors of the Dubois Center, with participating startups’ founders and teams intermittently occupying tables to speak with attendees. The expo was comprised of the following companies (most of which hailed from outside of North Carolina):
- Warrant, which provides the “AI agent for marketing compliance” (ok this first one definitely hails from NC; see GrepBeat’s write-up here).
- GSI Tech, a semiconductor player pioneering an “unrivaled combination” of SRAM technology and AI solutions.
- Merble, which uses AI to help banks uncover untapped lending opportunities.
- Voyager AI, Inc., which provides precision AI solutions assisting financial institutions.
- Paydesk AI, a company aiming to “revolutionize” the accounts payable process for accountants and treasurers.
- ezpymt, which provides “payment decision infrastructure” for modern businesses.
- Hydronos Labs, a company helping organizations conduct thorough risk management specifically regarding climate factors.
Speaker Sessions & Panels
Opening Keynote + Panel: Eric Fender (Truist), in conversation with Ervin Brabham (AWS financial services); moderated by Sara Garces Roselli (RevTech Labs)
This was a two-part opening session consisting of a keynote address from Eric Fender, an Enterprise Transformation Executive at Truist, followed by a conversation between Fender and Ervin Brabham, a banking industry specialist currently working for AWS financial services.
Fender’s opening remarks concerned his own journey through decades in fintech, with an emphasis on how institutions can evolve using new technologies. This led naturally into the discussion with Brabham, which revolved around “innovation through partnership” and specifically how financial institutions can work alongside technology providers to meet modern demands.
Key Insights:
- “Use AI to deal with the volume, use humans to deal with risk.” (Brabham)
- “Don’t think that you have to own the whole process from front to back; understand that if you get really good at [one aspect of the work] that you can gain a lot of revenue by doing that.” (Fender, addressing fintech innovators)
Innovation Talk: From Belfast to Global Markets: Fintech Innovation That Delivers, featuring Jonny Kelly (The Foundation), Susan White (Huron), Cormac Quinn (loyalBe), Barry McAleer (First Derivative), Tom Carroll (Datactics); moderated by Karen Bradbury (Invest Northern Ireland)
“And now the delegation from Northern Ireland” sounds more like an announcement related to the ongoing World Cup than something one would hear at a North Carolina tech conference (okay, Northern Ireland isn’t in the Cup, but you get the gist). Nevertheless, there was in fact a delegation from Northern Ireland present!
Specifically, this was a panel of fintech operators and innovators on hand to deliver an international perspective. Collectively, they discussed a range of large-scale innovations, discussed implementing those solutions worldwide, and conveyed that they were also there to learn more about the Charlotte market.
Innovation Talk: Real-Time Payments Need Real-Time Intelligence: Where AI Actually Fits, featuring Rich Dooley (The Clearing House), John Espey (Macedon Technologies), and Vijay Vardhan (Finzly); moderated by Dean Nolan (PayCLT)
Possibly more than any other session over the course of the day, this one embodied the overarching theme of “from hype to reality.” In the context of real-time payment technology, it cut through the notion that AI can simply be slapped onto existing tech and processes to meet accelerating needs. The panelists then took a more pointed look at where AI can (and where it has not) bring about new solutions.
John Espey delivered what may have been the most interesting general insight, noting that while consumers expect real-time payments without knowing what goes into them, the expectation alone has to be recognized and addressed by banks and institutions.
Innovation Talk: From Hype to Implementation: AI Tools for Financial Services & Insurance, featuring Brian Dobrodziej (Version 1), Debjani Mitra (Stripe), and Hala Shakra (LendingTree); moderated by Steven Smith (Accenture)
While the previous “innovation talk” session acknowledged some of the shortcomings of AI, this discussion by nature focused more on the need for implementation and how various tools and approaches can help. The panelists also touched on some of the intangible qualities that come into play when valuing AI, given that a single tool or process might yield benefits across an operation.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this panel, though, was its closing note, when moderator Steven Smith asked the panelists what innovations they expected us to be talking about in another few years. Answers included AI being more seamlessly embedded into systems and workflows; agentic commerce influencing financial services; and, from Smith himself, a plateau (due to energy, cost, and/or fatigue). AI, Smith posited, is “not going to hit us in the face at this pace for this long.”
Innovation Talk: AI Enhancing the Customer Experience, featuring Andy Vitale (Taxwell), Chris Johnston (Adoreboard), Kornelia Bastin (LendingTree); moderated by Jason Malo (Ritz Business Development)
This talk went more or less as one might guess from its title, as the panelists focused on common customer experience issues in fintech and where potential AI solutions should be targeted.
There was a particular emphasis on the struggle to match data with effective solutions. Moderator Jason Malo noted that firms consistently report a struggle measuring the effects of their customer service efforts through customer feedback, and Chris Johnston said that 83% of executives can’t connect CX to bottom-line impact.
AI tools have potential to address these problems and fill these gaps. Though as Kornelia Bastin stressed, it will remain important to have a human in the loop where customer service is concerned.
Scaling Fintech: A Chat With Charlotte’s Fintech Unicorn Founders, featuring Michael Praeger (Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of AvidXchange) and Khristian Gutierrez (Co-Founder and CEO of Passport); moderated by Dan Roselli (Co-Founder & Managing Director of RevTech Labs)
This session actually wrapped up the programming (happy hour notwithstanding), with RevTech’s own Dan Roselli welcoming two of Charlotte’s most successful fintech founders to the stage.
Rather than simply telling the stories of their startups, Michael Praeger and Khristian Gutierrez offered their thoughts on significant inflection points, important hurdles to overcome, and advantages of building in Charlotte.
Key Insights:
- Praeger reflected on a point at which he recognized the importance of securing paying customers rather than raising funds; Roselli extended the point by noting that a founder’s job is to find ways to solve problems for customers, not simply sell what they currently have.
- Gutierrez stressed the importance of finding investors with operational experience. Building on this point, Praeger emphasized that the partner or person you’re dealing with matters more than the firm. “When things aren’t going well,” he prompted, “how’s that relationship going to work?”
- “Being in Charlotte is a competitive advantage for us” (Gutierrez). He went on to discuss success he’s had recruiting talent from major tech hubs like San Francisco and Boston to move to North Carolina.
To wrap up the discussion, Roselli pointed out that they’d just had an entire fireside chat without the term “AI” being mentioned. Doubling down on this achievement, he prompted Praeger and Gutierrez to predict what “big thing coming down the pipe” people should be aware of, with the note that they couldn’t say anything about AI.
Both founders deftly danced around “AI” by using other terms, but they still put forth some interesting ideas.
“Product may not be your advantage,” Praeger suggested, implying that culture, customers, or approach might become more notable differentiators.
“Don’t mistake scale and speed with personality, brand, and the human touch,” Gutierrez said somewhat similarly, emphasizing the humanness of running a business.
RevTech Labs “Class 24” Showcase
The RevTech Labs “Class 24” Showcase actually took place on either end of lunch, more or less in the middle of the panel discussions outlined above.
Roselli told the audience that some 800 startups applied to be in this latest RevTech cohort, and as you’ll see below, the showcase was down to 12.
Here’s a look at the startups that presented over the course of the day:
Facio Labs (Brooklyn, NY)
Presented by Yoni Novick, Facio Labs was pitched as the cloud-native, all-in-one operating system built for Managing General Agents (MGAs). The platform is designed to assist product setup, rating and reporting, and more.
Praktikant (King of Prussia, PA)
Praktikant was pithed by Bill Lane as “the OperativeAI for the Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) tech stack.” The “Prak” platform takes on software and document management so that advisors can focus on clients.
ibt Technologies (London, UK)
Presented by Igor Tesinsky, ibt Technologies provides AI-native credit analytics & portfolio optimization for institutional investors and banks—primarily addressing the issue that credit teams are “buried in fragmented data.”
Block Convey (New York, NY)
(As covered from PitchBreakfast) Presented by Arun Prasad, Block Convey helps banks and financial entities evaluate the AI models they’re implementing for things like fairness explainability, and drift, so that increasingly necessary (and required) risk assessment can be conducted.
Vasquez Platform (Atlanta, GA)
Sanat Mohapatra introduced Vasquez as “the AI agency,” ultimately progressing to an introduction of Victoria—the startup’s Voice AI nurse who acts as a copilot assisting health insurance agents and brokers by handling patient calls.
Sail (remote)
(As covered from PitchBreakfast) Presented by Danny Friday, Sail is solving for the estimated $91 billion in HSA and FSA funds going unused. Their platform aims to make these funds more visible, accessible, and versatile to use.
LytteAI (San Francisco, CA)
LytteAI was presented by Chelsea Chen, who started off by stating that it costs banks some $500B a year to take calls and solve problems. LytteAI is building agentic intelligence platforms to mitigate costs by streamlining those calls in ways that mimic optimal human performance.
Twill (Los Angeles, CA)
Presented by Mike Wright, Twill provides an “AI-native OS and infrastructure layer for merchant acquiring.” The problem being solved here is that the payments ecosystem has “no shared operational language.” Twill offers a single, shared merchant record across disparate processors.
ROOK (Miami, FL)
With a plea to “make this world a healthier place together,” Marco Benitez pitched ROOK as a means for health, insurance, and wellness companies to gather and make sense of user wearable data. Companies simply implement ROOK’s API, gather data, and watch as algorithms interpret that data for potentially preventive purposes.
My AI (Charlotte, NC)
My AI was pitched as “the rewards layer for the AI economy.” The idea here is that rewards from all kinds of card and brand programs are “stuck in silos,” as people are enrolled for them but lack visibility of them. This startup essentially aims to connect programs to turn those siloed benefits into visible, universal rewards.
TrackStar AI Inc. (Chandler, AZ)
TrackStar AI was presented on top of the premise that “credit decisions are only as good as the data behind them.” This company (which has actually been around since 2013) provides lenders and credit bureaus with AI-powered insights to drive better decision-making.
KarbonPay (Dallas, TX)
The final startup of the showcase, KarbonPay was pitched as a solution for the complex issue of compliant payroll for firms with international employee bases. Their team is building the infrastructure layer behind global payroll.
Once all of these showcases and speaker sessions concluded (with a few concurrent workshops along the way), FIG ’26 was ready to wrap up. The unicorn chat with Michael Praeger and Khristian Gutierrez concluded the programming and attendees began making their way back across the street to CO-LAB for a reception—with VIP dinners and a Standups & Startups comedy gathering to follow.
