2024: Default Alive and Thriving

In 2015, Paul Graham introduced the concept of "Default Alive or Default Dead," defining a company’s fate as tied to whether it can reach profitability with its cash on hand. Like most fintech ventures with huge upfront costs, we spent most of life in ‘Default Dead’ mode, until 2024 when we not only flipped the switch to ‘Default Alive’, we surged past it. For the first time, we achieved consistently cash flow-positive results across two full quarters—something we only flirted with in 2023.

Another 2x growth

Our focus in 2024 was cashflow not growth, but we still managed to:

• Double our customer base to just under 40k customers.
• Double our gross revenue to just under €20m. 
• Hit all-time transaction count and volume records in Q4, whilst maintaining 99.99% uptime on a rolling 90 day basis.
• Review an unprecedented number of inbound leads, driven by the AI-fueled acceleration of product launches.

This growth was enough to launch us into the prestigious Sifted 250—a remarkable achievement for a bootstrapped fintech that has not yet entered full growth mode.

Fragmenting competition

The competition has faced a brutal 12–18 months, with the two biggest players nearly disappearing from the landscape. The primary failure modes appear consistent across the board: poor risk management—particularly around compliance—and a lack of operational efficiency.

EU regulators have been scrambling to catch up, and Sweden's Finansinspektionen (FI) is no exception. Over the past three years, they have scrutinised every conceivable piece of our AML documentation, leaving no stone unturned. With their input, we have identified some administrative improvements to make. Others, however, have fared much worse, with full-blown consent orders effectively taking them out of the game.

Adding to the challenges, bloated cost models have only worsened their situation. Clunky, capital-intensive banking licenses have forced many players to chase large, established clients—a strategy with two glaring flaws. First, there’s ‘graduation risk,’ where mature clients often view providers as a temporary stopgap while pursuing their own licenses. Second, embedded finance mirrors venture capital in many ways—it’s all about portfolio effects. Success depends on one in 20 investments delivering 10x or 20x returns to carry the portfolio. Focusing solely on mature, low-risk clients is like a VC fund betting only on late-stage companies—you cap the upside and undermine your growth potential.

We’ve taken a very different approach. By staying true to our roots, we’ve maintained a razor-sharp focus on small, innovative, fast-growing platforms. These clients, often overlooked and underestimated, have been the driving force behind our growth—something I’m deeply proud of.

I stand by what I said last year: ‘Efficiency will rule.’ It’s critical in this game. While the 'blitzscaling bros' might scoff, embedded finance demands staying lean, minimizing regulatory capital requirements, and striking the right balance between building and buying. Build too much, and you’ll move too slowly; buy too much, and the economics will collapse. Many competitors have fallen into this trap, but we’ve avoided it by remaining disciplined and focused. This approach hasn’t just kept us in the game—it’s made us stronger.

The Future: AI and Beyond

Paul Graham once said, "If the company is default alive, we can talk about ambitious new things they could do." So, let’s do exactly that—because this market is evolving at an electrifying pace.

In my 2023 blog, I said, ‘software is eating fintech,’ and in 2024, that trend accelerated. The explosion of generative AI sparked an unprecedented wave of apps and services, unlocking what is arguably fintech’s most significant market opportunity yet. Builders rushed to deploy AI-powered platforms, accelerating product launch velocity and driving surging demand for embedded financial infrastructure. The result? We were inundated with more high-quality inbound leads than we could realistically convert—a trend that feels like it’s only just beginning.

Parallel to the app creation frenzy is the rapid rise of AI agents. Its obvious to me that people don’t want AI to handle writing and art so they can do more admin; they want AI to manage the admin so they have more time for creative and meaningful work. It's therefore inevitable that agents will soon become integral to daily life, and as they begin making payments, they’ll need ways to store and move funds—whether through virtual cards or non-custodial crypto wallets.

I don’t believe it’s realistic to expect people to grant AI agents direct access to their primary bank accounts. That’s where programmatic payment platforms like ours come into play—just as we hoped would be the case back in 2017.

Another solution to the payment challenge is stablecoins, which are rapidly gaining mainstream traction. The data is remarkable: by the end of Q2 2024, U.S. stablecoin usage reached 1.1 billion transactions, totaling $8.5 trillion in value—more than double the transaction value processed by Visa in the same period. It’s clear we’ve passed a tipping point. With MiCAR regulations paving the way in the EU, Intergiro plans to become a coin issuer in 2025. Stay tuned.

Even as AI agents and stablecoins advance, most merchants will prefer FIAT transactions for the foreseeable future. This makes virtual cards the likely payment instrument of choice. Regulatory frameworks like PSD2—and soon PSD3—mandate human authentication layers for FIAT payments. That’s where our authentication SDKs and risk decisioning systems come in. These aren’t just tools to enable transactions—they’re the crown jewels of our intellectual property and the foundation of everything we do.

Watching this unfold is going to be fascinating. Embedded finance was already the fastest-growing sector in fintech, with Boston Consulting Group recently projecting it to generate $320 billion in revenues by 2030. But given the transformative AI advancements we’ve discussed, I’d wager that estimate is seriously undercooked.

Closing Thoughts

Back in 2017, we anticipated a future where programmatic payments infrastructure would become indispensable. Fast forward to today, and it feels like the convergence of AI and crypto trends is making that vision a reality.

2024 was about getting the fundamentals right—ensuring we were in ‘default alive’ mode and ready for what’s next. Now, as we step into 2025, the stage is set to seize this extraordinary moment in fintech. Here’s to the journey ahead—let’s keep building together.