Jun 19, 2025

__________ Hi Slava, tell us about yourself and your fintech journey in recent years. I studied accounting by mistake – finished the degree and realized I hated it. I have mild dyslexia, so filling in forms felt like being tested in a language I didn’t speak. And yet, every time I started a business — a dance school, a grocery store — that’s where most of my time went: not serving customers, but staying compliant. What I realized was this: small business owners aren’t confused — they’re overwhelmed. The dread of missing a tax deadline or messing up a form is real. I lived that stress, and I saw others living it too. So I spent seven years building tools that make compliance invisible. Now with Jupid, we’re taking a bigger swing — not just making accounting easier, but making it disappear. What inspired Jupid and what makes it a fintech disruptor? Jupid was born out of pain. I didn’t want to become an accountant — I just wanted to run my dance school. But every week, I was dragged into a swamp of receipts, tax codes, and city hall filings. It felt like running a bakery where you not only bake but also clean the place and negotiate with the fire marshal — all before noon. So we flipped the model. Instead of giving founders better accounting tools, we’re removing the need for tools altogether. Jupid is a 24/7 conversational AI — you just text it like a teammate: “Did I get paid?” “Can I add this to my expenses?” “What’s due next week?” That shift — from assistive to agentive AI — is what’s transforming the landscape. It’s what Thread AI is doing for workflows, and we’re doing it for finance. You don’t log into a dashboard anymore. You just talk, and things get done. And this isn’t just a UX choice — it’s practical. SMB tax penalties are up 30% over the past few years. One missed deadline, one form filed late, and you’re hit with hundreds in fines. For someone making $60K a year, that’s catastrophic. What are some of the core challenges around tax automation that SMB teams usually face today? Fear. That’s the biggest one. Not the math — the uncertainty. The IRS fined over 40% of small businesses last year for payroll-related issues. Some sales tax errors carry penalties of 25% of what’s owed. One survey found that the average fine per small business was over $30,000. That’s not inefficiency but a system failure. What we’re doing with Jupid is giving people back emotional safety. Imagine a system that checks your filings, nudges you when data is missing, and handles categorization without asking you to learn tax code Section 179. That’s what our “pocket CFO” does. It’s accessible 24/7 via messaging or voice, and is basically a natural language interface with a range of functions: it automates transaction categorization, ensures tax compliance, and provides the user with real-time financial consultations. By offering free LLC formation and a low monthly subscription, Jupid delivers end-to-end accounting solutions without the complexity of traditional SaaS tools. It’s built on natural language AI — the same shift we saw highlighted in the New Relic x ChatGPT report. People don’t want to learn new software. They want to ask a question and get the right answer — immediately. We’ve identified the U.S. small business market as a key focus. There are over 35 million entrepreneurs in the U.S. with fewer than 50 employees — they generate close to a third of U.S. GDP. And yet, they’re the most overworked and under-supported group in the economy. These entrepreneurs cannot afford a personal accountant, yet they still need to manage their operations, submit reports, receive reminders to provide data on time, and have these tasks handled for them. Currently, this issue is largely unaddressed. We believe an AI-powered personal accounting support feature will help these entrepreneurs to stay compliant with regulations and avoid penalties. How is AI enabling better tax payouts and workflows across industries? We’re in a new phase of AI — these are no longer just “copilots” that assist you, but rather agents that execute end-to-end. In fintech, this means you don’t get alerts about deadlines — you get filings submitted. You don’t get categorized reports — you get compliance done. This is now possible because of infrastructure breakthroughs. Meta and Cerebras are pushing the boundaries on LLM inference speed, which means Jupid can offer real-time financial conversations instantly. When someone asks, “Can I pay myself this week?” they get a real answer in milliseconds — not a form to fill in. The $79.4B AI fintech market projection by 2030 isn’t just about automation — it’s about autonomy. We’re building financial teammates, not just smarter calculators. What should finance teams keep in mind as they open up to AI-powered fintech and tax platforms of various kinds? Don’t underestimate emotion. AI is often framed in terms of speed, accuracy, or ROI. But the most powerful shift is emotional. When you remove the anxiety around finances — the dread before tax day, the guesswork around what you owe — you unlock trust. Trust is the real lever to greater adoption. Finance teams should look at AI not just as a back-office upgrade, but as an emotional buffer for their teams and customers. That’s what’s driving the adoption of tools like Darktrace for fraud and Aspiration for carbon-tracking fintech — they reduce cognitive load and emotional friction. And don’t wait for a perfect AI. Use it now — with guardrails — and let it learn. The trust grows with usage. What about today’s state of global fintech most excites you? The fact that fintech is disappearing! I don’t mean it’s dying — I mean it’s embedding. Like AWS did with compute, financial infrastructure is becoming invisible. Open a bank account, and you get an AI assistant. Make a payment, and it files the tax record automatically. Embedded finance is projected to be a $556.5B market by 2032 — and that feels right. The future isn’t separate finance apps — it’s intelligent systems living inside your workflow. That’s what we’re doing with Jupid: partnering with banks and credit unions so the accounting just happens inside the account itself. Also, green fintech is rising fast. Platforms like Aspiration are showing how climate-conscious financial tooling — powered by AI — can nudge behavior at scale. That blend of automation and ethics is where fintech is heading. Can you talk about some notable brands from the global fintech market that have piqued your interest and why? I’m watching keenly how Deel is scaling compliance across borders — this isn’t just a hiring platform, it’s a legal engine. I’m also intrigued by how Plaid has quietly become the API layer for trust in open banking. Then you have Intuit — a giant that’s now shifting into AI-native products. But what excites me most are the ones rethinking the stack: Mercury, with simplicity and real speed; Thread AI, eliminating UI entirely. What ties them all together is this: they’re not adding features. They’re removing friction. A few thoughts on where fintech is headed before we wrap up? Fintech is going ambient. Soon, you won’t say “I use this accounting tool.” You’ll just run your business, and accounting will happen in the background — like electricity. Always on, always right. AI is enabling that. But the deeper shift is this: trust is the new UX. The systems we adopt will be the ones that earn our trust the fastest. And we’ll get there by removing not only friction – but fear. When that happens, we’ll unlock a new generation of entrepreneurs — people who never saw themselves as “business owners” because the paperwork scared them off. That’s who we’re building for.