While nonfungible tokens have taken off this year, Alex Atallah, the cofounder and CTO of dominant NFT marketplace OpenSea, has helped his company reach $300 million in revenue, up from less than $1 million last year. Now he’s on track to become one of crypto’sMany list makers also hailed from fintech. Scott Kazmierowicz and Michael Spelfogel started Cardless in 2019, creating software that lets brands launch their own co-branded credit cards.
Akash Magoon cofounded insurtech startup Nayya, which helps people with tasks like picking the most cost-effective health insurance plan and finding lower-cost pharmacies. It has 400 corporate customers and is on track to reach $7 million in revenue in 2021. Ambika Acharya cofounded Weav, which aggregates sales data for small businesses and makes it easily accessible, letting lenders see it in seconds to assess borrower risk.
Leaders in traditional financial services made up one-third of our list. Hannah Buchan is a partner at Beehouse, a $300 million investment firm focused on the legal cannabis industry, which has deployed tens of millions of dollars across private equity, stocks and debt deals. Alex Nesbitt is a principal at BC Partners, helping close deals like the $3.4 billion SPAC merger and IPO between Cyxtera Technologies, one of the largest data center companies in the U.S., and Starboard Value Acquisition Corp., a blank check company.