Why We Invested in Spinwheel: Rewiring the Consumer Credit Ecosystem
At Fika Ventures, we’re always looking for teams bold enough to tackle foundational systems that quietly, yet massively, impact our financial lives. When we first met Tomás and Tushar at Spinwheel, they had just finished their earn-out with Westfield Retail Solutions from their last company and had started Spinwheel with the admirable mission of helping consumers and their families better understand, manage, and pay down their debt, starting with student loans. Little did they know that the student loan pause under the CARES Act would provide positive tailwinds that ultimately enabled them to build support for all major consumer liabilities, easily one of the most complex and under-innovated frontiers within fintech.
While open banking and embedded finance have largely focused on assets and transactional data, liabilities, credit cards, mortgages, student loans, and more largely remain siloed, sluggish, and riddled with friction. Spinwheel’s platform changes all of that and removes the credit roadblocks and friction faced by millions of Americans who are saddled with debt. By building a real-time, agentic AI-powered credit data and payments infrastructure, they’re not just modernizing the backend of the credit system — they’re laying the tracks for a more transparent, inclusive, and functional consumer financial experience.
The Problem: A Fractured Credit Ecosystem Buckling Under Pressure
Today, U.S. consumer liabilities have ballooned to $19.5 trillion — up from $13.3 trillion just a decade ago. The average American holds between 10 to 14 credit accounts, but the infrastructure to manage this debt is wildly outdated.
Financial providers face massive operational costs, fragmented data sets, and soaring customer service friction. Consumers are left juggling multiple logins and receiving outdated or inaccurate information. This results in a confusing, disjointed experience that often exacerbates financial stress instead of relieving it.
The Solution: Building the Infrastructure for Better Credit Outcomes
Spinwheel is reimagining how liabilities are accessed, activated, and resolved, starting with the pipes. Their real-time credit data and payments platform currently serves over 15 million users and supports over 165 million connected accounts. It facilitates more than $1.5 trillion in debt across its network.
Using only a phone number and date of birth, Spinwheel’s credentialless approach allows clients to instantly access verified credit data and integrate payment flows directly into their own platforms. This results in:
- Higher conversion rates
- Lower acquisition and operational costs
- More complete and accurate consumer credit profiles
- Streamlined user experiences
And the best part? Financial institutions, marketplaces, lenders and fintechs can easily embed this functionality seamlessly via API, enabling a smarter, smoother, and more scalable financial product offering.
Why We’re Excited: Agentic AI + Foundational Infrastructure
With this Series A, Spinwheel is accelerating the development of its agentic AI platform — one that not only automates credit management but also unlocks entirely new data sources, access points, and insights. This positions them to go far beyond traditional credit reporting.
As the platform evolves, we see Spinwheel serving as the foundational infrastructure for any fintech or financial institution looking to provide real-time, responsive, and actionable credit experiences. Their bank-grade security framework ensures trust and protection at every layer, something that’s non-negotiable in a space where people’s financial lives and livelihoods are at stake.
The Team: Experienced, Mission-Driven, and Execution-Focused
Co-founder and CEO Tomás Campos was driven to start this company after experiencing firsthand how the consumer debt crisis had hit his immediate family. He decided to join forces again with his co-founder and CTO, Tushar Vaish, a duo who had already been working together for 16+ years, helping build and scale Blackhawk Network and later starting FluidM, which was acquired by Westfield Retail Solutions. The Spinwheel team brings a rare blend of deep technical skill, regulatory know-how, and product intuition. Their first-principles approach to a broken system is what convinced us this wasn’t just another credit API company, but an entirely new category of consumer credit data and payments.
As Tomás puts it: “We believe this is an enormous opportunity that will outpace open banking.”
That’s not hype, it’s vision backed by traction, technology, dedication and timing.
Why This Matters
At Fika Ventures, we believe that rewiring legacy infrastructure creates some of the most compelling and enduring opportunities in technology. Spinwheel is doing exactly that, starting with liabilities but building toward a world where financial clarity and control are accessible to everyone.
By empowering lenders, marketplaces, and financial platforms with better data and smarter tools, Spinwheel enables better credit outcomes for millions of consumers. That’s not just a massive market opportunity, it’s a meaningful one.
We’re thrilled to continue supporting Spinwheel on their mission to modernize the credit ecosystem and build a healthier financial future for all.
👉 Learn more at spinwheel.io
