Upward Financial has secured $8,000,000 in a seed funding round to power a new generation of embedded credit products. The round includes support from Dundee Venture Capital, Breakwater Ventures Fund, Techstars, Altari Ventures, Cascade Seed Fund, and Outside Ventures, pushing the company further toward its mission: enabling businesses to unlock new revenue streams by launching credit products instantly and painlessly.

Founded by Aaron Gregory, Upward Financial gives companies a turnkey platform to build, deploy, and manage credit offerings - without needing to become a bank or handle complex underwriting, compliance, and servicing infrastructure internally. Instead of taking 12–18 months and millions in capital to stand up credit programs, Upward turns lending features into a configurable software layer.

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The Problem: Credit Innovation Is Locked Behind Regulation and Infrastructure

Any company can offer payments. Very few can offer credit.

Launching underwriting logic, capital partners, servicing compliance, fraud safeguards, and risk models is a massive lift. That’s why many businesses settle for basic payments or BNPL integrations - even when recurring revenue could grow dramatically through credit-based monetization.

The market reality:

• 82% of fintechs want to offer credit products but lack infrastructure or licensing.
  
• Time-to-launch for custom credit products averages 12–24 months.
  
• Regulatory burdens increase cost per program by up to 40% for in-house builds.
  

As capital markets tighten and CAC rises, companies increasingly turn to products that improve lifetime value - not top-of-funnel growth. Credit is one of the highest-leverage paths to expansion, but historically the hardest to execute.

Upward removes that friction by bundling launch, compliance, and execution into a single platform built to accelerate deployment.

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The Real Transformation: Becoming the Credit Operating Layer

Fintech winners don’t compete by issuing cards - they win by becoming the layer other companies rely on to issue cards.

When a platform manages underwriting, capital flow, and servicing, it doesn’t just enable transactions - it controls revenue mechanics. Over time, the system accumulates underwriting data, loss performance patterns, repayment behavior, and merchant risk insights. That historical dataset becomes a compounding advantage, creating smarter credit models that new entrants can’t replicate.

Owning this orchestration layer also drives long-term stickiness because the system becomes embedded in core financial operations. Switching providers doesn’t just mean changing vendors - it means rebuilding risk logic, compliance workflows, and capital integrations from scratch.

This is where Upward’s long-term leverage lies: not offering credit as a feature, but becoming the blueprint through which other companies design, launch, and grow their financial products.

Companies that control how money is extended - not just how it moves - hold the strongest position in the ecosystem.

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Why Demand Is Accelerating Now

Credit infrastructure is becoming a priority across multiple sectors, not just fintech. Platforms in SaaS, B2B marketplaces, logistics, retail, and creator tools are increasingly turning to embedded lending to drive retention and deeper economic participation from users.

Industry trends reinforce this momentum:

• The embedded finance market is projected to surpass $384B by 2030, driven heavily by credit products.
  
• BNPL adoption has doubled in the U.S. in four years, pushing alternative lending mainstream.
  
• B2B credit specifically is scaling fast, with spend expected to grow ~20% CAGR through 2030.
  
• Companies offering embedded lending see up to 3x higher ARPU compared to non-lending competitors.
  

Meanwhile, economic headwinds are shifting companies away from growth-at-all-costs models. Instead, monetization strategies now focus on improving unit economics and capturing downstream spend - precisely where lending thrives.

Upward is positioned to power this shift as companies move from offering payments to underwriting value.

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What Comes Next for Upward

With $8M in new funding, Upward Financial is expected to expand product capabilities and go-to-market reach across verticals where credit products increase retention and margin, such as:

• B2B marketplaces
  
• Vertical SaaS platforms
  
• Logistics and supply-chain platforms
  
• Consumer fintech apps
  

Additionally, the platform is likely to deepen credit decisioning models, offer more capital partner integrations, and broaden compliance tooling to support more sophisticated lending structures. As the platform matures, Upward could evolve from enabling individual credit products to serving as a full credit OS that powers entire financial ecosystems.

The companies shaping the next decade of fintech won’t be those adding lending as a feature - they’ll be the ones building on platforms like Upward that abstract away operational complexity and accelerate innovation.

Upward isn’t just helping businesses launch credit products - it’s giving them a new way to build revenue.