Peek at the metrics of startup success, and a founder may never get started. In the words of Gimli the Dwarf in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy: “Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?” 

But a blockbuster new report out from banking services fintech Mercury should be heartening for many fintech founders and turns a recent AI job-killing narrative on its head. The report, which is based on a survey of 1,500 early-stage U.S.-based founders and execs across industries, found 79% of companies with significant AI adoption say they’re hiring more because of AI.  

Digging into the business outlook, 49% of financial-services founders reported significant year-over-year improvements in confidence in their financial prospects, the highest rate across all industries surveyed. And hiring is not showing signs of slowing here. Financial-services companies are among the most likely to plan significant spending increases, at 36%, while 61% are significantly increasing finance function hiring when they adopt AI, the highest rate for any function in financial services.

Meanwhile, the steady, predictable revenue-scaling pattern is likely to continue appealing to investors. More than half of financial-services companies with $1M+ revenue are in the 2-to-5-year age range, suggesting fintech has a more predictable revenue trajectory once product-market fit is achieved, compared to other industries. 

Speaking of founding fintechs, we recently spoke with the cofounder and CEO of Casap, who just raised a fresh $25M Series A to build tech that tackles automating disputes and preventing fraud.

–The Editors