Notes on consequential decisions.
Occasional writing on payments, fintech M&A, and agentic AI inside operating companies—published when there is something worth saying.
Get the writing by email.
One email, Tuesday mornings, about four minutes: payments, the office of the CFO, AI inside operating companies, and founder issues from seed to Series B—from someone who ran the P&L. One click to leave, whenever you like.
You are on the list. The next issue will land in your inbox.
Still checking that you are a person — press Subscribe again in a moment.
That did not go through. Email [email protected] and you will be added by hand.
-
Intuit Does Not Need to Own the AI Interface
Intuit's Perplexity deal shows how incumbents can use outside AI interfaces while retaining the data, controls, ledger and money movement.
-
The Capital That Matters Most Is Rarely the Largest Check
Why the right capital structure and investor can create more value than the largest check, from eleven years of raising capital at Finexio.
-
Basware and Trustpair Are Solving the Part of AP Nobody Wants to Own
Basware's Trustpair acquisition shows why AP platforms need to own payment fraud prevention, not just invoice workflow.
-
The New PE Operating Team Is an AI Engineering Firm
Blackstone and H&F's Ode shows what PE value creation is becoming: embedded AI operators rebuilding portfolio workflows from the inside.
-
Dilution Is Not the Enemy. Losing Momentum Is.
What Series A and B founders should learn from hyperscalers raising capital to keep momentum alive.
-
OpenRouter Shows AI Routing Is Becoming a Payments Problem
Stripe buying OpenRouter shows AI model routing is becoming a payments-style economic control point.
-
The Talent Thesis Nobody Wants To Underwrite
AI will not be won by the biggest roadmap. It will be won by companies that put real builders inside the work and give them authority.
-
The Queue Is the Job
My company's software fixes itself three nights a week. What that taught me about leadership, and the first thing I now check in operational diligence.
-
The Plastic Was Never the Moat: What PEX's $160M Actually Signals for the Office of the CFO
PEX raised $160 million led by Bluff Point Associates. Payments Dive called it a card expansion. The real signal is for the office of the CFO.
-
Twenty Years, Then Minutes
Why I'm bringing an agentic AI engine room to private equity funds and family offices.
-
Payments M&A is not picking up; it's already here, and it's structural.
Payments M&A is shifting from cyclical to structural. After a decade building in the sector, here is why this consolidation wave is different.
-
What Actually Makes a Startup Series A Ready
Series A readiness is not a single metric. After raising multiple institutional rounds at Finexio, here is the two-part test I give founders.
-
The 20% of Virtual Card Spend That Nobody Talks About
Sunlight CEO Guy Ziv is right that B2B card acceptance is higher than assumed. The fragmentation problem is even bigger — and we lived it at Finexio.
-
Treasury Is Retention Infrastructure, Not an Add-On
Treasury features are sold as add-ons. They should be sold as infrastructure.
-
Why payment-processing M&A diligence misses the real value: platform, data, and the sausage-making
Most payment-processing M&A looks at contracts and EBITDA. The real value is in the platform, data, integrations, and how the work actually happens.
-
Fern Capital is open
A short note to mark the start: independent, quiet advisory for owners and investors facing consequential decisions.