FT Partners’ Steve McLaughlin Featured on Turpentine Finance Podcast with Sasha Orloff: “The Dealmaker’s Secrets: Steve McLaughlin on Crafting A Fundraise Story Worth $33B, FT Partners' CEO”
In this conversation, Sasha Orloff sits down with Steve McLaughlin, CEO and Managing Partner of FT Partners. Steve provides an insider’s look into the high-stakes world of capital raising and dealmaking for high-growth private companies. From being Goldman Sachs’ Former Head of FinTech to founding FT Partners, a global FinTech investment bank, McLaughlin shares his strategies for crafting compelling narratives that unlock massive fundraising rounds - like the $33 billion valuation for Revolut and a $100 million plus raise for Sam Altman’s Worldcoin. They dive deep into storytelling, the importance of product over marketing spend, founder red flags, and much more.
Steve McLaughlin & Sahej Suri on FinTech's Exit Crisis
The top 100 private FinTech companies are now worth $1.9 trillion, more than their public counterparts. So why are so few of them finding a way to exit? In this conversation, Steve McLaughlin (Founder, FT Partners) and Sahej Suri (Founder, Blue Dot Investors) unpack the data behind FT Partners and Blue Dot Investors’ joint report, "The Coming FinTech Liquidity Supercycle." They cover:
- Why the IPO bar has never been higher, and what it now takes for a FinTech company to go public
- The surge in secondary market and capital markets activity as companies stay private longer
- How FinTech-to-FinTech M&A is reshaping the exit landscape
- What founders and investors should expect from the next wave of liquidity
*The following is not investment advice and is for Professional / Institutional Use Only
FT Partners & BCG Co-Author the Global FinTech Report 2026 – From Recovery to Resurgence
Global FinTech Revenues Surpass Half a Trillion Dollars, Growing Four Times Faster Than Traditional Banks
- BCG and FT Partners’ Global FinTech Report 2026 Finds Sector in Full Resurgence, with $504 Billion in Revenues and 22% Growth
- 74% of Largest Public FinTech Companies Now Profitable; EBITDA Margins Up 400 Basis Points
- Equity Funding Jumps 53% to $58 Billion; FinTech Companies Out-Acquire Banks in M&A for First Time on Record
- Regulatory Gap Between Banks and FinTech Companies Narrowing in US, UK, and EU as Charter Applications Rise
FT Partners Served as Financial Advisor to Siris on the $4,200,000,000 Sale of Equiniti to Bullish
On May 5, 2026, Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), the institutional-grade digital asset platform, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Equiniti, a leading global transfer agent and provider of mission-critical shareholder services, valued at $4.2 billion. Equiniti brings what every listed company in most major markets is required to have: a regulated transfer agent; as the system of record for nearly 3,000 of the world’s leading public companies, Equiniti processes approximately $500 billion in annual payments and supports over 20 million verified shareholders. The combination creates the global transfer agent for tokenized securities and aims to position Bullish to lead the shift toward blockchain-native capital markets infrastructure. FT Partners served as strategic and financial advisor to Siris Capital and has now served as financial advisor on three of the five largest strategic M&A transactions in the Digital Assets space.
FT Partners and Blue Dot Investors Publish Joint Report, The Coming FinTech Liquidity Supercycle
Private FinTech Giants Now Outpace Public Peers as Liquidity Cycle Builds Across IPOs, M&A and Secondaries – New analysis from Blue Dot Investors and FT Partners highlights a $1.9 trillion cohort of top private FinTech companies and rising global liquidity opportunities across IPOs, M&A and secondaries.
- Revenue Leadership: Revenue of the top 100 private FinTech companies ($174 billion) now exceeds that of the top 100 public companies founded in the last twenty years ($158 billion).
- The Reopening IPO Window: 26 FinTech companies have listed in the U.S. since 2024, showing a 3.4x increase in median revenue at IPO ($673 million) compared to the 2011-2019 cycle.
- Profitability Trends: 69% of FinTech companies going public today are profitable, up from 52% in the 2011-2019 cohort.
- Consolidation via M&A: FinTech-to-FinTech acquisition activity has increased 4.4x over the last decade as scaled players use their balance sheets to acquire specialized competitors.
FT Partners’ Founder & CEO Steve McLaughlin featured on How I Invest Podcast “What FinTech Will Look Like in 5 Years”
In this episode, David Weisburd speaks with Steve McLaughlin, Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner of FT Partners, widely regarded as the leading investment bank in FinTech. The podcast covers everything from the humble beginnings of FT Partners, to Steve’s philosophy of “never die,” to his groundbreaking thesis on AI, tokenization, defensibility in FinTech, and why he believes we’re entering a new era of trillion-dollar global financial technology companies. The podcast also dives into the incentives model Steve built that has generated some of the largest fees in the history of investment banking—and why clients keep coming back. This conversation is packed with insights on strategy, resilience, AI’s impact on banking, and the future of FinTech.
FT Partners’ Founder & CEO Steve McLaughlin featured on FinTech Leaders Podcast “FinTech’s Multi-Billion Comeback: From Darkest Days to Record Deals”
Host Miguel Armaza sat down with Steve McLaughlin at the FinTech NedCon conference in Miami. Since 2001, Steve has built a 250-person firm that’s advised on landmark deals including Coinbase’s $4.3 billion Deribit acquisition and Revolut’s multi-billion dollar raises. FT Partners works with everyone from early-stage startups to industry giants. What makes Steve’s perspective invaluable is his position at the absolute center of fintech dealmaking. According to Steve, FT Partners is signing more engagement letters than ever, closing more deals than ever, and expects 2026 to be a blowout year. In this conversation, Steve shares his unfiltered views on Fintech’s dramatic recovery, the tokenization revolution, and why AI will completely reshape financial services.
FT Partners Served as Financial Advisor & Leads Investment in Model ML; Enters Strategic AI Design Partnership
On November 24, 2025, Model ML, a leading global AI workflow automation platform for financial services, announced that it has raised $75 million in Series A financing led by FT Partners including significant participation from Y Combinator, QED, and LocalGlobe. Model ML tackles one of financial services’ most persistent challenges: the manual, time-intensive creation of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel deliverables; its AI agents interpret schemas, reason across data sources, write transformation code, and generate fully verified, branded outputs – allowing teams to focus on analysis and decision-making rather than formatting and cross-checking. As part of the financing, FT Partners and Model ML have entered a multi-year strategic design partnership to jointly develop AI-driven workflow systems that transform how financial analysis and client deliverables are produced. FT Partners served as financial advisor to Model ML and an affiliate of FT Partners also led the round.
FT Partners Served as Financial Advisor to Deribit on its $4,300,000,000 Sale to Coinbase
On May 8, 2025, Coinbase announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Deribit for a total consideration consisting of $700 million in cash and 11 million shares of Coinbase Class A common stock. The transaction closed on August 14, 2025; based on Coinbase’s share price at closing, the total consideration amounted to approximately $4.3 billion. Founded in 2016, Deribit is the world’s leading crypto options and futures exchange, providing institutional-grade infrastructure for derivatives trading across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major tokens. This strategic acquisition makes Coinbase the global leader in crypto derivatives by open interest and options volume, with Deribit’s robust options platform complementing Coinbase’s rapidly growing US futures and international perpetual futures businesses. This transaction is the largest strategic M&A deal ever in the Digital Assets space.
FT Partners Served as Financial Advisor to Intermex on its $500 million Sale to Western Union
On August 10, 2025, Western Union (NYSE: WU) announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire International Money Express, Inc. (“Intermex”) (NASDAQ: IMXI) for $16.00 per share in cash. The transaction values Intermex at a total equity value of approximately $500 million. The purchase price represents a 72% premium over the company’s unaffected price of $9.28 on August 8, 2025. Founded in 1994, Intermex applies proprietary technology enabling consumers to send money from the United States, Canada, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany to more than 60 countries. This acquisition strengthens Western Union’s retail offering in the U.S., increases market coverage in high potential geographies, and is expected to accelerate digital new customer acquisition
