The financial services landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, moving from the rigid, marble-columned institutions of the past to a fluid, invisible, and hyper-efficient digital infrastructure. At the forefront of this transformation sits Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV), a venture capital firm that has quietly but aggressively positioned itself as the premier architect of the next generation of fintech. While the “fintech boom” of the early 2020s saw a rush of capital into flashy consumer apps, BTV has distinguished itself by focusing on the plumbing. This essential, often unglamorous, infrastructure will power the global digital economy for decades to come.
The Architects of Tomorrow
Founded in 2019, Better Tomorrow Ventures is the brainchild of Sheel Mohnot and Jake Gibson, two figures who are as much builders as they are investors. Their pedigree is not just financial; it is deeply operational. Jake Gibson co-founded NerdWallet, a company that fundamentally changed how consumers access financial information, while Sheel Mohnot’s track record includes successful exits with FeeFighters and Innovative Auctions. This “operator-first” DNA is the firm’s defining characteristic. Unlike traditional VCs who may view startups through the detached lens of spreadsheets and market sizing, Mohnot and Gibson approach investing with the empathy and grit of founders who have been in the trenches.
This background has allowed them to cultivate a unique investment thesis. They understand that despite the hype, the digitization of finance is arguably in its infancy. “Finance makes up nearly 20% of global GDP, yet a huge chunk of it still runs on outdated, manual systems,” Mohnot has noted. This insight drives their conviction that the most significant opportunities are not in creating another challenger bank for millennials, but in digitizing the archaic, manual workflows that still glue the financial world together—processes currently held together by email chains, PDFs, and human error.
A Thesis Built on “Boring” Innovation
One of the most striking aspects of BTV’s recent strategy is its pivot toward what might be called the “boring revolution.” While the broader market chased crypto hype cycles, BTV doubled down on unsexy but critical problems: accounting, compliance, and back-office automation. Their recent investments reflect a belief that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the key to unlocking efficiency in these labor-heavy sectors.
For instance, the firm has taken significant positions in companies like Basis, an AI-first platform designed to modernize finance team workflows, and InScope, which automates the drafting of audited financial statements. These are not consumer-facing products that will appear in a Super Bowl ad; they are high-utility enterprise tools that solve acute talent shortages in the accounting profession. By betting on vertical AI—artificial intelligence trained on deep, industry-specific data—BTV is wagering that the future of fintech lies in software that acts not just as a tool but as an intelligent agent capable of performing complex professional tasks.
Infrastructure for the Embedded Economy
Beyond AI, BTV has been a vocal champion of embedded finance—the idea that financial services will eventually disappear into the software we use every day. Their portfolio serves as a roadmap for this vision. They were early backers of Unit, a banking-as-a-service platform that allows non-bank companies to offer financial products. Unit represents the “Lego blocks” of the future economy, enabling a trucking software company to offer fuel cards or a property management platform to offer rent lending.
This thesis extends to niche verticals where generic fintech solutions fail. Coast, another BTV portfolio company, focuses specifically on payments for fleet managers and truck drivers, a massive segment of the economy that modern expense management tools have historically underserved. Layer helps SMB SaaS platforms offer accounting directly within their products. By investing in these infrastructure layers, BTV is effectively buying shares in the future plumbing of the internet, betting that every software company will eventually become a fintech company.
A Global Mandate
While headquartered in San Francisco, Better Tomorrow Ventures operates with a distinctly global worldview. They recognize that while the U.S. market is mature, the pace of fintech adoption in emerging markets often outpaces that in the West. In regions like Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, fintech is not just an optimization—it is an essential leapfrog technology that brings financial inclusion to unbanked populations.
Their portfolio reflects this borderless ambition. They have backed companies across diverse geographies, understanding that the pain points of small-business lending in Mumbai or cross-border payments in Lagos are just as acute, if not more so, than those in New York. This global perspective allows them to spot trends in one market and apply learnings to another, fostering cross-pollination of ideas that benefits their entire ecosystem of founders.
Beyond Capital: The Mint and Community
In the crowded world of venture capital, money is a commodity. To differentiate, BTV has built a platform that offers genuine operational leverage to its founders. This is most visible in The Mint, their accelerator program designed specifically for pre-seed fintech startups. The Mint acts as a “finishing school” for early-stage companies, helping them navigate the specific regulatory, technical, and go-to-market hurdles that kill many young fintechs.
Through The Mint, founders get more than just a check; they get access to a curated community of peers and mentors who have solved similar problems. Whether it’s navigating a tricky compliance audit or securing a bank partner, the BTV network is designed to shorten the learning curve. This hands-on approach cultivates a high level of loyalty. Founder testimonials frequently highlight Mohnot and Gibson’s responsiveness—often being the “first call” when things go wrong, rather than just when things go right. This reputation for being founder-friendly has allowed them to win competitive deals against much larger, established funds.
Navigating the Digital Future
As we look toward the next decade, Better Tomorrow Ventures is positioning itself to lead through the “re-bundling” of finance. The era of zero-interest rates that fueled the explosion of thousands of fragmented fintech apps is over. The future, according to BTV’s investments, belongs to consolidated, intelligent, and highly efficient platforms that solve real economic problems.
With their recently raised $140 million Fund III, BTV is signaling that they are not retreating in the face of market headwinds. Instead, they are aggressively deploying capital into a market that has “right-sized.” They believe the current environment—where valuations are rational and tourists have left the sector—is the best time to build enduring companies.
The firm’s trajectory suggests that the “Better Tomorrow” it envisions is one in which financial friction is eliminated. It is a future where a small business owner doesn’t spend Sunday nights wrestling with QuickBooks, where a fleet manager has instant control over fuel spend, and where cross-border trade is as simple as sending a text message. By backing the founders who are building this reality, Better Tomorrow Ventures is not just participating in the fintech ecosystem; they are actively writing the code for the digital future of money.
