At Accion Ventures, we’ve long held the belief that supporting our portfolio companies extends beyond capital alone. Ever since we started investing in early-stage founders in 2012, our approach has included providing strategic and operational guidance to our founders. To date, we have partnered with founders across more than 70 startups, delivering over 100 tailored projects through our Portfolio Engagement function. This work has given us a deeper look into the realities of scaling inclusive fintech solutions across the world, and it’s shown us where conventional wisdom often breaks down.

The reality is that fintechs in emerging industries or regions rarely follow the standard assumptions that apply to building companies in more established markets. We want to share a few examples of how our work in these markets has uncovered some contrarian perspectives.

Lesson 1: Embedded finance isn’t always a no-brainer.

The common fintech narrative, “every company is a fintech company in disguise,” usually sounds like this: Adding financial services to a platform will automatically boost revenue, increase customer stickiness, and expand overall share of wallet. Our investment thesis runs strongly along this theme as well: We believe financial services that are embedded into digital marketplaces and verticalized software offer tremendous value to end customers and the companies serving them. While many verticalized software offerings over the years, including many from companies in our portfolio, have served as validation of this belief, our experience suggests that may not be as straightforward as it seems on the surface.

Take, for example, a Southeast Asian MSME platform we’ve worked with. The founders were eager to launch lending products, believing it would deepen engagement and accelerate growth. Once we dug in, two issues became clear: The customer base was not fully educated on the credit products the platform could offer, and the team lacked both the operational bandwidth and lending expertise to manage the complexity involved with introducing them. Moving forward with the product expansion would have resulted in higher costs, longer timelines, and potential reputational risk — along with the risk of not delivering a responsible financial solution to their customers.

Instead of pushing ahead with the idea, we helped the company reassess priorities, focusing on strengthening its core platform offering and building the internal capabilities needed before expanding into financial services. That experience also reshaped how we approach embedded finance more broadly:

• We now start every embedded finance conversation with a readiness assessment: Is the customer base asking for these services? Does the sales team understand the new value proposition? And are integration costs and timelines realistic?
• We work with founders to prioritize partnerships that align with the core business objectives and the internal capabilities of the team, rather than partners solely because of some degree of prominence or “clout” in the market. In some cases, for example, partnering with a fintech that has the capability to build a solid lending book from the start can alleviate much of the risk of owning the full end-to-end financial services stack.
• And we help teams evaluate the true cost-benefit equation of adding financial services, ensuring it’s built into growth plans rather than treated as a quick win.

This approach has helped avoid costly missteps and ensured embedded finance initiatives deliver net value rather than added complexity.

Lesson 2: For embedded financial services to stick, hit a home run with SaaS sales first.

A strong SaaS (Software as a Service) product can, at its best, drive adoption on its own, but it doesn’t guarantee financial services will follow naturally. In emerging markets, B2B sales cycles are long and nuanced — even for MSMEs. We’ve seen sales teams lose momentum when product changes (especially adding a financial services product!) challenged their ability to communicate value.

One case that stands out for us is a B2B SaaS platform serving small retailers that wanted to layer on credit and payments. The logic was sound since financial services could ostensibly deepen relationships and create new revenue streams. But the company was still iterating its core product, and the sales team could not yet articulate a clear value proposition, both with their core product and new features being released. Introducing financial services at that stage risked confusing customers and diluting focus.

Now, we focus our efforts on strengthening our companies’ ability to execute on their core product’s go-to-market plan:

• We spend more time upfront assessing founder experience in B2B sales and clarifying product SKUs.
• We help teams test market segmentation and identify which customer profiles would meaningfully benefit from financial services.
• We support founders in building sales playbooks that integrate financial services into the broader value proposition, rather than treating them as bolt-ons.

This shift has improved go-to-market strategies and reduced distractions that can derail growth. Now, we approach financial services as a strategic extension rather than a default next step.

Lesson 3: Data-driven decision making starts early.

but often the belief is that intuition and “vibes” can help sustain a company in its earliest years. But we’ve consistently seen the companies that embed data-driven decision-making from day one outperform those that do not.

For example, we partnered with a neobank for migrant workers that had already proven its initial product-market fit but wanted to better leverage its customer data to inform product development and strengthen engagement. Over a month-long project, we worked with the leadership team to identify the metrics that drove customer behavior, designed dashboards to track those KPIs, and advised on product and process changes based on our findings.

The impact was immediate: The company gained clarity on which features resonated with customers, improved its onboarding and engagement strategies, and built a foundation for sustainable growth. As one company leader put it, “It’s been a great support to have Accion [Ventures] provide us with help in understanding customer behavior patterns, data crunching, and overall product feedback — definitely a must for any startup!”

The numbers reinforce the point:

• Nearly 73 percent of founders report improved operational efficiency post-engagement.
• 66 percent see a direct revenue impact within six months.

To ensure decisions are grounded in evidence rather than instinct, our due diligence probes for data proficiency, and we provide toolkits to help founders structure data-led operations early.

Why these lessons matter

Over the years, we believe these insights have made us better partners and investors. By challenging assumptions and adapting our approach, we’re helping founders build companies that are resilient, customer-centric, and ready to scale.

As we look ahead, these lessons will continue to guide how we source, diligence, and support companies. We’re doubling down on data-driven decision making, sharpening our frameworks for embedded finance readiness, and investing in tools that help founders align financial services with core product strategies.

Our primary mission is to help founders succeed in building inclusive financial systems that change lives. Capital and strategic support are the tools we use to help them.