Money20/20 USA 2026: AI Fraud Fighters and Cross-Border Rails Win the Top Startup Prizes
Money20/20 USA ran October 18 to 21, 2026, in Las Vegas. Charm Security won the Early Stage Startup Grand Prix and Trace Finance won the Growth Stage Grand Prix at the Money Awards. We cover the winners, a silver and bronze medalist, and one more finalist.
Las Vegas hosted Money20/20 USA from October 18 to 21, 2026, at The Venetian. The show's four content themes covered borderless financial architecture, technology as an equalizer, partnerships that scale, and guardrails for new tech. The Money Awards, now in their second year, named winners across startup, banking, payments and partnership categories. Winners came from 8 countries on 4 continents.
Fintech spent a week at Money20/20 talking about trust. Then everyone flew home and gave clients their personal cell.
Your voice channel is where trust starts. Slingshot gives you a real business line in two minutes, priced like a coffee, month to month. It leaves when you leave.
Competition Winner
Charm Security [Cybersecurity]
Charm won the Early Stage Startup category and took the Grand Prix, the top honor from Money20/20. The company builds an AI agent workforce that prevents and resolves fraud, scams and cybercrime. Its agents work across fraud operations, contact centers, branches and digital channels, and they mix fraud expertise with behavioral science. CEO and co-founder Roy Zur said the shift banks need is "from detecting fraud to taking action that changes the outcome." Charm also lists a top-10 spot in the RSAC Innovation Sandbox among its 2026 honors.
Track Champions
Trace Finance [Fintech / Blockchain].
Trace won the Grand Prix in the Growth Stage Startup category. It runs regulated payment and stablecoin settlement rails for companies that move money across borders, and it began with the US and Brazil corridor. Trace says it has processed more than $10 billion in cross-border volume. In June 2026 it closed a $32 million Series A led by CoinFund. Jury member Osama Bedier of NYCA Partners said the next fintech leaders will orchestrate a fragmented world of rails.
Charm Security took the Early Stage Startup Grand Prix, as covered above.
Special Awards
Bolttech [Fintech]
Bolttech won the Grand Prix in the Diamond category. Mary Ellen Iskenderian of Women's World Banking, who sat on the Diamond jury, praised it for pairing global scale with inclusion in insurtech.
Yellow Card [Fintech / Blockchain]
Yellow Card took Gold in the Diamond category. The jury pointed to its stablecoin infrastructure across the Global South.
Privy [Fintech]
Privy, a Stripe company, won the Payments Grand Prix. Juror Dave Excell, founder of Featurespace, said the jury valued innovation built around customer needs.
Standouts
Socratix AI [AI / Enterprise]
Socratix won Silver in the Early Stage Startup category. It builds AI coworkers for fraud and risk teams at banks and fintechs. The agents gather data, map relationships, flag odd activity and draft first case notes, so analysts can make the call. The company raised a $4.1 million seed round led by Pear VC and reports that investigations that took a full day now take about 15 minutes. CEO and co-founder Riya Jagetia leads the team.
Ballerine [AI / Enterprise]
Ballerine won Bronze in the Growth Stage Startup category. Its Workforce platform lets financial firms deploy teams of AI agents for onboarding, underwriting, monitoring and investigations, while people keep final say. The company is a Mastercard-certified Merchant Monitoring Service Provider and serves more than fifty enterprises. Noam Izhaki is co-founder and CEO.
Veritus [AI / Enterprise]
A Growth Stage finalist. It sells voice-first AI agents that talk with borrowers for consumer lenders, in areas such as loan applications and early missed payments.
Also in the cohort: Aviel Intelligence, Hello Clever, Verto
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Why It Matters for the UpNext Network
Three of the five startups we profile build AI agents for fraud, risk or compliance teams, and judges and buyers in Las Vegas rewarded them. Founders working on payments, stablecoin rails or financial crime tools can see where the money and attention went this year. Join the UpNext network to meet the founders building in this space.
