Better Tomorrow Ventures

Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV) is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded in 2019 by Jake Gibson and Sheel Mohnot. The firm invests primarily at the pre-seed and seed stages, focusing almost exclusively on fintech companies building financial infrastructure, payments technology, banking platforms, embedded finance solutions, lending products, insurance technology, wealth management tools, and crypto-related financial systems.

Better Tomorrow Ventures has built its identity around specialization rather than breadth. While many venture firms spread capital across multiple sectors, BTV concentrates on one of the largest and most complex industries in the world: financial services.

The firm matters because venture capital increasingly rewards domain expertise. As fintech founders navigate regulation, compliance, distribution, and infrastructure challenges, investors with deep category knowledge have become increasingly valuable. More broadly, Better Tomorrow Ventures represents a larger market thesis: the next generation of financial services will be built by software-native companies modernizing the infrastructure that powers how money moves, how businesses access financial products, and how consumers interact with financial systems.

About Better Tomorrow Ventures

There is an old venture capital habit that appears every market cycle. Investors discover a hot sector, deploy capital into anything remotely connected to it, and spend the next few years sorting signal from noise. Better Tomorrow Ventures took a different path.

Founded in 2019 by Jake Gibson and Sheel Mohnot, the firm was built around a simple idea: fintech is large enough, complicated enough, and important enough to deserve complete focus. That sounds obvious now. It was less obvious when many firms still treated fintech as one category among dozens.

Jake Gibson brought operator experience from co-founding NerdWallet and working inside financial services. Sheel Mohnot arrived with founder experience, successful exits, and years of fintech investing before launching Better Tomorrow Ventures. Together, they built a venture firm around specialization rather than diversification.

Investment Philosophy

Better Tomorrow Ventures primarily invests at the pre-seed and seed stages. That detail matters because the earliest stages of venture investing are where conviction matters most and data is often scarce. Revenue may be limited, product-market fit may still be forming, and a founder's understanding of the problem frequently becomes the most valuable signal available.

Better Tomorrow Ventures has built a reputation for high-conviction investing at the earliest stages, often backing founders before traditional venture metrics emerge. The firm focuses on entrepreneurs tackling difficult financial problems rather than making incremental improvements around the edges of existing systems.

Its investment focus includes payments infrastructure, banking technology, embedded finance, lending and credit platforms, insurance technology, wealth management tools, financial infrastructure, and crypto-related financial systems. The common thread is not consumer trends but infrastructure. Infrastructure rarely generates the loudest headlines, yet it often creates the most durable companies.

Market Focus and Thesis

The biggest shifts in fintech over the past decade have not been flashy consumer applications. They have been structural. Banking services became programmable, financial products became embeddable, APIs transformed access to financial infrastructure, and software companies began offering financial services directly inside their products.

Most consumers never noticed these shifts, but developers, founders, and investors paying close attention certainly did. Better Tomorrow Ventures has consistently aligned itself with these infrastructure-driven themes. The firm's focus on embedded finance, banking technology, developer-centric financial tools, and financial infrastructure reflects a belief that the largest opportunities often exist beneath the user interface.

The most valuable companies frequently build the rails before others build the trains. That distinction separates infrastructure investing from trend investing. Fintech funding has experienced significant volatility since 2022, yet infrastructure-oriented categories continue attracting investor attention because they serve as foundational layers for broader financial ecosystems. Better Tomorrow Ventures sits directly within that long-term thesis.

Leadership and Ecosystem Positioning

One reason Better Tomorrow Ventures has earned attention within fintech circles is that its leadership team speaks the language of builders. Jake Gibson's background as a founder provides firsthand experience with startup execution, fundraising challenges, and product development, while Sheel Mohnot has become one of fintech's most recognizable voices, regularly contributing insights, commentary, and market observations across the startup ecosystem.

That visibility creates more than brand recognition. It creates access, and for early-stage founders, access to networks, potential customers, future investors, and experienced operators can be as valuable as capital itself.

Better Tomorrow Ventures frequently positions itself as the type of investor its founders wished they had while building companies of their own. In venture capital, that perspective carries weight.

Why Founders Pay Attention

Building a fintech company is fundamentally different from building many other software businesses. Regulation, compliance, and trust all matter, and the consequences of getting any of them wrong can be severe.

A founder building financial infrastructure does not necessarily need the loudest investor in the room. More often, founders need investors who understand how financial systems actually work. That specialization helps explain why category-focused firms continue gaining relevance across venture capital.

As financial services become increasingly software-driven, founders are looking for investors who understand both technology and financial complexity. Better Tomorrow Ventures sits directly at that intersection, and the firm's continued activity, along with hiring momentum across venture-backed fintech companies, signals that investors still see substantial opportunities in the modernization of financial services infrastructure.

What This Signals for Venture Capital

The rise of specialist firms like Better Tomorrow Ventures reflects a broader shift inside venture capital. For years, scale and breadth were treated as advantages. Today, expertise increasingly functions as a competitive moat as founders seek investors who understand their markets and limited partners seek differentiated investment strategies.

Better Tomorrow Ventures is a product of that evolution. The firm's continued focus suggests that deep sector expertise remains valuable even as venture markets become more competitive. The message is straightforward: understanding a market often matters more than covering every market.

The Bigger Industry Shift

Financial services remains one of the largest sectors undergoing software transformation. Banking infrastructure continues evolving, embedded finance continues expanding, financial access continues broadening, and new financial products continue emerging from software-first companies rather than traditional institutions.

Better Tomorrow Ventures is not simply investing in fintech startups. The firm is investing in the continued modernization of financial infrastructure itself. That distinction helps explain why founders, operators, and investors continue paying attention.

The biggest opportunities in financial services are no longer limited to banks. Increasingly, they belong to the builders creating the systems behind them.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Better Tomorrow Ventures?

Better Tomorrow Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded in 2019 that invests primarily in pre-seed and seed-stage fintech companies.

Who founded Better Tomorrow Ventures?

Better Tomorrow Ventures was founded by Jake Gibson and Sheel Mohnot, both experienced fintech operators, founders, and investors.

What sectors does Better Tomorrow Ventures invest in?

The firm focuses on fintech, including payments, banking technology, embedded finance, lending, insurance technology, wealth management, financial infrastructure, and crypto-related financial systems.

What stage does Better Tomorrow Ventures invest at?

Better Tomorrow Ventures primarily invests at the pre-seed and seed stages, often partnering with founders before traditional venture metrics are fully established.

Why is Better Tomorrow Ventures considered a fintech specialist?

Unlike generalist venture firms, Better Tomorrow Ventures focuses almost exclusively on fintech, allowing the firm to develop deep sector expertise, founder networks, and market insight.

What investment thesis defines Better Tomorrow Ventures?

The firm believes software-driven infrastructure will continue reshaping financial services through programmable banking, embedded finance, modern financial platforms, and improved access to financial products.

Why does fintech infrastructure matter to investors?

Infrastructure companies often become foundational layers that enable entire ecosystems of financial products, creating long-term strategic value and market leverage.

What does hiring activity within fintech portfolios signal?

Portfolio hiring often signals company growth, product expansion, customer demand, and continued investor conviction within specific fintech categories.