Dan Dall’Asta, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Citrine Venture Partners
Venture capital has shifted into a more selective phase. Capital is tighter, exit timelines are longer, and the expectations placed on early-stage companies have changed. At the same time, generative and agentic AI are reshaping how businesses are built, lowering costs and accelerating development cycles.
For Citrine Venture Partners co-founder Dan Dall’Asta, these forces signal now is the right moment to launch a new early-stage fund.
Citrine focuses on backing generational founders building capital efficient financial services companies designed for optimized exits. The firm’s approach reflects a broader shift in venture capital, where domain expertise, disciplined capital deployment, and pragmatic exit strategies are becoming increasingly important.
Below, Dall’Asta shares his perspective on how fintech is evolving, where the next opportunities lie, and what investors should watch.
A more selective venture market creates opportunity
The venture environment today looks very different from just a few years ago. While capital was abundant during the previous years, investors are now prioritizing discipline, capital efficiency, and clear paths to liquidity.
For Dall’Asta, this shift creates a compelling opportunity for focused, early-stage investors.
“Generative and agentic AI are ushering in a technology revolution and a secular economic shift that will profoundly change how all businesses are built and run,” he explains. “At the same time, a decade-long venture capital supercycle is now at its conclusion.”
These structural changes informed Citrine’s strategy. Rather than competing on scale, the firm is built around sector expertise and a boutique approach to venture capital.
“We independently came to the conclusion, based on our experience across financial services, that we could build a fund based on sectoral expertise, demonstrated partnership with incumbent institutions, and a boutique approach,” Dall’Asta says. “Citrine is designed to support generational founders building capital efficient businesses for optimized exits.”
The new buyers of financial technology
For much of the past decade, fintech startups primarily sold to banks and traditional financial institutions. That dynamic is now changing.
Following the financial crisis, a wave of challenger fintech companies emerged and reshaped the competitive landscape. These companies built multi-billion-dollar businesses and created a new generation of financial institutions.
“Businesses like Robinhood, Stripe, Block, Chime, Revolut, Plaid, Ripple, and Lemonade fundamentally changed how consumers and businesses interact with financial services,” Dall’Asta notes.
Now, these companies themselves have become incumbents. With large customer bases, complex operations, and growing stakeholder expectations, they increasingly resemble the institutions they once disrupted.
“They now need to watch their back for the next generation of startups,” he says.
This next generation benefits from a structural advantage. AI-native startups can build faster, with fewer resources, and address problems that previously required significant capital.
This shift is already visible in market activity. Dall’Asta points to increased acquisition activity among fintech leaders, particularly from companies expanding their capabilities through strategic M&A.
“We expect this structural technology advantage to allow a new generation of startups to solve problems that both the old guard and the new guard still struggle with,” he says.
Moving beyond disintermediation
While fintech innovation has accelerated over the past decade, much of the progress has focused on removing intermediaries rather than fundamentally redesigning financial infrastructure.
“The major players have become successful by getting rid of intermediaries, not necessarily by rewiring how the underlying mechanics of finance and insurance work,” Dall’Asta explains.
The next wave of innovation, he argues, will focus on rebuilding core infrastructure using horizontal technologies that are now reaching maturity.
“The promise of APIs, AI, blockchain, and crypto can now be applied to remove costs from the system and democratize access to financial products and services,” he says.
This shift signals a move from front-end innovation toward deeper operational transformation across financial services.
AI Is changing how fintech companies are built
Artificial intelligence is not only reshaping products. It is also changing how companies are built.
As development costs decline, more startups can launch quickly. This creates both opportunity and noise. In this environment, differentiation shifts away from technology alone.
“The competitive moat is no longer slick product or technology stacks,” Dall’Asta says. “It is domain expertise, intuition, and grit.”
According to Dall’Asta, founders with deep operational experience are best positioned to leverage AI effectively.
“Finding true use cases requires subject matter expertise. The strongest founders have spent years doing the hard operational work and know where to apply these new tools,” he explains.
This shift places greater emphasis on founder quality and industry knowledge, rather than purely technical execution.
Rethinking exit paths in a slower liquidity environment
Liquidity dynamics have also changed. IPO markets have slowed, and venture-backed companies are taking longer to exit. In this environment, Dall’Asta sees secondaries as an increasingly important tool for generating returns.
“Creating DPI and liquidity through secondaries is now just as viable as M&A or IPOs,” he says. “Smart investors will understand how to utilize private market demand without sacrificing too much upside.”
This strategy informs Citrine’s focus on pre-seed and seed investments, where ownership stakes can be meaningful.
“One of the reasons we focus on early-stage investing is to maintain optionality,” he explains. “Large ownership positions allow us to generate liquidity when appropriate, while still participating in long-term upside.”
Where the next generation of financial services companies will emerge
Looking ahead, Dall’Asta believes the most significant opportunities will emerge behind the scenes, where AI helps solve complex operational challenges.
“The next generation of companies will be built where AI helps subject matter experts fix the hardest problems, not just the front-end experience,” he says.
Citrine is particularly excited about three areas:
First, AI-native infrastructure for banks, insurers, and fintech companies. This includes underwriting, fraud detection, cybersecurity, and developer tools that replace manual processes and become embedded in decision-making.
Second, improvements to payments infrastructure. Real-time payments and stablecoins are creating new opportunities for orchestration, reconciliation, and treasury management tools.
Third, risk and compliance. As automation increases, explainability and regulatory alignment will become essential.
“Making AI systems explainable, fair, and audit-ready will be critical as regulators and boards become more involved,” Dall’Asta notes.
A more disciplined venture cycle
Venture capital is entering a more selective phase. Capital efficiency, ownership, and exit planning are becoming central considerations again.
For Dall’Asta, this creates an opportunity for focused early-stage investors. As AI reduces barriers to entry, founders with deep industry knowledge and investors with sector expertise are likely to stand out.
The result may be a different kind of fintech cycle. One defined less by rapid expansion and more by practical solutions to long-standing operational challenges across financial services.
