AI Insiders: Fintech & Payments

The Money Is Moving.

Stablecoins are replacing rails that took decades to build. Agentic wallets are making decisions that used to require humans. AI is underwriting loans, catching fraud before it happens, and moving money across borders in seconds.

The financial system is being rewritten in real time. The founders, operators, and investors leading the shift live in a few zip codes. On May 28, they are in one room.

This invite-only salon brings together curated fintech founders, payments operators, and investors inside Visa's Mission Rock headquarters during Fintech Week SF, to confront what's real, what's hype, and where AI-native financial infrastructure is actually heading.

AI Insiders is not a conference. It's a vertical intelligence network. Each edition is laser-focused on one sector. This one: Fintech & Payments.

Why This Night Matters

Everyone is talking about AI in finance. But the real questions are harder:

• Stablecoins are moving from crypto-native to mainstream. What regulatory framework actually holds, and what gets rebuilt from scratch?

• Agentic wallets can transact autonomously. Who owns the liability when an AI agent makes a payment it shouldn't have?

• AI-native underwriting is pricing risk faster than any human team. What does that mean for credit markets, insurance, and the century-old risk models they rely on?

• Cross-border payments that took days are settling in seconds. What does the banking stack look like when settlement is instant and programmable?

If you're building, funding, or deploying AI in financial services, this is the room where those answers take shape.

Headliners

• Cuy Sheffield, VP of Growth Products, VISA

• Luba Goldberg, SVP, Global Head of Product, VISA Direct

• David Hefter, Director, BlackRock

• Sasha Orloff, CEO, Puzzle

• Dasha Shunina, Forbes & Puzzle

• Sandeep Patil, Partner & Head of APAC, QED Investors

Program

4:30 PM — Check-In + Networking

5:00 PM — Opening Remarks

Merve Isler, CEO @Marvelous + Ecosystem Builder @AI Insiders

5:10 PM — Fireside: Cuy Sheffield, VP of Growth Products, VISA

5:30 PM — Panel: The Money Is Moving

• Luba Goldberg (SVP, VISA Direct)

• Sandeep Patil (QED)

• David Hefter (BlackRock)

• Moderated by Dasha Shunina (Forbes, Puzzle)

6:00 PM — Fireside: From Startup to Scale-Up

• Sasha Orloff (CEO, Puzzle)

A founder’s journey through fundraising, regulatory approvals, and scaling in fintech.

6:30 PM — Startup Showcase

A Top 5 Fintech x AI startups. 5 minutes each. Rapid-fire demos to 150 fintech decision-makers. https://aiinsiders.us/showcase

• BraidPay - Hadi Mahboob

• BlueCash AI - Arthur Mrozowski

• Snaplii - Spencer Xu

• FinAIQ Pro Holdings - Ravi Gunda

• NexDiscovery - Jeremy Vince

6:55 PM — Networking Reception

Craft cocktails, wine, beer, elevated bites, and high-trust networking, live music experience.

8:30 PM — Event Closes

We offer both sponsored and invited showcase slots. Whether you're ready to invest in visibility or want to earn your spot on merit, we want to hear from you.

​Who this is for

We’re curating a cross-section of decision-makers who can actually move the field forward:

• 40% Founders & CTOs: builders shipping AI-native payments, lending, compliance, and cross-border infrastructure

• 25% Enterprise payments leaders: budget holders from banks, card networks, and infrastructure providers evaluating the next generation of tools

• 20% Investors: fintech-focused VCs from seed to growth, plus corporate strategic funds, with enough capital in the room to spark deals, not enough to turn the night into a pitchfest

• 15% Operators, ecosystem & media: GTM leaders scaling financial products, plus the narrative makers who amplify signal while keeping privileged conversation off the record

Private, curated. Request access; every name is vetted for trust and impact.

Speaker Highlights

Cuy Sheffield (Visa) is VP of Growth Products at Visa and one of the most influential voices in crypto and payments innovation. He previously led Visa's global crypto product team, driving the company's stablecoin settlement capabilities and blockchain partnerships. A fellow at the Visa Economic Empowerment Institute and co-chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Cryptocurrencies, Cuy joined Visa through its acquisition of TrialPay in 2015 and co-founded Pomona Ventures, a student-run accelerator at Pomona College.

Luba Goldberg (Visa) is SVP and Global Head of Product for Visa Direct, Visa's real-time push payments platform powering cross-border remittances and money movement globally. She has spent over 15 years at Visa, rising from corporate strategy associate to SVP, and previously held investment banking roles at Stifel Nicolaus. She holds a degree from McGill University and brings deep expertise in business strategy, financial modeling, and payments product development.

Sasha Orloff (Puzzle) is a 3x founder and CEO of Puzzle, the modern accounting platform bringing real-time financial intelligence to startups. His previous company LendUp raised over $1 billion in venture capital and debt. Inspired by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, he spent years at the Grameen Foundation in Honduras, the World Bank's CGAP, and Citigroup before building in fintech. He holds a B.S. in Applied Math and Economics from UCSD and an MBA from Georgetown, and hosts the a16z Tech Finance Podcast.

Dasha Shunina (Puzzle) leads community, partnerships, and GTM at Puzzle. She is a Venture Capital Contributor to Forbes and Founder of Women Tech Meetup, a 5,000+ member community of female founders and women in tech with monthly events across SF, NYC, and Miami co-hosted with partners like Microsoft, Google, Brex, and Gusto. Previously, as Head of International Startups Relations at Skolkovo Innovation Center, she launched a global soft-landing program attracting 234 companies from 55 countries.

Sandeep Patil (QED Investors) is a Partner and Head of Asia-Pacific at QED Investors, where he has deployed over $250 million backing fintech founders across APAC. Before QED, he was CEO and MD of Truecaller India, scaling the 250M+ user platform to over $100 million in revenue and profitability in three years, paving the way for its Nasdaq Stockholm IPO. At Flipkart, he helped engineer the $4 billion fundraise and $21 billion Walmart acquisition while scaling the fintech division to 1.3 million borrowers. He holds a B.Tech from IIT Mumbai and an MBA from London Business School.

David Hefter (BlackRock) is a Director at BlackRock and the firm's AI Champion for Private Markets Investing, leading AI strategy and adoption across both public and private market portfolios. With 20+ years at BlackRock spanning Aladdin and Investments, he chairs the AI governance committee, produces a firmwide weekly AI newsletter, led the rollout of Microsoft Copilot across the organization, and has onboarded cutting-edge AI vendors and in-house proof-of-concept builds. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Economics from Columbia University.

What to expect

• This is not a mega-conference. It's a carefully designed evening to go deep with the right people.

• A keynote from Visa's VP of Growth Products on the future of payments and programmable money

• A candid panel with leaders from Visa Direct, BlackRock, and QED Investors on where capital is actually flowing

• A founder fireside on scaling from zero to $1B+ in fintech

• Curated startup showcase with live demos from AI-native fintech companies

• High-trust networking with a vetted guest list inside Visa HQ

You'll leave with:

• New collaborators and dealflow

• A clearer view of what's real and what's hype in AI-native financial infrastructure

• Concrete ideas you can take back to your company, fund, or product roadmap

Thanks to our event partner: VISA

Community Supporters: Citizens Private Bank and Puzzle

Powered by Marvelous

• Past partners: AWS, Silicon Valley Bank, Swissnex, Verizon Innovation Lab.

• Past media coverage: Reuters, Business Insider, Yahoo Finance, Morningstar.

• Past speakers and partners from: a16z, Greylock, Menlo Ventures, Ballistic Ventures, Rain Capital, CRV, FBI, Stanford, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, DeepMind, and more.

Past events: https://lu.ma/agenticai | https://lu.ma/csecurity

If you’d like to explore a sponsorship & partnership during Fintech Week SF: https://aiinsiders.us/partnerships

• or email: [email protected]

Tell us who you are, what you’re working on, and what kind of connections would make this evening a win for you.

About AI InsidersAI Insiders is a Reuters-covered, a curated series of curated gatherings for AI founders, investors, and industry leaders. We design high-trust rooms around specific verticals like media, cybersecurity, fintech, and healthcare, combining intimate events, startup showcases, and partnerships with leading ecosystems in San Francisco and beyond. Our mission is to turn “AI hype” into real collaborations, pilots, and deals.

Attendance & Registration

• Limited to 150 curated attendees

• Government ID or passport required for entry

• Must be registered and approved

• Venue policies apply

Code of Conduct: All speakers and guests are expected to engage respectfully and professionally.