Not Fintech Investment Advice: Natural, Sky Fusion, Quarters, El Dorado

Welcome back to Not Fintech Investment Advice, where Simon Taylor and I do what we do best: talk about companies we're absolutely not giving investment advice on! First up is Natural, an AI agent orchestration layer for payments that just raised a $30M Series A. We explore its wallet architecture (which uses account structure itself as a guardrail for what agents can and can't do), and why a liability framework is still missing once payments move beyond its own network. Next is Sky Fusion, which puts small AI data centers inside people's homes, financed just like rooftop solar. We talk through the appeal of distributed compute over another giant data center nobody wants nearby, and the underwriting risk that already tripped up a wave of residential solar lenders. Then there's Quarters, a home savings rewards platform that inverts the Bilt model: instead of housing spend driving everyday purchases, everyday purchases drive housing spend, with rewards redeemable only through partners for rent, deposits, down payments, or moving costs. Finally, we close with El Dorado, a stablecoin platform with over a million consumer users across 13 countries and a fast-growing SMB base (like Bolivian import/exporters locked out of affordable dollars by the correspondent banking system). We explore stablecoins as a workaround for national monetary control, and why a physical branch is as consequential as the tech. Plus, some manifestations throughout (Simon willing Quarters toward its target renter niche, and yours truly wishing El Dorado's model into full compliance). --- This episode is brought to you by Ocrolus.  Better lending starts with better intelligence. A borrower's cash flow only tells half the story, so Ocrolus fills in the rest with behavior signals and industry benchmarking. Visit https://www.ocrolus.com/ for more.  --- Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Simon: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sytaylor/ Substack: https://sytaylor.substack.com --- Companies featured: https://www.natural.com/  https://www.skyfusion.ai/  https://myquarters.ca/  https://eldorado.io/en