SAN FRANCISCO, May 06, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Restive Ventures, the early-stage venture firm, announced the close of its third fund, Restive Fund III, with $45 million in committed capital, reinforcing its conviction in a new category of AI-native financial services companies reshaping the global financial system.
Financial services is poised to be one of the markets most transformed by large language models. AI-native startups are not simply improving legacy fintech systems but are building entirely new products, workflows, and outcomes across payments, commerce, and financial operations. These companies are reaching scale faster, with less capital, while addressing a broader set of problems than ever before. Fund III takes advantage of these shifts. Restive continues to focus on writing the first check into ambitious founders at the earliest stages, maintaining a concentrated, high-conviction strategy designed for performance in an AI-driven market.
“Financial services are being rebuilt from the ground up,” said Ryan Falvey, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Restive Ventures. “AI is enabling entirely new categories that didn’t exist before. We expect AI to add $1T in new financial services revenue over the next decade, and we intend to back the founders who are pursuing this opportunity early. Building on the success of our investing in AI companies starting in previous funds, we want to continue to be their first check and most helpful partner.”
“Smaller, disciplined funds drive stronger returns, and our strategy is simple: stay concentrated, stay early, and be helpful,” says Tyler Griffin, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Restive.
Fund III has attracted a mix of returning limited partners and new institutional investors, including endowments and global asset managers. Restive also saw significant demand from strategic partners across banking, insurance, payments, and technology, all seeking to increase their exposure to breakthrough investments and better understand AI’s structural impact on financial systems.
Fund III builds on Restive’s track record of concentrated investing. The firm’s 2019 Fund I is currently marked at 6.3x and its 2021 Fund II at 4x.
Restive’s portfolio provides early proof of this strategy. The firm has backed one company that has gone public, two unicorns, and dozens more raising hundreds of millions in follow-on capital. This momentum is continuing in Fund III, with Hiro, a Fund III portfolio company, recently announcing its acquisition by OpenAI just three months after emerging from stealth, a signal of how quickly AI-native companies are creating value.
About Restive
Restive is an early-stage venture firm focused on AI-native financial services, backing founders building the infrastructure and applications redefining how financial systems operate. The team partners with early-stage entrepreneurs with an unrelenting vision to build category-defining companies, providing capital, deep operational expertise, and a highly curated network to help them launch and scale quickly. Restive invests across areas such as agentic payments, autonomous underwriting, and AI-driven financial operations, believing these systems will define how capital moves, risk is assessed, and financial decisions are made in the coming decade. Learn more at Restive Ventures or follow Restive on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Kathy Osborne
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