🎙️ Chicago Futurist Vol. 12 with Daniel Muller, Founder and CEO of Aeropay

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Daniel Muller saw something most people missed while building mobile products at GPShopper: payments hadn’t kept up. They were still slow, expensive, and opaque. That insight led him to start Aeropay, a Chicago company building a simpler, more direct way for money to move.

Pay by bank isn’t replacing cards overnight, but it’s winning where margins, speed, and scale matter most, and Dan’s bet is starting to pay off as businesses demand faster, more predictable access to their money.

Here’s our conversation:

DM: At GPShopper we were building world-class mobile experiences for major brands. But behind the scenes, the money part hadn't caught up. Payments were still expensive, opaque, and slow. It clicked for me when I realized banks already had the trust and the connectivity.

Nobody had built the right infrastructure on top of them. Pay by bank existed globally, but in the U.S. it had never been done in a way that actually worked for businesses at scale. So we built it.

DM: Those early conversations taught me that trust matters more than features. A lot of our first customers were cash-dependent businesses that had been burned before. 

They didn't want a pitch. They wanted someone to show up, be straight with them, and actually deliver. That's what shaped Aeropay's DNA. We guarantee payments and own the risk. The product had to be as dependable as it was built for scale.

DM: COVID compressed years of digital adoption into months. Cash disappeared overnight, card costs kept climbing, and suddenly merchants were laser focused on liquidity and when money actually hit their account.

At the same time, consumers got a lot more comfortable linking bank accounts for everyday payments. We had already built the infrastructure. The market just finally caught up to what we knew was needed. Pay by bank went from an alternative to essential.

DM: These industries have zero tolerance for payment failure. If a transaction doesn't go through or a payout is delayed, you lose the customer right there.

That pressure makes them great partners. They pushed us on instant settlement, guaranteed funds, and compliance in ways that made our infrastructure stronger. Winning in gaming and cannabis proved something important: pay by bank can operate reliably at scale in the most regulated environments in the country. If it works there, it works anywhere.

Instant settlement changes everything about how businesses and consumers relate to money. For businesses, it means better cash flow and less reliance on credit. For consumers, it builds confidence and a sense of control over their own money.

Once you've experienced instant access to funds, waiting two to three days feels like a bug, not a feature. That's the shift we're seeing. And once expectations change, they don't go back.

DM: Fundraising taught me that consistency is everything. Investors are pattern matchers. They want to see that you say what you're going to do, and then you do it. Every round we've raised has been built on that. Our Series B, a $20M round led by Group 11, came on the back of 10x revenue growth and crossing $1B in annual processing volume. Those numbers opened doors, but what kept investors engaged was the discipline behind them.

Building the right board has been just as important as the capital itself. The right board members push you to think in decades, not quarters. In payments, shortcuts are expensive. You want people in the room who understand that.

DM: AI is only as good as the data behind it. In payments, that means real transaction history, real risk signals, and real accountability. We use it to improve acceptance rates, catch risk earlier, and reduce false positives without ever compromising on compliance.

The hype around AI is real, but so is the risk of building on top of it carelessly. In payments, hype creates fragility. Practical AI creates resilience.

DM: Chicago doesn't get enough credit. This city helped build the markets that power global finance, and that same foundation is fueling a new generation of companies creating what comes next. 

You can feel the crossover between traditional finance and fintech taking shape in real time. Topstep, Bitnomial, and NinjaTrader are pushing innovation in trading. Zero Hash and CoinFlip redefining digital assets. M1 and Halo Investing modernizing wealth management. Even CME Group partnering with FanDuel to bring prediction markets to life. The momentum here is real.

Where Chicago needs to do better is retaining companies once they start scaling. The early stage ecosystem is strong. But growth stage capital and the talent that comes with it still drifts toward the coasts.  

The foundation is already here with decades of market expertise, risk management, and infrastructure. Founders and institutions that understand how money actually moves. That's not something you can manufacture. 

The future Chicago is an infrastructure driven fintech hub. Not an up-and-coming story. The real thing.

DM: Ten years from now, the American payments stack will look more like the rest of the world. Modular, flexible, and built around optionality. Cards don't go away, but they're no longer the default for every transaction. Pay by bank will operate alongside them as a primary rail for everyday commerce.

Aeropay sits at the infrastructure layer of that future. We power secure, compliant account to account payments that businesses can rely on long term. We’ve been building that since day one.

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