Charge Forward

Charge Forward advises software companies and their investors on embedded finance: whether to add payments or lending to a product, what the roadmap looks like, and which providers to work with. It positions itself as independent — its own site argues its analysis can be trusted precisely because it is not selling a payments stack — and publishes guides, research datasets, benchmarks, a vendor directory, a podcast and a weekly newsletter called The Take Rate alongside the advisory work. Jane Podbelskaya founded it and is managing partner; she previously spent more than five years as a growth investor at Georgian and worked at Bain. She delivered a lightning talk at TechTO's fintech market overview during Toronto Tech Week 2026, arguing that software companies embedding financial services trade at a premium to pure SaaS and that half of North American small businesses now get payment capability from software rather than a bank.