Advisory / Execution / Investment
AY Partners is an advisory and investment firm. We work with leadership teams in payments, fintech, mobility, and digital commerce to set direction, build what matters, and deliver results. We partner with experienced leaders and operators to bring the right people to every engagement.
Focus
Five areas where operating experience matters more than a framework. Most engagements cut across more than one.
Corporate and product strategy, market entry, partnerships, and portfolio decisions. We help leadership teams choose a direction and commit to it, with a business case that holds up in the boardroom.
Product, network economics, and go-to-market for anyone moving money. That includes open payments in transit and mobility, where fare and payment systems now overlap.
Fraud strategy, detection design, controls, and loss reduction, along with the operating model behind the team. Trust is a growth lever when it is built properly.
Fractional and interim leadership at the product, operations, or risk level. We take a defined mandate and deliver it from inside your organization.
We have invested in public markets, startups, scaleups, and growth companies for more than a decade, and we are always looking at new opportunities. We back founders and teams in the sectors we understand, and we bring operating help, introductions, and a candid read on the market alongside capital.
Approach
Our advice comes from having done the work. AY Partners was founded by leadership with more than two decades in payments and digital banking, launching national products, building fraud programs, and running operations at scale, including bringing open payments to more than 15 transit agencies across Canada. We partner with other senior leaders and operators to deliver for our clients, so every engagement gets the mix of experience it actually needs.
We are headquartered in Toronto and work with clients wherever the problem is.
We have sat in the seat you are in. Recommendations are built to be executed, not admired.
You will hear what we think, including when the right answer is to stop, or that we are not the right fit.
We invest in the companies we believe in and structure engagements around results, not hours.
Engagements
Every engagement starts with a clear scope and a clear view of what lands and when. From there, the shape can change. A diagnostic often turns into ongoing advisory, and advisory can grow into an embedded mandate. We adjust to what the work needs.
A focused review of a strategy, a product line, a fraud program, or a payments system. Findings, options, and a recommended path, sized to be decided on.
WeeksOngoing counsel to a leadership team or board. Standing time each month, plus availability when a decision cannot wait.
OngoingFractional or interim leadership with real accountability for an outcome.
MonthsCapital and hands-on support for founders and growth companies. Send us what you are building.
Long termClients
Organizations where a strategy, payments, or risk decision carries real commercial weight.
Contact
One conversation is usually enough to know whether we are the right fit. If we are not, we will say so and point you somewhere better.