BNPL has already exploded though, but good call. Klarna is down about 90% in the private markets, Affirm about the same from all time high.
Another good candidate is "AI-powered" insurance i.e Lemonade.
Another good candidate is "AI-powered" insurance i.e Lemonade.
Speaking generally, insurance was one of the first industries to deploy technology effectively in their core business. They are still doing that.
The issue with companies like Lemonade is that they are rebranding the same product as "AI" (afaik, Lemonade is just taking share by offering cheaper prices...doesn't sound quite as appealing as "AI").
They likely also have lower costs due to eliminating the middle men whose job is to translate text on the screen into words spoken to a customer.
So their lower costs could actually be legitimate.
First, it was phones. This happened in the early 90s. Then it was internet which was largely finished by the early 2010s. The only exception for this is that online price-comparison websites have added back some distribution costs...but you still need to spend on marketing if you are online (generally speaking, online ads aren't cheap, I know insurers in my market that have moved away from price-comparison/online advertising because of the cost).
Large insurance carriers (think Geico, etc) with enough market share (and captive agents) have the vertical integration that eliminates the middle men, but there is a whole world of insurance that most people don't realize each taking their cut.
Credit score&history, income, capital.. go.
Most of what BNPL actually turned out to be was just dumb money.
Wonder whether we will ever see the actual datasets that BNPL founders saw that made them decide it is a safe business. Probably like you said ZIRP,bullmarket delinquency percentages.
It makes more sense for a large retailer to run it themselves, though; there's not necessarily any value in a dedicated company selling it straight to customers.
To track private markets you either need to basically know someone in VC/PE and just ask for a specific company you are interested in, or use something like Pitchbook. The first option is much better, as you can get an estimate of prices even when deals aren't getting done(i.e a VC/PE person can tell you how much they would pay for X company even when X company isn't raising).