Episode
How Kudos built a consumer data moat on top of credit card rewards
- Published
- May 13, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1708
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://soundcloud.com/tearsheet/kudos
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/tearsheet-podcast-exploring-financial-services-together-463856/episodes/how-kudos-built-a-consumer-data-moat-on-top-of-credit-card-rewards/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/tearsheet-podcast-exploring-financial-services-together-463856/how-kudos-built-a-consumer-data-moat-on-top-of-credit-card-rewards.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
Most people leave money on the table every time they swipe — not because they're careless, but because the credit card rewards ecosystem is genuinely complicated. Thousands of cards, millions of merchants, shifting bonus categories, buried benefits. The promise of AI is that it can do that optimization work invisibly, in the background. Today I'm joined by Tikue Anazodo, co-founder and CEO of Kudos — an AI-powered smart wallet that tells you which card to use at checkout, recommends cards based on your spending habits, and layers on additional rewards on top of what your cards already earn. Kudos has raised over $17 million, is backed by QED Investors, and was named to Forbes' Fintech 50. Tikue, welcome to Tearsheet.