Wharton Fintech Podcast

In our latest podcast, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) is joined by Chris Sugden, Managing Partner of Edison Partners. Edison Partners is a 32-year old tech investment firm specializing in fintech, healthcare, IT, and enterprise solutions with $1.6 B in AUM. Chris leads the firm's FinTech practice and has led 32 financings including 20 new investments and has served as a Director of 21 companies. In this extensive interview, Chris shares: • Edison's storied history investing in growth equity and the unique value it brings to entrepreneurs through Edison Edge • What he looks for when investing in entrepreneurs • Edison portfolio companies that are innovating across consumer banking, asset management, regtech, and payments • His views on the key themes shaping FinTech, including the impact of COVID-19 Prior to Edison, Chris held several roles at start-ups and began his career at PwC.

In this episode, Miguel Armaza is joined by Daniel Yu, Founder and CEO of Sokowatch, a B2B e-commerce platform with integrated financial services and logistics transforming access to essential goods for communities across Africa. With operations across Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda, Sokowatch provides free same-day delivery of essential goods to over 16,000 informal retail shops as well as additional services to help them grow. Daniel Yu is the founder and Global CEO of Sokowatch. Prior to founding Sokowatch, Daniel worked as a software developer for several early-stage startups in the US and attended the University of Chicago where he focused on International Studies and Linguistics before dropping out. Through his work with Sokowatch, Daniel has received international recognition as the winner of the Prince of Wales Young Entrepreneur Prize, designation by the White House as an Emerging Global Entrepreneur, and as one of Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs. Daniel has worked in or traveled to 60+

On this episode, Miguel Armaza moderates the Wealth Management and Investment panel as part of the Future of Banking Week, joined by three excellent guests: • Ed Robinson, President and co-founder of STASH, one of the fastest-growing consumer investing and banking platforms in the U.S., pioneering the future of personal finance. • Joe Percoco, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Titan, a digitally-native investment manager based in New York City backed by Y-Combinator, Box Group, Maverick, and others. • Ryan Finneran, Director of Investment Operations at Moneylion, a leading mobile finance platform offering consumer products for borrowing, saving, and investing. Ed, Joe, and Ryan are leading some of the most revolutionary Wealth Management platforms in the world. Although each company has its own distinct focus, we can find plenty of commonalities amongst them as they attempt to democratize asset management services. All three are reimagining financial services and using modern tools to create a delightful user ex

Miguel Armaza is joined by Kelvin Teo, Co-founder of Funding Societies (Modalku in Indonesia), the largest SME digital financing platform in Southeast Asia, licensed in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, and backed by Sequoia, Softbank, and many more. In four years, Funding Societies has helped finance over 2 million business loans with over $1 billion in funding. About Kelvin Kelvin Teo is the co-founder of Funding Societies. Selected as one of the Top 200 FinTech Influencers in Asia and appointed Co-Chairperson for the Marketplace Lending Committee of Singapore FinTech Association, Kelvin has spoken at major conferences such as LendIt Shanghai, Boao Hainan and Money20/20. He has also been featured on Bloomberg, BBC and Business Times. Prior to this, Kelvin served as a consulting professional at KKR, McKinsey and Accenture. Kelvin graduated from Harvard Business School and National University of Singapore, and is a certified Chartered Accountant. About Funding Societies Funding Societies | Modalku is the

In today's episode, Ines Gonzales Del Mazo sits down with Vinny Lingham, CEO of Civic. Civic is a personal identity protection and management service that allows banks, financial institutions, and other merchants to confirm the usage of social security numbers with the true owner of that number before creating new accounts. Vinny is a South African Internet entrepreneur who is the co-founder & CEO of Civic. He was previously the founder and CEO of Gyft (acquired by First Data Corporation in 2014 for over $50m) & Yola, Inc. He is also the co-founder of SiliconCape, an NGO based in South Africa that aims to turn Cape Town into a technology hub. Vinny was named one of the Top 500 CEOs in the world by Richtopia in 2015.

Miguel Armaza is joined by Tarek El Sheriff, Founder and CEO of Zinobe, a Colombian fintech specialized in online lending. Founded in 2012, Zinobe has made almost 1.3 million loans and uses technology to develop online credit products for consumers and small businesses. Zinobe has developed a data-centric credit model to help target underserved markets in Colombia. In 2020, Zinobe was the highest-ranked Colombian company on the FT's fast-growing companies ranking with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 100%.

In our latest episode of the Wharton Fintech podcast, Anchit Gupta (WG’21) is joined by Jared Hecht, Co-founder & CEO of Fundera, an online marketplace that matches SMB to lenders. Fundera is a financial-services marketplace for small businesses, helping connect business owners with the right lenders. Fundera is helping thousands of SMBs right now to help them navigate the chaotic Paycheck Protection Program application process. Since inception, Fundera has facilitated close to 3Bn USD financing for thousands of customers. Back in 2010, Jared also founded GroupMe, a popular group messaging app. GroupMe was a massive success with over 1 Mn users within a year and was eventually acquired by Microsoft and Skype. Prior to GroupMe, Jared worked as an early employee at Tumblr. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Columbia University Entrepreneurship Organization and is an investor and advisor to startups such as Codecademy, SmartThings and TransferWise. In this interview, Jared shares: - His backg

In our latest episode of the Wharton Fintech podcast, Miguel Armaza is joined by Sebastian Kanovich, CEO of dLocal, a 360 payments technology company which handles payins and payouts in emerging markets for some of the largest global e-commerce and marketplace companies, including Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, and Google. As the CEO of AstroPay, prior to dLocal, he grew the company into a premier cross-border payment-card provider that processed millions of transactions daily. Sebastián holds a Bachelor degree in Economics from Universidad ORT Uruguay. He also studied Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Management of Technology at Tel Aviv University, and completed a prestigious Endeavor Innovation and Growth Program at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He continues to be fascinated with how payments work around the world.

Miguel Armaza is joined by Alex Lazarow, Investment Director at Cathay Innovation, Kauffman Fellow, Professor, and recent author of Out-Innovate: How Global Entrepreneurs - from Delhi to Detroit - Are Rewriting the Rules of Silicon Valley (HBR Press). Out-Innovate: How Global Entrepreneurs - from Delhi to Detroit - Are Rewriting the Rules of Silicon Valley In recent memory, the concept of entrepreneurship has been popularized by the explosive success of Silicon Valley startups. While the Valley's framework of building lean startups that "move fast and break things" has done wonders in their ecosystem, this model hasn't necessarily translated to outside the Valley. In his book, Alex Lazarow explores the framework of dozens of successful entrepreneurs and investors from around the world, acknowledging that entrepreneurship is never a one size fits all approach. Out-Innovate comes out at an especially relevant time as the COVID-19 crisis threatens VC investing volumes in emerging markets. Armed with data and

In our latest podcast, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) sits down with Charlie Delingpole, the CEO and Founder of ComplyAdvantage. ComplyAdvantage is a FinTech start-up disrupting the compliance space using AI and machine learning to detect money laundering. In 5 years, Charlie has grown the company from 5 people in a garage to 250 employees with 500 customers in over 50 countries. Charlie is a successful serial entrepreneur, with this being his third venture. In this interview, Charlie shares: - The genesis of ComplyAdvantage and the opportunity that Charlie saw for a streamlined compliance experience - How ComplyAdvantage uses AI and ML to monitor bad actors and financial crime more effectively than traditional solutions - How bad actors are engaged in an "arms race" to change behavior in response to new innovations to stop them - The future vision for ComplyAdvantage - Lessons learned from Charlie's experience successfully scaling 2 previous ventures Prior to founding ComplyAdvantage, Charlie successfully f

Miguel Armaza is joined by Maelis Carraro, Director of Catalyst Fund and the Impact Ventures Practice at BFA Global. The Catalyst Fund is an inclusive fintech accelerator supporting early-stage inclusive startups with flexible capital, bespoke venture building support, and connections to investors and corporate innovators. Maelis Carraro is the Director of Catalyst Fund and the Impact Ventures Practice at BFA Global. She spent her career working alongside fintech startups, investors, banks and donors to pioneer tech and data-enabled solutions for underserved communities in emerging markets. She runs global accelerator-Catalyst Fund, supported by JP Morgan Chase & Co and the UK Department for International Development, and helped over 30 early-stage fintech startups create innovative and affordable solutions for underserved populations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Previously, Maelis worked at the International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group), advising financial institutions on digital innovation

In today's episode of the Wharton FinTech Podcast, Anchit Gupta sits down with Cathrine Andersen, Co-Founder and CEO of Roger.ai. Founded in 2017, Roger's accounting and finance automation technology help organizations automate time-consuming and expensive manual tasks like bookkeeping and expense management. Before Roger, Cathrine also founded Assemblage, which offered developers a solution to add real-time collaboration apps such as shared whiteboarding to their products. Assemblage was acquired by Cisco in 2014, where Cathrine then worked for 3 years in Innovation and Emerging Product Development. Cathrine holds a bachelor's degree from Copenhagen Business School and a Masters from University of Copenhagen. Cathrine was named to inc. magazine's Top 100 Female Founders in 2019.

In our latest podcast, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) is joined by Mike Vaughan. Mike is currently an Executive in Residence at Oak HC/FT, a leading venture capital firm investing in early to growth-stage companies in healthcare and fintech with ~$2 B in AUM. Prior to this role, Mike was the COO of Venmo, scaling the business from the ground floor to 40 M active users, a $300 M revenue run rate, and $100 B in payments in 2019. In this episode, Mike shares: - His background and why he jumped into entrepreneurship after graduating from Wharton - Lessons learned from the early days of Venmo - The key decisions that enabled Venmo to scale over time - Mike's focus at Oak HC/FT and his view on where the next wave of innovation will be in FinTech - Advice for those starting their careers in FinTech Over more than two decades, Mike has developed successful businesses across multiple industries, including three exits totaling >$1 B in market value. He currently serves as an independent board member and active advisor to s

Miguel Armaza is joined by David Vélez, Founder and CEO of Nubank, the largest independent digital bank in the world. Nubank has over 25 million clients and has raised $1.2 billion from some of the most prestigious venture capital funds in the globe, including Sequoia, Ribbit Capital, DST, Kaszek Ventures, and QED. David grew up in a family of Colombian entrepreneurs. The concept of being your own boss was engrained in him daily and he always thought he would launch a company at an early age. However, after graduating from Stanford University, he found himself lost at the thought of starting a venture. He didn't know where to even begin. So, he took a more traditional route and joined Morgan Stanley, which later led him to General Atlantic, to focus on growth equity. Armed with 5 years of investing experience, he went back to Stanford in 2010 to pursue an MBA. His goal was to leverage the MBA experience to find a business idea. However, shortly after starting school, he was approached by non-other than Sequ

Miguel Armaza is joined by Melbourne O’Banion, CEO and Co-Founder of Bestow, a digital life insurance company leveraging technology to make protection accessible and affordable. Bestow has received over $68 million in equity financing from Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, NEA, Morpheus Ventures, Core Innovation Capital, Abstract Ventures, Sammons Financial, 8VC. Melbourne O’Banion is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bestow, a digital life insurance company leveraging technology to make protection accessible and affordable. Through data-driven technology applications and innovative products, Bestow is changing the way life insurance is perceived and purchased. He is an entrepreneur and investor with expertise in fintech and direct-to-consumer businesses. Among his startups, he was a founding member of Presidio Title, a leading title insurance agency in Texas. He is also co-founder of Beauty Bioscience, a skincare line sold via TV shopping channels and luxury retailers. Melbourne is a member of the National Advisory Cou

Miguel Armaza is joined by Brad Paterson, CEO of SplitIt (ASX: SPT), a global payment platform that enables shoppers to pay installments via their credit cards, by splitting credit card purchases into interest and fee-free monthly payments. Splitit is a global payment platform that enables shoppers to pay installments via their credit cards, by splitting credit card purchases into interest and fee-free monthly payments. Splitit’s consumer solutions enable merchants to offer their customers an easy way to pay for purchases in monthly installments with instant approval, decreasing cart abandonment rates and increasing revenue. Splitit Business Payments allows manufacturers and suppliers to provide buyers with an interest-free, installment credit solution for purchasing goods and services utilizing their existing credit cards. Serving many of Internet Retailer’s top 500 merchants, Splitit’s global footprint extends to 27 countries around the world. Headquartered in New York, Splitit has an R&D center in Isra

In our latest episode of the Wharton Fintech podcast, Miguel Armaza is joined by Laura Spiekerman, She’s the Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Alloy, an operating system for identity in financial services, including KYC, AML and fraud. Laura Spiekerman is a cofounder and CRO at Alloy. Alloy's API enables financial services companies to better manage their digital onboarding and identity requirements, increasing conversion and reducing fraud for banks and fintechs alike. Alloy works with both fintech companies and banks, including Marqeta, Petal, Brex, Radius Bank and others. Alloy was recognized on the recent Forbes' Cloud 100 Rising Stars list and as one to the global Venture Radar Top 10 RegTech Startups. Prior to Alloy, Laura led Business Development & Partnerships at an ACH payments startup and was on the Research & Investment team at Imprint Capital Advisors (acquired by Goldman Sachs). Laura is a proud Barnard College alumna and lives in Oakland, California. Alloy is an operating system for iden

In today's episode of the Wharton FinTech podcast, Miguel Armaza is joined by David Gurle, Founder and CEO of Symphony, a financial services communications company that's helping individuals, teams and organizations of all sizes improve productivity, while meeting security and compliance needs. David Gurle is an author, inventor and visionary. David's ideas have influenced the major trends in consumer and enterprise communications and most recently secure collaboration technologies over the past two decades. He founded and ran Microsoft's unified communications products (Skype for Business) and as Global head of collaboration services at Thomson Reuters, introduced the first consumer-to-business federated communications to the financial services industry. After the sale of Skype to Microsoft where he was the GM of Skype's Enterprise Business, David founded and sold Perzo before founding Symphony. David sits on the Monetary Authority of Singapore's International Technology Advisory Panel, is regularly feature

In this episode, Ryan Zauk sits down with Stuart Sopp, Founder and CEO of Current. Current is a leading U.S. based challenger bank enabling access to affordable and premium financial services to people traditionally overlooked by the banking industry. After explosive growth serving essential workers during COVID-19, Current raised additional funding from Foundation Capital and is expected to reach 2 million customers by the end of 2020. From 1999 - 2014, Stuart spent his career as a senior trader developing financial systems and trading at Morgan Stanley, Citi, and Deutsche Bank. He started Current after recognizing that the growing inequality gap could be addressed through innovation in technology to improve financial outcomes for everyone. In this episode, Stuart discusses: - Current’s crucial contribution to the pandemic's frontline workers - Why banks have historically overlooked Current’s customers - What’s wrong with the phrase ‘choosing your investors’ - His view on the extremely competitive FinTe

On today’s episode of the Wharton FinTech Podcast, Ryan Zauk sits down with Ras Asan, Co-Founder of BREAUX Capital. BREAUX Capital is the first fintech built by and for Black Male Millennials. It is a cooperatively owned and operated financial technology company that provides a software platform and membership community to increase the financial wellness of Black millennials. They accomplish this through savings goals, dividends & revenue sharing, co-investing opportunities, education, community building, and much more. Ras and his team have been: - Named to INC Magazine’s 30 under 30 - Featured in The New York Times, Black Enterprise, The Associated Press, Time Magazine, BET, The Chicago Tribune, American Banker, CNN, Huffington Post, and more - Successfully pitched and secured investment from FUBU Founder and Shark Daymond John - And just announced a partnership with Lenovo In this episode, Ras discusses: - His background and motivations for starting BREAUX Capital - The obstacles his team faced along