BANK ON IT

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify and iHeartRadio In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Atish Davda,  Co-Founder and CEO of EquityZen.  EquityZen is a marketplace for investing in private tech companies backed by top-tier venture capital firms. Shareholders in private companies now have a way to get cash in exchange for their illiquid equity. To date, EquityZen has completed 4800+ transactions in over 100 pre-IPO companies.  EquityZen has investors such as Draper Associates, ZenStone Venture Capital, WorldQuant Ventures, Vaidya Capital Partners and raised over $11 Million to date.     Tune in and Listen.   Subscribe now to hear next Tuesdays interview with Jared Hecht from Fundera.   About the host:  

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Luvleen Sidhu,  Co-Founder and President of BankMobile.  She started her banking career at Lehman Brothers and on her first day after 6 weeks of training was the beginning of it’s collapse.  Now she’s a co-founder at BankMobile, a company that provides a mobile first banking experience which has 1.6 million accounts and is the offspring of Customers Bank in Pennsylvania.     Tune in and Listen.   Subscribe now to hear next Tuesday’s interview with Atish Davda from EquityZen.   About the host:   John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite at the Carpenter Group offices, which is a strategic brandin

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Chris Britt Co-Founder and CEO of Chime.  Chime is a  U.S. challenger bank and technology company. Chime has received well over $100,000,000 funding to date from investors such as Omidyar, Forerunner Ventures, Cathay Innovation and Menlo Ventures.     Tune in and Listen.   Subscribe now to hear next Thursday’s interview with Luvleen Sidhu from BankMobile.   About the host:   John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite at the Carpenter Group offices, which is a strategic branding and positioning firm in the financial services industry. He's a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services i

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech.   You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio   In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Ali Hamed Co-Founder and managing partner of CoVenture. Coventure is an asset management firm that manages funds across Venture Capital, Credit, and Crypto.  Coventure has a unique model of investing it’s engineering know-how into interesting companies that don’t have the technical resources needed, in return those companies provide equity to CoVenture.   Tune in and Listen.   Subscribe now to hear next Tuesday’s interview with Chris Britt from Chime. About the host:  John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite at the Carpenter Group offices, which is a strategic branding and positioning firm

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Stuart Sopp Founder and CEO of Current. Current is a financial technology company that provides collaborative banking solutions, starting with a smart debit card and app for parents to provide better financial education for their kids.  Stuart’s journey from Forex (foreign exchange) to Current is a unique and interesting one.     Tune in and Listen.   Subscribe now to hear Thursday’s interview with Ali Hamed from CoVenture.   About the host:   John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite at the Carpenter Group offices, which is a strategic branding and positioning firm in the financial services ind

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech.   You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio   In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Sohail Prasad Co-founder and President of Equidate. Equidate is a stock market for private companies and Sohail’s journey from past companies to creating Equidate is fascinating.     Tune in and Listen.   Subscribe now to hear next Tuesday’s interview with Stuart Sopp from Current.   About the host:   John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite at the Carpenter Group offices, which is a strategic branding and positioning firm in the financial services industry. He's a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He’s in the center of the fintech eco

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech.  You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Dan Vene Co-founder and managing partner of iCapital network.  iCapital Network is a powerful financial technology platform that provides modular alternative investment solutions for registered investment advisers, broker-dealers, private banks, family offices and other sophisticated investors.  Dan was the founder and CEO of Earnings.com a company acquired by Thomson Financial (Thomson Reuters).   Tune in and Listen.   Subscribe now to hear next Thursday’s interview with Sohail Prasad from Equidate.   About the host:   John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite at the Carpenter Group offices, w

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech.   You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio   In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Emily Steele,President, North America at Temenos.   Emily has worked at startups and joined Temenos through an acquisition.  Temenos is a large global banking core which had the foresight 25 years ago to develop an open API ecosystem in a time and place where other cores didn’t.  Emily is a well respected leader and understands banking as it sits today and where it’ll be tomorrow.   Tune in and Listen.   Subscribe now to hear next Tuesday’s interview with Dan Vene from iCapital Network.   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite at the Carpenter Group offices, which is a str

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech.   You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio   In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Bill Capuzzi from Apex Clearing.   Peak6 Investments and Penson Worldwide Inc. announced the creation of Apex in June of 2012. Prior to joining Apex as CEO, Bill initially tried to acquire it.   Today Apex is growing with hundreds of employees and during the interview Bill shared his view on developing the company culture.   Tune in and Listen.   Subscribe now to hear Thursday’s interview with Emily Steele from Temenos.   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Dee Choubey , co-founder & CEO at MoneyLion.  MoneyLion was built on the hypothesis that consumers would pay in (personal) data and social capital to save on their banking fees and lower loan rates.   That hypothesis bundled with the question “how can we lend to customers that banks won’t”? Is what MoneyLion was built for. MoneyLion now has well over 100 employees and 3 million users.     Tune in and Listen. Subscribe now to hear Tuesday’s interview with William Capuzzi from Apex Clearing. About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech.   You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio   In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Phill Rosen, co-founder & CEO at Even Financial.   Phill was previously a co-founder at Orchard Platform, which was acquired by Kabbage in April 2017.  John & Phill discussed raising money for new ventures, company culture, increasing employee interaction and how banking customers won’t use a banking app like BOFA’s (as an example) to find the financial service products that they want.  Instead he feels that financial services products are a transactional thing that people engage with in order to get the things that they want to when and where they want to get it. That ecosystem is the transactional transportati

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech.   You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio   This is an extended interview.   In this episode the host John Siracusa chats with Brett Crosby from PeerStreet and co-founder of Google Analytics. Brett co-founded a company called Urchin software which was acquired in April 2005 by Google and morphed into Google Analytics.   He was on his honeymoon during his first day at google and he talked about how everything in his life changed during the 15 minutes he was about to walk the aisle to do his wedding vows. He talked about google a bit and he discussed in detail how after creating a business case for a two sided mortgage investment platform (soon to be PeerStreet) they went to Michael Burry (Christian Bale’s charact

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio These interviews took place during Boston fintech week, in this episode we share highlights from a group of speakers from the event.  In this episode are Anders Brownworth from Circle, Devon Sherman from MassChallenge,  Jean Donnelly from Fintech Sandbox, Meredith Moss from Finomial, Monda Webb from Earnup, Chris Albrecht from Openfin, Greg Woolf from Coalesce.ai and Chris Lustrino from KingsCrowd.     Tune in and Listen. Subscribe now to hear Thursday’s interview with Brett Crosby from Peerstreet and co founder of Google Analytics.     About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after finte

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio These interviews took place during Boston fintech week, in this episode John talks with Ron Shevlin, Christina Qi from Domeyard, Jennifer Lum from Forge.AI and Mario Hernandez from Impesa. Ron has the pulse of banking and fintech partnerships and he feels that bank/fintech partnerships are not the answer to question about fintech.  Instead he feels fintech assimilation is. He feels based on research that people don’t want financial health, they want financial performance. Christina is a brilliant entrepreneur and is currently on the Forbes 30 under 30 list.  John and Christina talk about the lack of speed in AI and the importance of Quant engineering.   Jennifer is on he

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode John talks with Fawce, Co Founder & CEO of Quantopian.  This is one of a few interviews that we recorded on site during Boston fintech week.  Fawce talked on how he went from working in his shed to raising $48,000,000 in venture funding.  It all started with a question that he asked himself constantly and couldn’t not answer which was, what if firms could break the 150 Quant limit which seems to be a long lasting self imposed ceiling, instead, what if they could have 10,000?  The implications could change everything. This guiding question if answered could empower firms to get thousands of the smartest people in the world to focus on a particular firms

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode John talks with Mike Massaro, CEO of Flywire.  This is one of a few interviews that we recorded on site during Boston fintech week.  In this episode Mike shared a story that is basically every business leader’s worst nightmare.  After burning through $6,000,000 and having the company close to bottoming out, Mike was extremely close to relaying that information to one of his most important stakeholders; his wife. Luckily (luck being defined as dedication and focus) and against all odds he was able to raise an A round that kept the company afloat and on track to the giant it is today.  Mike admitted that it was mis-allocation of funds that was the result of cha

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode, John talks with Mazy Dar from Openfin, Openfin is an operating system for financial desktops.  12 of the top 15 global banks in the world use Openfin today It took 3 years after founding Openfin before they got their first major bank customers. Mazy shared an amazing story on how Openfin started to really come together when he talked with Matt Harris from Bain Capital about the challenge that Mazy and Chuck  faced in order to get the top global banks on the platform.  The advice was spot on, but its Mazy and Chuck’s response to Matt’s point to what makes Openfin great.  Matt came back in 2014 and joined their A round. Mazy added that it was clearly the best

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode, John talks with James Waldinger, Founder and CEO of Artivest.  James was able to raise a $2,000,000 seed round with a Power Point back in 2012, now Artivest currently has about 100 employees.  Before that he was an analyst on Peter Thiel's initial Facebook investment team and from the research Peter decided to invest $500,000, after the Facebook IPO he sold about 17,000,000 shares grossing $638,000,000.  James was part of that team which put that deal together and he discusses this during the interview in this episode.   James Waldinger LinkedIn - Twitter Artivest LinkedIn - Twitter   Subscribe now to hear Tuesday’s interview with Mazy Dar from Openfin.   A

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode, John talks with Dhruv Bansal, Co-Founder and CSO of Unchained Capital.  Unchained Capital is a crypto secured loan provider. During the episode Dhruv said “You can't control volatility but you can trade it back and forth with their borrowers”  which is what makes the whole system work. During the interview Dhruv shared an amazing period of time during Unchained Capital's life.  Bitcoin had a 70% draw-down from December 2017 until March 2018 and Unchained Capital had to margin call 90% of their loans but not a single borrower defaulted.  He went on to explain why and it was very interesting.   Dhruv Bansal LinkedIn - Twitter Unchained Capital LinkedIn - Twi

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode, John talks with Will Rhind, founder and CEO of GraniteShares.  They discuss in detail the nuances of organically growing a fintech from nothing to gaining capital from some amazing investors like, Bain Capital, Clocktower Technology Ventures and LG Capital to name a few.   They also discussed things like crypto etfs and how and when they’ll come about.   William Rhind LinkedIn - Twitter GraniteShares LinkedIn - Twitter   Subscribe now to hear Tuesdays interview with Dhruv Bansal from Unchained Capital.   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It” podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financ