Wharton Fintech Podcast

Miguel Armaza sits down with the very genuine Raul Vazquez, CEO of Oportun, a Nasdaq-listed company that provides responsible consumer credit. Founded 15 years ago, Oportun has extended more than 4 million loans and over $10 billion in affordable credit. Raul has been Oportun’s CEO since 2012 and previously served as CEO of Walmart.com. Currently, he also serves on the board of Intuit and the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders. He is also a proud MBA graduate of our very own Wharton School. In this episode, we discuss - Raul’s fascinating story and how the oldest son of Mexican immigrants became the CEO of a publicly traded company - Oportun’s digital and retail hybrid approach and the importance of being a mission-driven company - The reasons why about 100 million people are not fully served by the US mainstream financial system and what Oportun is doing about it - Reflections of taking Oportun public and a deep dive into their IPO process - The power of compassionate leadership, mana

Miguel Armaza sits down with the fascinating David Nangle is CEO of Vostok Emerging Finance, an investment company listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market in Sweden that invests in growth stage private fintech companies across the emerging world. Born and raised in Ireland, Dave has spent his career focused on emerging markets having worked in places like Moscow and London, and has backed some of the top fintech names across Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, India, Kenya, and beyond. Some of VEF’s current and past portfolio companies include Creditas, Konfio, JUMO, and Tinkoff. In this fun episode, we discuss: - David’s story and why he quit his London job and moved to Moscow in the early 2000s without speaking a word of Russian - Advantages of being a publicly listed firm with a permanent capital structure - The incredible investment opportunities within fintech in emerging markets - Why VEF actually invests harder and doubles down during volatile periods and how he even closed a deal in Turkey in the middle of

Miguel Armaza sits down with Tosin Osibodu, Co-Founder and CEO of Chaka, a Nigerian digital investment platform that is bringing access to trade over 4000 Nigerian and US stocks. Tosin is a fintech veteran, serial entrepreneur and also a proud alum of our very own Wharton School. In this episode, we discuss: - Chaka’s journey and what it means to be the first Nigerian Fintech to receive a license by the Securities & Exchange Commission of Nigeria (SEC). - Challenges and opportunities of building startups in emerging markets - The amazing state of fintech in Africa and why these are the early days of a tech revolution - Entrepreneurial lessons … and a lot more! Chaka Chaka is a technology solutions company on a mission to enable every business and person in Africa to access borderless digital investment and wealth management opportunities. The Chaka team combines investment expertise and best-in-class technology to provide reliable digital Investing, trading and wealth management solutions that are easy-

Miguel Armaza sits down with the legendary tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Fabrice Grinda, Founding Partner at FJ Labs, a stage-agnostic Venture Capital fund that focuses on marketplaces and consumer-facing startups. Born and raised in France, Fabrice is amongst the world’s leading tech leaders. As an investor, he has over 250 exits on almost 700 investments. With impressive investments such as Alibaba, Lending Club, Delivery Hero, Betterment, Klarna, Stripe, Palantir and Rappi. As an entrepreneur, Fabrice co-founded OLX, one of the largest websites in the world with over 300 million unique visitors per month. Having previously founded Zingy and Aucland, two highly successful sites. In this fun episode, we discuss: - Fabrice’s fascinating background - Investing during COVID - why FJ labs never stopped writing checks during the pandemic and why early-stage investing is actually better during crises - FJ Labs’ investing strategy and the kind of team and company they look for - Why he loves b

Anirudh Singh sits down with Adam Green, co-Founder and CEO of YieldX. In this episode they discuss: - Adam's experience at MoneyLion - Founding something new at YieldX - Lessons learned from growing during the pandemic - Arbitraging Spice Girls concert tickets And more! Adam Green: Adam Green is a technology innovator, founder and capital markets veteran. He is currently the CEO and co-Founder of YieldX, a breakthrough technology infrastructure that is reimagining fixed income. The company launched in October, 2020 and is helping institutional clients democratize fixed income access, analytics portfolio construction and optimization capabilities via an API-driven, modular technology platform. Prior to that, Adam was a co-Founder at MoneyLion. Founded in 2013, MoneyLion provides a mobile and financial membership platform that empowers users to take control of their personal finances. In his work as a founder, Adam has collected deep experience in conceptualizing, funding, scaling and monetizing businesses,

Miguel Armaza sits down with the talented Mary Ann Azevedo, Senior Reporter at TechCrunch covering all things Fintech and Latin America Tech. Mary Ann is a seasoned reporter, who’s been covering tech for 25 years! She’s seen and heard it all and this was a great conversation where we cover a ton of ground, including: - Mary Ann’s writing and creative process - Some of the biggest trends she’s seeing in the fintech space - Managing the insane volume of industry news on a daily basis - The main differences between US-based entrepreneurs and Latin American founders - Have you ever wondered what goes behind the screen at Techcrunch HQ? We cover that too! - Plus, tips and best practices to pitch a story to a reporter and some things you should absolutely avoid doing - ... and a lot more! Mary Ann Azevedo Mary Ann Azevedo has more than 20 years of business reporting and editing experience for publications such as FinLedger, Crunchbase News, Crain, Forbes and Silicon Valley Business Journal. Prior to joining T

Ryan Zauk sits down with Leore Avidar, CEO & Founder of Alt. Alt has created a marketplace for sports cards that authenticates its transactions & provides buyers with the peace of mind that the card they’re dropping thousands on is no fake! Leore himself is a card collector and trader fanatic, having been deep in this asset class for years. Leore is also the CEO of Lob, a direct mail marketing & address verification API company on the path to going public. (Pretty good track record) They cover: - His journey from Wall Street, to tech, to entrepreneurship, & the Kobe card that sparked his journey - How Alt works, how they verify cards, & the 3 key pillars of fraud they watch - The crazy IRR Leore has reaped in this asset class - His vision for the future of alt assets as stores of value & mediums of exchange - The $31M round he raised from folks like Alexis Ohanian, Larry Fitzgerald, Founders of Coinbase & Blackrock, Darren Rovell, & Kevin Durant - And much more! Link: onlyalt.com For more Fintech insights

Anirudh Singh sits down with Kimwood Mott, project manager at the Central Bank of the Bahamas. In this episode they discuss: - Kimwood's transition to the central bank - The primary goals of the project including: 1. Increasing the efficiency of the Bahamian payments systems through more secure transactions and faster settlement speed. 2. Providing non-discriminatory access to payment systems without regard for age, immigration or residency status. 3. Achieving greater financial inclusion, cost-effectiveness, and access to financial services across all of The Bahamas. 4. Strengthening national defence against money laundering, counterfeiting, and other illicit ends by reducing the ill effects of cash usage. - The impact that Hurrican Dorian and Covid-19 had on the project's rollout And more! Kimwood Mott: Kimwood Mott has spent over 20 years in the banking and finance industries in both the retail and private banking sectors. He has an extensive background and experience in banking, information technology,

Miguel Armaza sits down with the inspiring Mahmoud Abdelkader, serial entrepreneur and CEO/Co-Founder of Very Good Security, a company that’s on a mission to protect the world’s information by providing essential security and compliance infrastructure for other businesses. In this episode, we talk about: - Mahmoud’s journey – moving from Egypt to New York City and how he found his love for entrepreneurship - Launching Balanced Payments, his first startup over a decade ago, getting into Y Combinator and why every first time founder should try to go to YC - Understanding Very Good Security’s mission to secure the world's information, and why they want to make data useful in the same way as money - Challenges of unintended side effects of financial and privacy regulation and what Very Good Security is doing about it - Getting comfortable with rejection and why you should never underestimate the hunger of immigrant entrepreneurs… And a lot more! Mahmoud Abdelkader Mahmoud Abdelkader is the CEO and co-founder o

Ryan Zauk brings you a great episode today with Chad Byers, Partner & Co-Founder of Susa Ventures. Susa is a sector-agnostic early-stage VC investing in areas like Enterprise Software, Fintech, Logistics, Healthcare, Consumer & Frontier Tech. Notable investments include Robinhood, Fast, Flexport, PolicyGenius, Okra, LendUp, Nova Credit, Railz, Treasury Prime, and Expanse. Chad was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 for VC in 2015. Prior to Susa Ventures, Chad was the senior director of platform at Integrate.com and held various marketing and product roles at Silver Spring Networks, Bloom Energy, and Electronic Arts. They discuss: - His unusual path to venture and the critical tools he used to become an incredible cold-emailer, meeting a16z’s Chris Dixon and BoxGroup’s David Tisch - The wild story of turning a Jon Stewart taping into an internet phenomenon! - Susa Ventures and the exciting, Wharton Fintech exclusive release of their upcoming opportunities fund (15:30) - Critical advice for starting your first

Ryan Zauk sits down with none other than Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano. Anthony Pompliano is an entrepreneur and investor who has built and sold numerous companies, managing a portfolio valued at more than $500 million in early-stage companies. His investments include Coinbase, eToro, BlockFi, Airbnb, and many more. He has a fantastic newsletter, podcast, and social platform anchored by his 1M+ followers on Twitter. He is known for his extreme passion for bitcoin, having been a major part of the rallying cry of the last year. He has pushed his chips all in, allocating a huge portion of his portfolio to the asset! (or property…) They cover: - His bitcoin thesis, the "super cycle," and the events that got him so bullish - Why Buffet and Munger disagreeing with him gives him more conviction - How he thinks about generating outsized returns & his barbell capital allocation strategy - His investments in startups like Strike and nearly kidnapping a founder - The simple ways he’s grown such a massive following & in

Miguel Armaza sits down with the fascinating Amy Nauiokas, Founder and CEO of Anthemis, a Venture Capital firm founded in 2008 that aims to cultivate change in the financial system by investing in, growing, and sustaining businesses committed to resiliency, transparency, access and equity. Some of their most notable investments include Carta, Betterment, Pipe, Rally Rd, Simple, and Backstage Capital. Amy is also Founder/CEO of Archer Gray, a media production and content company. In this great conversation, we talk about: - Amy’s journey and how she found herself making her first Venture Capital investments in Cameroon in the early 90s. - Navigating Wall Street and why she eventually decided to leave big banks to launch Anthemis - Fundraising from LPs in 2008 – a year when the financial industry collapsed but also a time with major technological innovations. - Bridging the conversation between incumbents and startups. - Backing models that transform and create resiliency inside of the financial system - Th

Ryan Zauk sits down with Kai Cunningham, the youngest founding General Partner at Limited Ventures. Limited Ventures is a fund created alongside titans of industry like the Forbes & Rockefeller families, and counts numerous athletes and entertainers as LPs. Kai serves two critical roles: 1. Helping family foundations + institutions satisfy their Diversity and Inclusion Mandates without sacrificing returns 2. Bridging the gap between athletes/entertainers and the billionaire families of the world. He has helped over 100 athletes and entertainers participate in deals like Airbnb, SpaceX, Lime, Coinbase, Pinterest, Lyft, DapperLabs, Zilch, Kraken, and many more. They cover: - His wild journey from the DMV area to the trading floor of Goldman Sachs and Limited Ventures - Helping the "99%" of pro athletes invest like the 1% - The future of the athlete investor and why that’s a positive for culture - What fintech marketers need to know when working with celebs - The problem companies will face when deploying

Gabriela Ariana Campoverde sits down with Nathaniel Harley, CEO and Co-Founder of MANTL, a software platform specializing in online account opening and deposit growth strategies for community banks and credit unions. Founded in 2016, MANTL has helped banks raise more than $1 billion in core deposits -- with the highest performing account opening solution on the market. This past spring, this fintech raised $40MM in a Series B round. MANTL is on a mission to expand access to financial services by challenging the cost structures of traditional banks with its robust APIs, conversion best practices, and seamless user experience. In this episode we discuss: - How MANTL’s platform serves thousands of Americans today - The negative impact legacy infrastructure has on the user experience for account holders, banks and credit unions - Why community banks and credit unions matter - Lessons learned from Nathaniel’s career at Spoon University - What’s next in the pipeline for MANTL - And much more! About Nathaniel H

In this content-rich episode, Ally McCloskey sits down with Stephany Kirkpatrick, Founder & CEO of Orum. Orum is building new and frictionless financial infrastructure to power smart, real-time, and fully-automated money movement across accounts, products, and financial institutions. Backed by Bain Capital Ventures, Inspired Capital, Homebrew, Acrew, Primary, Clocktower, Box Group, SVB Capital, AmEx Ventures, and an impressive angel network. Orum has 2 signature products in market: 1) Orum’s Foresight product is an ACH risk intelligence tool, which identifies and reduces ACH return risk and fraud before it occurs by pulling in extra data through partnerships with financial institutions. And 2) Orum’s Momentum product, which intelligently routes which payment rails a transaction should travel on given the financial institution’s preferences for speed and cost. Ally and Stephany discuss: - How Stephany’s background as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and years of working at LearnVest and Northwestern Mutual ex

In today's episode, Ryan Zauk sits down with Silicon Valley investor, entrepreneur, angel, community builder, and super-connector Brianne Kimmel. Brianne is the Founder of Worklife Ventures, a future of work-focused fund investing in the tools and services powering the next wave of work. Worklife is backed by a who's who of tech including a16z partners Marc Andreesen and Chris Dixon, Stewart Butterfield of Slack, the CEOs of Zoom and Cameo, the Co-Founder of Twitch, Alexis Ohanian, and many more! Her fund includes 6 unicorns - Webflow, Tonal, Hopin, Clubhouse, and former Wharton Fintech guests Pipe and Public. Business Insider also recently named Brianne a top angel investor that every startup should know. In today's episode, they discuss: - The rise of the 'solo capitalist' model - The transition from angel to VC - The booming creator economy, creator tools, and the future of work - Building "Stay at Home Valley" on Figma, and surprising Figma's CEO with it on a walk - Her investment and sourcing methodo

Miguel Armaza sits down with Salim Ramji, BlackRock Senior Managing Director and Global Head of iShares and Index Investments and a member of the firm’s Global Executive Committee. Founded in 1988, BlackRock is a global investment management firm and the world's largest asset manager, with almost $9 trillion dollars in AUM – and iShares is one of the largest ETF providers with almost $3 trillion dollars in AUM. In this episode, we discuss: - Salim’s exciting career. From microfinance in the mountains of Pakistan to the top of Wall Street in New York City. - Joining BlackRock and why he actually rejected Larry Fink’s first offer to join the firm. - The power of ETFs and Index Investing and why he considers Indexing to be one of the original Fintech innovations. - iShares and its incredible reach helping over 100 million investors from around the world. - The rise of robo-advisors and why asset managers should implement guardrails to offer investment products and capabilities that are good for the long term.

Miguel Armaza sits down with Jarrid Tingle, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Harlem Capital, an early-stage, diversity-focused venture capital firm that was founded in 2015 with the specific mission to fundamentally change the face of entrepreneurship. Jarrid and team now manage a $174 million portfolio comprised of 61% Black or Latino led companies and 43% female-only led companies. Harlem Capital aims to invest in 1,000 diverse founders over the next 30 years. Jarrid is also a proud alum of our amazing Wharton School! In this episode, we discuss: - Jarrid’s background and how he and his co-founders raised Harlem Capital’s initial capital while in business school - The story behind Harlem Capital’s very own Harvard Business School case - Importance of backing founders that fundamentally can sell and are analytical - Their fintech outlook and why Jarrid is excited about the power of fintech to help supercharge eCommerce - Debunking the myth of the pipeline problem and why it’s really just about giving

Ryan Zauk sits down with Jeff Seltzer, Managing Partner of Pierce Yates Ventures and former board member of the New York Angels. Pierce Yates provides early-stage funding and advice to emerging companies with a focus on fintech and sports tech. The NY Angels is an incredible collection of some of New York's titans across various industries, who get together to invest and advise companies. Jeff is a proud Wharton alum and in 2019 received the Alumni Award of Merit in recognition of his lifelong commitment and service to Penn. In today’s episode, they cover: - His long road to investing and why it can be advantageous to do a stint in DC politics - New York Angels 101 including how they’re structured, the companies they back, and how you can get involved - The ups, downs, and many misunderstandings of angel investing Jeff wants to clear up - What founders and investors need to think about at the start of around - His must-read angel resources And much more. NY Angels: https://www.newyorkangels.com/ Book Recs:

Ryan Zauk hosts legendary venture capitalist, billionaire, bitcoin investor, activist, and educator, Tim Draper. Tim Draper helps entrepreneurs drive their visions through funding, education, media, and government reform. His investments over the last few decades include companies like Baidu, Hotmail, Skype, Tesla, SpaceX, Robinhood, Twitter, Carta, Coinbase, and many more. He also is a large holder of bitcoin, having bought 50,000+ bitcoin when it was priced below $1,000. Draper Associates: draper.vc DFJ: https://www.dfj.com/ Website: timothydraper.com Book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Startup-Hero-Textbook-Entrepreneurs-ebook/dp/B078HWH29T They discuss: - His bullish views on bitcoin and the 1 reason he will never sell - His investment in Robinhood, Carta, and others - His very strong libertarian views and why he believes in minimal government, which ties into his bitcoin thesis - Why the Mt Gox hack improved his belief in bitcoin - His thoughts on the current state of China and where it’s headed - And a