Wharton Fintech Podcast

Anirudh Singh sits down with Ty Harris, CEO and Co-Founder of Openly. In this episode, they discuss: - Openly's origin story - Inefficiencies in the insurance market - Openly's talent acquisitions/expansion strategy and much more! Ty Harris: Ty Harris is CEO and co-founder of Openly. Openly uses technology to provide re-imagined and beautifully simple home insurance. Backed by leading VC firms and insurance industry veterans alike, Openly is growing rapidly towards its goal of being a leading national provider of personal insurance. Before founding Openly in 2017, Ty spent 12 years at Liberty Mutual, a top 5 global insurer, where he was most recently EVP and Chief Product and Underwriting Officer. Before joining Liberty Mutual, Ty worked at the Brookings Institution and taught economics and statistics at MIT and Northeastern. Ty received his AB from Duke University, studied graduate economics at MIT, and is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society. Ty lives in Charleston, SC, with his wife and

Ryan Zauk sits down with TaxBit Co-Founders, Austin and Justin Woodward, in the wake of their $100M Series A! If you did a double-take at the last name - yes, these cofounders are brothers! Austin and Justin, a CPA and Lawyer respectively, are solving the massive problem of taxes and cryptocurrency. They offer a suite of products for consumers, enterprises, and governments to easily aggregate and analyze crypto balances, generate and review tax forms, recommend tax-loss harvesting strategies, and more through their API suite and software. Whether you're a platform that needs to issue 1099s, or a user that needs to report their taxes, TaxBit’s cryptocurrency tax software unifies the process. REFERRAL CODE: https://taxbit.com/invite/whartonfintech/ (discount code: whartonfintech) This $100M round included a who’s who of investing: Tiger Global, Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, PayPal ventures, Winklevoss Capital, Bill Ackman, Qualtrics Co-Founder Ryan Smith, and more. Ryan & The Woodward Brothers Cover: - Thei

Miguel Armaza sits down with Jason Gross, Co-Founder and CEO of Petal, a new kind of credit card company that has pioneered the Cash Score – an alternative measure of creditworthiness based on income, savings and spending history – to make credit more accessible. Founded in 2016, the company has raised over 100 million equity and close to 500 million in debt from industry leaders including Valar ventures, Third Prime, Afore Capital, Story Ventures, and Jefferies. We discussed: - Jason’s non-traditional startup founder background - The story and inspiration behind Petal - Taking the company from 0 to 1 - The state of consumer credit and open banking and what has changed over the last five years since launching Petal - Why Petal has actively collaborated with the US regulator and why Jason considers this extremely important - Founder advice - And a lot more! Jason Gross Jason Gross (@jasonbgross) is the CEO and co-founder of Petal, a New York-based fintech company on a mission to make credit honest, simple

Anirudh Singh sits down with Yan Wu, Co Founder of Bond Financial Technologies. In this episode, they discuss: - Yan's career journey - Why all brands will become fintechs - How bond rapidly adjusted to a remote environment - Bond's goal to be the premier BaaS platform and much more! Bond helps brands embed financial services products into their existing offerings, helping brands increase activation, improve retention, and therefore increase customer lifetime value. Their investors include Coatue Management, Canaan Partners, Goldman Sachs, MasterCard, as well as prominent angel investors such as Sarah Friar, Jackie Reses, Steve Freiberg, and Eric Yuan to name a few. Yan Wu Yan Wu is a Co Founder at Bond Financial Technologies, Inc., banking as a service platform that has raised over $42 million from Goldman Sachs, Mastercard, Coatue, and Canaan Partners. Bond seeks to allow any brand to embed financial products to improve their customers' experience. Previously, Yan was Head of Data at SoFi, an $8 bi

Ryan Zauk sits down with Max Friedrich, Fintech Analyst at ARK Invest! Ryan & Max cover a great deal in today's episode, including: - ARK's 5 "Big Ideas" that they believe future historians will name as big of a disruptor as the computer or electricity (4:45) - Why Tesla was missed by many great analysts (7:25) - The power of Twitter and ARK's open-source research approach (8:30) - The boom in Digital Wallets (18:23) - His Square thesis (23:50) - Current private valuations (33:45) and much more! ARK Invest focuses solely on disruptive innovation and offers investment solutions to investors seeking long-term growth in the public markets. They offer numerous products including ARKF, their Fintech Innovation ETF that Max spends his time on. You can read more about ARK here, including some topics we weren't able to cover: ARK's website: https://ark-invest.com/ ARKF: https://ark-funds.com/fintech-etf?__hstc=84851910.be9763230a0db87d6116b034315ac1e4.1612294925805.1615993803285.1619283124294.5&__hssc=84851910.6

In today's special episode, Miguel Armaza and Ryan Zauk are joined by new hosts, Ally McCloskey and Anirudh Singh, to discuss their incredible journey as hosts of the Wharton Fintech Podcast. Over the next few months, you will start to see more episodes from Ally and Anirudh, as they take the reigns of the show. During this episode, they all discuss: - Intro to our new hosts Ally and Anirudh - Lessons learned from the past year of podcasting - Miguel and Ryan's favorite episodes to date - Miguel and Ryan's plans for the future - What Ally and Anirudh are looking forward to most in the year to come - And a lot more! For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: https://medium.com/wharton-fintech LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/ WFT Twitter: https://twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: https://twitter.com/RyanZauk Miguel's Twitter: https://twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Ally's Twitter: https://twitter.com/fintechery203 Anirudh's Twitter: https://twitter.com/a

Miguel Armaza sits down with Alison Lange Engel, Venture Partner at Greycroft, a leading venture capital firm focused on investments in the Internet and mobile markets, with offices in New York City and LA. Greycroft manages over $2 billion and has made over 200 investments, including some leading fintech companies like Acorns, Venmo, Flutterwave, and Public. Alison works across the Greycroft portfolio, advising companies on go-to-market strategy, execution, and sourcing new investments. She’s also a proud MBA alum from our very own Wharton School. We discuss - Her operator background at companies like LinkedIn, Microsoft and Stripe - A deep dive into her experience as Head of Marketing at Stripe - Transitioning to the investing side - Greycroft’s story, investment thesis, and what defines their portfolio companies - Why Alison and Greycroft are bullish on the future of consumer fintech - Inside stories on fast-growing portfolio companies - And a lot more! Alison Lange Engel Alison Lange Engel is a Vent

"We're in the YOLO era of fintech...it will lower CAC, but also LTV" The always entertaining and insightful Jon Zanoff joins Ryan Zauk on today's fun episode. Jon Zanoff is the Former Mayor of Fintech, founding Empire Startups, an 18,000+ person strong fintech community. Jon now runs Stella Ventures, an early-stage Fintech VC focused on the US & Canada. Jon will join the Wharton Fintech Conference on April 22-23, leading a panel called “Building a Fintech, Lessons Learned” featuring Finch, Pando, Intrinio, Public.com, and MassChallenge Fintech. The conference will include numerous industry CEOs, VCs, founders, and more. Check out the star-studded panel here! whartonfintechconference.com For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

On today's episode, Ryan Zauk sits down with Jane Tran, Head of Solutions at Unqork, one of New York’s newest tech unicorns. Unqork is a completely visual, no-code application platform that helps enterprises build complex + custom software faster, with higher quality, and lower costs, all without a single line of code. Backed by companies like Blackrock, Goldman Sachs, and Google, Unqork is serving some of the world’s top financial institutions as well as numerous healthcare firms, governments, and more. As Head of Solutions, Jane is the youngest member of Unqork’s executive team and has helped supercharge Unqork from nascent platform to billion-dollar company. In today’s episode, they discuss: - The amazing problems Unqork solves for large enterprises - Unqork's most powerful use cases - Their amazing projects during the pandemic with NYC and Washington DC - How she thrives as a young, female exec (and beats imposter syndrome) - And much more. For more fintech insights, check us out below! WFT Conf: whar

Miguel Armaza sits down with Tosin Eniolorunda, Founder and CEO of TeamApt, a financial software company focused on building solutions and running infrastructure for African banks, businesses and people to manage their money. In this episode, we discuss: - Tosin’s background, his journey as an entrepreneur, and why he decided to bootstrap the company for several years before raising any venture dollars. - TeamApt’s impressive growth - Building the company and how they develop the biggest non-bank, mobile money platform in the market. - The amazing Nigerian opportunity and the state of FinTech and the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Africa - And a whole lot more! About TeamApt TeamApt is a financial technology company focused on developing Digital Banking, Digital Business solutions and Payments Infrastructure by rethinking the needs of consumers, businesses and the financial industry. Beginning operations in 2015, TeamApt was borne from a desire to create financial happiness, building solutions and tools fo

Miguel Armaza sits down with none other than Anthony Scaramucci, Managing Partner & Founder of SkyBridge, a $10 billion global alternative investments firm specializing in a wide array of investment strategies, including fund of hedge funds products, hedge fund advisory solutions, and a bitcoin-dedicated fund. Prior to SkyBridge, Mr. Scaramucci co-founded Oscar Capital Management, which he later sold to Neuberger Berman in 2001. In this entertaining episode, we discuss - Anthony’s trajectory and entrepreneurial spirit - why he decided to leave big finance to launch his own firm Founder Lessons: 1. The importance of showing up and putting all your time and energy into your business as a founder 2. Resourcefulness and flexibility, why these are some of the most important traits necessary for an entrepreneurial career - All things Bitcoin and why he’s so bullish on it and decided to launch a dedicated Bitcoin fund and strategy at SkyBridge - Reflections on his short stint at the White House as Communications

In today's episode, the ever-snarky Ron Shevlin, Director of Research at Cornerstone Advisors and frequent columnist at Forbes, sits down with Ryan Zauk. Cornerstone is a leading research platform focused on financial services, where Ron spends his days advising community banks, mid-size institutions, and credit unions on strategy, market research, technology, fintech, and more. He also writes the "Forbes Fintech Snark Tank." With community banks, credit unions, and small to medium financial institutions facing major crossroads over the coming years, advice is more crucial than ever. Thankfully, Ron comes on to talk about how they can fight back, what they can learn from The Grateful Dead (it's actually quite compelling), the current state of neobanks, and more. In today’s episode, they discuss: - How these institutions can “fight back,” especially through the lens of community and affinity - Why community banks need to "find their bullseye" - The tech problems facing these institutions - How Ron is thinki

Miguel Armaza sits down with Shamir Karkal, Co-Founder and CEO of Sila, a banking and payments platform that aims to break open the Financial System and make it easy for any company to offer out-of-the-box financial services. Shamir is also a true FinTech pioneer and legend, having played a crucial part in building the infrastructure that would pave the way for online banking. In 2009, he co-founded Simple, the first digital bank of its kind in the US, and later headed the Open Platform group at BBVA. In this episode, we discuss - Shamir’s fascinating background and how in fact he comes from a long line of Indian bankers - The story behind Simple and the ups and downs they faced launching the first independent digital bank in the US and what led them to an eventual acquisition by BBVA - Launching Sila and his approach as a second time fintech founder - Why’s so excited about the future and is convinced these are the early days for the industry - Founder lessons - And a lot more! Shamir Karkal A true FinT

In today's episode, Ryan Zauk sits down with Wade Arnold, Founder & CEO of moov. moov raised a $27M Series A from a16z in December 2020, following a $5M seed round led by Bain Capital Ventures. Moov provides developers with an elegant, simple platform that takes the complexity out of embedded payments and more. They take a developer-first approach of being built on open source, portable to cloud providers or on-premises, modular for customization, and decoupled from any single bank program. Wade is a self-described “engineers engineer,” a true nerd at heart who has built a number of technical products in fintech and beyond. Wade will be at the Wharton Fintech Conference on April 22 and 23, on a panel titled “Unpacking APIs and SaaS: how best-in-class fintechs are building from the ground up” alongside execs from Treasury Prime, Finix, OpenPayd, Railsbank, and QED. WFT Conf: https://whartonfintechconference.com/ Fintech Devcon: https://fintechdevcon.io/ For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medi

Miguel Armaza sits down with Logan Allin, Founder and Managing General Partner at Fin VC, a Venture Capital firm focused on Enterprise SaaS FinTech companies in the US, UK and Europe, with a portfolio that includes 6 unicorns. In this episode, we discuss: - Logan’s background and the journey to becoming a Venture Capital entrepreneur - Transition from corporate VC under SoFi to a becoming a stand-alone firm - Why Fin VC focuses specifically on backing the fintech enablers that are building disruptive B2B-oriented businesses - Investing theses and portfolio company examples - Venturing internationally - His passion for chess - And a lot more! Logan Allin Founded in 2018, Fin VC is focused on Enterprise SaaS FinTech companies in the US, UK and Europe. Their portfolio currently has 21 companies globally, including 6 unicorns. Fin VC doesn’t just deliver with capital- it adds value through engaging with their portfolio companies at every stage. The team believes the acquisition of fintech stacks is the future

Miguel Armaza sits down with Charles Moldow, General Partner at Foundation Capital, a legendary Venture Capital firm founded in 1995 that has raised nine funds, received over $3B in committed capital, has seen 28 IPOs, and over 80 acquisitions from their portfolio companies. Charles has been at Foundation since 2005, having led impressive investments like Uber, LendingClub, OnDeck and Rappi. Before Foundation, he lived the startup journey and was part of the founding team of two high-profile startups with successful exits in 97 and 2006. He is also a proud alum of our amazing Wharton School! We discuss: - Charles experience as an operator and entrepreneur through the dotcom bubble and why he eventually transitioned to the investing side - Thought process behind his investment strategy and reflections on some early mistakes as a venture capitalist - All things Fintech, including trends he’s most excited about - Foundation’s impressive track record and their secret behind this success - Why he’s particularly

Miguel Armaza sits down with Carl Wazen, Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer at Yoco, South Africa’s leading payments platform for small businesses offering a convenient way to accept card payments in-person or online. Founded in 2012, the company serves over 100,000 small businesses and has received multiple rounds of investment from industry leaders like Quona, Partech, Greyhound Capital, FMO, and many more. We covered a wide range of topics, including: - Carl’s background and his entrepreneurial journey in Cape Town, South Africa as an immigrant outsider - Stories about the early days of Yoco and how they took the company from 0 to 1 - The importance of company culture in the fast moving fintech space - Navigating COVID and Yoco’s meaningful role in helping small businesses during the pandemic - The State of the fintech industry in South Africa and the rest of the continent - Entrepreneurial advice - And a lot more! About Yoco Yoco is an African technology company that builds tools and services to hel

On today’s episode, Ryan Zauk sits down with Lex Sokolin, CMO, Chief Economist, and Global Fintech Co-Head at ConsenSys, the world’s leading Ethereum software company. Lex also runs the Fintech Blueprint, an amazing fintech subscription newsletter. Before ConsenSys, Lex worked in strategy at Lehman Brothers before getting a JD MBA from Columbia. At Columbia he founded NestEgg, a private label robo, later selling it to AdvisorEngine, then worked in research at Autonomous Research. Lex is a fintech and technology futurist in every sense of the word, always writing at the intersection of finance, tech, law, philosophy, economics, and sociology. We are a huge fan of his work here at Wharton Fintech! Fintech Blueprint: https://lex.substack.com/ In today’s episode, Ryan & Lex discuss: - The deep meanings behind his career decision making, breaking from gold-star chasing to startups and now frontier technology - How Duchamp's "Fountain" can help people understand NFTs - How a conversation with a Deloitte exec tu

Miguel Armaza is joined by Doug Peterson, President and CEO of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI), one of the largest companies in the US that specializes in providing ratings, benchmarks, analytics and data to the capital and commodity markets worldwide. Prior to S&P, Doug held multiple leadership positions at Citigroup, including roles around the world as CEO of Citi Japan, Uruguay, and Costa Rica. He is also a proud alumni of our very own, Wharton School! In this episode, we talk about: - Doug’s journey, from childhood in New Mexico, to international student in South America, to global corporate leader. - The important role that Wharton had on his career and how it sparked his love for Finance - Why S&P Global is focusing on data analytics and artificial intelligence and how it has built a fintech portfolio around these topics - The rise of Environmental, Social, and Governance factors in capital markets around the world, particularly over the last year - Leadership advice and Doug’s approach to managing an organiz

In today's episode, Ryan Zauk sits down with Dave Girouard, Founder & CEO of the recently IPO’d Fintech, Upstart. Upstart is an online lending marketplace that provides personal loans using 1,600+ non-traditional variables, such as education and employment, to predict creditworthiness. If you listened to our episode the other week with Chi Chi Wu of the National Consumer Law Center, you know credit and lending is a huge issue in America (https://soundcloud.com/wft/credit-reporting-and-consumer-protection-chi-chi-wu-national-consumer-law-center) Upstart is using artificial intelligence and rigorous machine learning to attack this issue, making it not only a great company, but a wonderful mission. In today’s episode, Ryan and Dave discuss: 3:30 – What exactly is Upstart? 6:44 – The current state of credit scores and how Upstart is upending the traditional credit score 10:57 – What needed to be true for banks to trust Upstart? 13:19 - How he navigated the regulatory environment, who he hired, and what a no