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In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, our host Alex Theuma is joined by Juan Andrade, Founder Rebank and winner of our SaaStock 2022 Pitch Competition, who shares how the decision to break up with customers will help the business 10x. "There's no time to worry about macro or think about ‘my fundraising plan' or any of that. It's just: grow. So the hardest thing is really trying to keep all of that distraction out, because it's the most important time to focus right now." In this episode you'll hear: ✅ Juan's experience at Y Combinator ✅ If he recommends SaaS Startups go through an accelerator ✅ Lessons learnt building Rebank ✅ The hardest thing about building a startup in 2023 ✅ The one thing that has moved the needle the most in his career & more! Like what you hear? Join us at SaaStock USA 2023 happening 31 May - 2 June in the silicon-lit hills of Austin, Texas to hear it IRL!
In this conversation, we chat with Will Beeson, who currently works at Standard Chartered Ventures. Previously, Will was the Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer at digital bank BELLA, as well as, a Principal at Rebank, a fintech advisory firm. Will's banking entrepreneurship streak doesn't end there, he co-founded Allica, a digital bank for businesses in the UK. We discuss the evolution of the banking-as-a-service sector, and in particular the challenges of infrastructure providers when their fintech clients fail due to market pressure. What's next for embedded finance? MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATIONRebank: https://rebank.cc/Will Beeson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willbeeson/ and https://twitter.com/will_beesonTopics: Embedded finance, fintech, neobank, banking, payments, finance, banking-as-a-service, API, RegTech, RegulationCompanies: Plaid, Onfido, Stripe, Socure, Green Dot Bank, Cross River Bank, FIS, Fiserv, BlockFi, BBVAABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT
#29: Juan Andrade joins Annaka and Ethan to talk about Rebank, a startup-to-startup software company that provides young businesses with the financial operation systems needed to succeed. Juan discusses the importance of trial-and-error marketing and how his own issues at his previous job led him to conceptualize Rebank.This episode we dive into: Finding a target audience and understanding the problem you solveMarketing without an experienced marketerThe benefits of working with an accelerator and Juan's experience at Y CombinatorFor the full episode summary, visit startupsavant.com/podcast!
In this conversation, we chat with Will Beeson, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer at digital bank BELLA. Previously, Will was a Principal at Rebank, a fintech advisory firm, as well as he co-founded Allica, a digital bank for businesses in the UK. After starting his career at Citigroup in New York, Will spent nearly a decade in Europe working with and managing financial services companies prior to launching Allica. Will holds a BA from Amherst College (USA) and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charterholder. More specifically, we touch on frameworks for navigating down markets, valuations, multiples, why some fintechs have to disclose themselves as tech companies than banks, covid-19 implications, buy now pay later developments, and so so much more!
This week on Commerce Code we speak with Juan Andrade, Founder & CEO of Rebank, and learn more about the finance challenges of startups. Rebank's tool allows startup founders to access all their bank accounts and payments in one place, easing the burden of tracking finances.
Meet and network with Chiara, learn about the MSc Entrepreneurship at Imperial Business School and how she built two startups whilst still enrolled in her course. Social Media Links.Chiara: LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiara-vivaldi/)e-Novus: LinkedIn, Website (https://e-novus.co.uk/)Mayla Health: LinkedIn, Website (https://www.maylahealth.com/)Grow your company more easily with Rebank, the single source of truth for your finance tools.
Andrei Cherny is the Co-Founder and CEO of Aspiration, a socially conscious bank challenging the traditional banking industry ethos. Prior to founding Aspiration, Andrei worked as a speechwriter for Bill Clinton, authored books on public policy and war history, served as Assistant Arizona State Attorney General, held senior positions at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Center for American Progress, and more. In 2013, Andrei co-founded Aspiration, a socially conscious banking and investments provider that lets users set their own fees. Aspiration has raised $200 million in funding and attracted over 1.5 million users. In this conversation, Andrei and I discuss the factors that have contributed to Aspiration’s success, the takeaways for the industry, the company’s future plans, and more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Andrei Cherny.
Ali Niknam is the founder and CEO of bunq, a fully licensed digital bank based in the Netherlands and available in 30 countries across Europe. Prior to starting buns, Ali founded TransIP, the largest domain name and web hosting provider of the Netherlands. Ali is the sole investor in bunq, having invested €80m in the company to date. As of July 2020, the bank had €650 million of user deposits. In this conversation, Ali and I discuss the economics of digital banking, the decisions bunq has made around economic sustainability and scale, takeaways for the broader digital banking industry and more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ali Niknam.
Introduction Welcome to Distilling Venture Capital. I am your host, Bill Griesinger Distilling VC is a visionary podcast that provides an insightful and informed view of the key trends affecting the VC and tech startup world. My mission is to cut through and go beyond the hype that tends to dominate the tech landscape. And provide you with information you can use. Episode Introduction: Welcome back everyone. Well, today I have the pleasure of welcoming back to the program JP Baric, CEO and Founder at Aurum Capital Ventures, which is engaged in the crypto-mining business. JP thank you for coming back to join me on the show. So, the last time we did a program was in mid-May, about 5 months ago, and I introduced Aurum Capital Ventures then as a technology/energy company directly involved in multiple aspects of the crypto-mining industry – and we delved into the many interesting aspects of your business model. I have received a lot of positive feedback to that show – so glad you’re here to do this again… Crypto-currency Mining involves sourcing and utilizing the most advanced equipment, for sure, which you guys provide, but also one of the key components that has a huge impact on the cost and viability of crypto-mining itself – is the cost and amount of energy consumed – and, therefore, the energy component and its costs have a huge impact on the industry and its success Aurum has developed a truly innovative vision and approach to this aspect (Energy) of the business. And I wanted to provide a platform here today for you to explore in-depth how you think about and approach the idea of generating, producing and sourcing energy at the core of Please introduce and present this in the way you think would be most helpful and useful for our listeners to appreciate the impact of this vision Energy Utilization & Economics of Crypto-Mining: JP provides a deep-dive into the interrelated metrics and dynamics of Energy and Crypto-mining. Here is what you will learn: Terahash Rate – core measure of energy usage in crypto-mining Can predict and model the Terahash rate for mining equipment. USD per terahash – how much we make on a USD basis - the speed of how fast a mining machine runs. Price per terahash dropped to 7.5 cents – when BTC crashed (March). Was 13 cents per terahash. Today, sitting at 8 cents per terahash with BTC at roughly $12,000 today. Amount of new machines on the network has grown – at 8 cents per TH – betting that price of BTC will continue to rise… Miners all over the world are thus, searching for most cost-effective energy costs. Cost/Mwh Rates in crypto-mining Old machines vs. New machines and economics Revisit the halving event from May 12, 2020 – when reward for mining was, by design, the reward went from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC – Impact? Inflation Rate of BTC (1.8% infl. Rate) compared to USD inflation…digital currency has a lower effective inflation rate than the fiat currency! BTC price may be volatile but depends on what you compare it to New equip. is coming online line as fast as the manufactures can produce them. Most are made in Taiwan and China Coming into facilities that have power in the 4cent to 5 cent range Mining Machines: The S-9s are the older; Newer are the Ant Miner S19 Pros are 30 Juuls per terahash. Square Announces Purchase of $50MM BTC for its Balance Sheet Here’s a perhaps diversion from our main topic related to mining & energy, but it’s related to Bitcoin and the larger ecosystem. So, here’s some industry news I wanted to get your opinion on re Square – We all know them as the POS payment company. not only does Square have the retail app and footprint now, but they’ve also got a lot of very granular, small business merchant data. They've turned that into Square Capital and the small business lending business. And the data on the consumer side, the spending side, the merchant acquiring side, and visibility into SMB finances to drive the business forward, creates a pretty tight loop, closed ecosystem. Square just recently announced – put out a press release actually – that they had purchased around $50MM of Bitcoin…Now other major financial services companies have bought substantial sums of BTC too, but didn’t necessarily announce it by press release – What’s going on here in your view? This from another podcast I listen to called ReBank. Their comments regarding Square purchase of BTC Will Beeson (ReBank): “It's like investing in treasury assets, and you use them to run your business. It's about 1% of Square's assets. And I think the bigger question is, is this Square, or is this a representation of broader investment theory? Like is Bitcoin now something of an asset class that institutional investors and traditional institutional investors are taking more seriously and are viewing either as an inflation hedge or an option on potential future upside.” Lex Sokolin (ReBank/Consensys): “All you have to do is look at venture investments and Andreessen Horowitz with hundreds of millions of dollars in dedicated crypto funds and that being true for the long tail of Silicon Valley players as well. And so when people who want to be like Square and want to have that same outcome, or like Twitter or venture funds that want to be like Andreessen, which is by the way, 100% of anyone who is an entrepreneurship, when they see these actions being taken, they're both symbolic, but they're also inspirational.” Then, if that weren’t innovative enough, Aurum Capital Ventures is also focused on leading efforts to bring much needed liquidity and financing to the mining and cryptocurrency markets themselves…Can you elaborate on why this is important and what you are doing to facilitate attracting mainstream forms of capital to the industry? Other Learnings from Today’s Episode: Define Cryptocurrency-Mining & How it Works The Future of Crypto-Mining Crypto-Currency and Crypto-Mining are Fully Transparent Markets, by Design The Search for the Best Equipment and Cheapest Source of Energy How Aurum Capital Ventures is Changing the Game and Mindset Regarding Crypto-Mining and the Production of Energy Aurum is Both a Buyer and Seller of Energy Aurum is Redefining How Energy is Consumed and Transmitted Aurum is Creating Unique Investment Vehicles to bring needed liquidity – both debt and equity capital – to the Crypto-Mining and Crypto-Currency How Crypto-Miners are Rewarded What is a Halving Event and What does it Mean for Cryptocurrency Mining? And Much More… Business Model Characteristics Your Bus. Model has Multiple Revenue Sources: Turnkey Mining Equip Deployments & hosting services; Speed & Efficiency through repeatable process of Power procurement, infrastructure deployment, and remote management Running your own Mining servers Managed Services Selling used equipment to established network Competitive Advantages Modular, mobile equipment deployment – more efficient Rapid Payback/Utilization of “Stranded Energy” - Aurum’s mobile mining deployments profitably monetize any type of stranded energy anywhere in the world Situation where the value of the underlying collateral (mining equipment) can increase in value during life of the equip. and related financing, due to a halving event of Bitcoin Allows you to build inventory of equipment for deployment now, in advance of halving event that you know occurs approx. every four years JP Baric explains Aurum’s business model advantages relative to competitors such as Genesis Mining Closing RemarksContact Information for Aurum Capital Ventures Those seeking additional information and wishing to learn more about Aurum Capital Ventures: JP’s Twitter Account – @JPBaric Email: jp@aurumventures.com Sign up for Investor Newsletter at: Aurumcapitalventures.com Launching new podcast called “Digital Gold” Thank you for joining me for this edition of DVC. I hope you found our discussion today with JP Baric and Aurum Capital Ventures interesting and useful. Stay tuned for my next Episode, where I will have a very special guest of a high-profile company getting lots of buzz, that just went public via a SPAC in just the last few weeks. Think electric truck technology – like big, 18-wheeler truck – industry. That’s all I’m giving you for now. Stay tuned… Thank you again and I look forward to joining you for my next Episode of Distilling VC.
Pierpaolo Barbieri is the Founder & CEO of Ualá, an Argentinian consumer fintech taking South America by storm. Founded just three years ago, Ualá has already amassed more than two million customers in its native Argentina and recently expnanded to nearby Mexico. Unlike consumer banking offerings in many developed markets, which compete with incumbent banks, Ualá’s main competitor is cash in markets in which as many as half of adults are unbanked. Ualá has raised just under $200 million since launch, from leading investors including Soros, Point72, Goldman Sachs, Tencent and SoftBank. As if building the modern financial infrastructure for Latin America weren’t enough, Pierpaolo is a Harvard and Cambridge educated Historian and Economist, published author, macroeconomic advisor and regular contributor to publications including Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Pierpaolo Barbieri.
Ryan Gilbert is General Partner at Propel Venture Partners, a Bay Area venture capital firm backed by BBVA. He is also as of very recently CEO of Olympus Acquisition Corp, a $750 million SPAC that listed on the Nasdaq in August. In this conversation, we look at why SPACs are coming back in fashion, pros and cons of SPACs versus traditional fundraising and listing routes, Ryan’s plans for the future of Olympus and more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ryan Gilbert.
Today, Rebank co-host Aman Ghei is joined by Seb Wallace, an investor at Triple Point, an early stage UK venture capital firm that has invested in companies including LendInvest, Credit Kudos, CountingUp and many more. In this conversation, Aman and Seb discuss strategies for remote seed investing, the skew they’re observing in terms of how venture money is flowing, startup opportunities Seb sees in insurance and capital markets and more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Seb Wallace and Aman Ghei
We’re joined by a pair of fintech analysts, Max Friedrich of ARK Invest and Lex Sokolin of ConsenSys, to break down Ant Group’s highly anticipated IPO. Ant, a spinout from Alibaba and the parent of Alipay, one of China’s leading payments companies, filed papers to IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong. In this conversation, Max, Lex and I break down Ant’s business, from the origins to today, discuss growth opportunities and potential headwinds and explore the multi-faceted relationships between Ant and other big tech companies and national governments. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Max Friedrich and Lex Sokolin
Today, we’re joined by Lex Sokolin to talk through a few interesting developments in the world of fintech. M&A is a continued trend in fintech, with the most recent candidates reported to be UBS and Credit Suisse, the latter of which is also in the news with a new digital bank. Will their effort somehow be different than the abortive attempts of their international peers, including JP Morgan Chase in the US and RBS in the UK? Klarna raised $650 million at a $10.6 billion valuation, making it the most valuable private fintech in the world. Why is Klarna successful where OnDeck and, arguably, Kabbage weren’t? Lastly, we venture into Lex’s realm of digital assets, with MasterCard’s fun new toolkit to help countries test Central Bank Digital Currencies and Kraken’s newly granted Wyoming bank charter. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.
Consumer behavior in China has captivated the West for years, and behavior around fintech and payments is no different. Ant Group’s planned $200 billion upcoming IPO raises more questions than it answers in the minds of many in the West, who like me don't have direct experience with super apps and ubiquitous QR code based payments. We recorded a breakdown of Ant Group’s upcoming IPO last week with Max Friedrich and Lex Sokolin, which is under compliance review and will be released soon. Today’s conversation brings unique perspective to the exploration of fintech in China, told through the eyes and anecdotes of two Chinese tech entrepreneurs. Linda Jiang is a deep tech founder and serial entrepreneur. In 2010, she co-founded Umeng, a mobile analytics and developer platform that grew to support 180,000 apps and become the largest platform of its kind in China before selling to Alibaba in 2015. She is now an advisor to Baidu Ventures, an early stage deep tech focused fund backed by Baidu, one of China’s tech giants. Yi Luo is the founding Chief Strategy Officer of FreeUp, a company unlocking daily salary payment for workers. In 2019, FreeUp was acquired by Greensill, and then rebranded as Earnd, where Yi now leads strategy and expansion. Yi is also a keen angel investor. This conversation was recorded in February 2020, pre-COVID and before I relocated to New York, which may explain some of our references. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Linda Jiang and Yi Luo.
Mike Massaro is the CEO of Flywire, a payments technology company fresh off a $120m Series E led by Goldman Sachs. Matt Harris is a Partner at Bain Capital Ventures and one of the smartest fintech VCs on the planet. Both Mike and Matt have been on Rebank before, in episodes I highly recommend everyone check out. In this conversation, we dig into the embedded finance opportunity and Bain Capital Ventures’ prediction that we’re at the beginning of a platform shift that will be as big as the Internet, Cloud and Mobile. The combination of Matt’s investor perspective and Mike’s insight at the helm of a leading payments company make this a fascinating discussion. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Mike Massaro and Matt Harris.
We’re joined by Lex Sokolin to break down recently published annual reports from Revolut, Starling and Monzo, three of the leading European digital banks. There are some fascinating insights to be drawn from the documents, especially in the context of the broader global fintech market. This is rich subject matter, and we surely didn’t cover everything. You may even disagree with some of our analysis! Let us know. Please get in touch with thoughts, opinions and corrections. We’ll share all the high quality communication we receive with the entire community. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.
Rob Moffat is a partner at Balderton, a leading European VC, with investments including Revolut, Nutmeg, Wagestream, Zego, GoCardless, ComplyAdvantage and many more. In this conversation, Rob and Rebank co-host Aman Ghei discuss the state of the venture market, fundraising during a crisis, the most interesting new business opportunities in fintech and much more. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Rob Moffat.
Seth Pierrepont is a partner at Accel, one of the most renowned venture firms in the world and a backer of companies including Facebook, Spotify, Slack, Dropbox and many more. Seth invests in financial technology and data infrastructure and has led the firm's investments in companies like Privitar, AnyFin, Soldo, Worldremit any many others. In this conversation, Rebank co-host Aman Ghei of Finch Capital and Seth discuss how VCs have been adjusting to the new normal of investing remotely, the pieces of open banking they expect to be transformational, including credit and payments, and the importance of privacy for CIOs and executive decision makers in a rapidly evolving world. To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Aman Ghei and Seth Pierrepont.
Today, Rebank co-host Aman Ghei of Finch Capital is joined by Mike Laven. Mike is the CEO of CurrencyCloud, one of the leading FX and payments companies in Europe, powering some of the most successful financial institutions and consumer fintech unicorns. Mike has spent over 25 years in financial technology, with executive roles at a number of large venture backed firms. Mike joined CurrencyCloud in 2011 and has raised over $140m in funding for the company. In this conversation, Mike and Aman discuss the immediate impact of COVID-19 on the broader FX and remittance market as well as potential longer term implications, why API delivery has been so successful in payments, consolidation and the future of payments, and what the next 12-to-24 months have in store for CurrencyCloud. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Aman Ghei and Mike Laven.
Today, we’re joined by Brett King, founder and Executive Chairman of Moven, one of the original digital banks, and Lex Sokolin, Global Head of Fintech at ConsenSys. Lex and I discussed Moven’s recent announcement to shutter its B2C business on episode 170 of Rebank, and we're happy to have the opportunity to connect with Brett directly to discuss the decision in more detail. Of particular interest in this conversation are Brett's learnings from ten years of running Moven about B2C vs B2B as a digital banking strategy, the missing pieces in the current US and European challenger banking business model and where the space will go from here. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Brett King and Lex Sokolin.
Today, Rebank co-host Aman Ghei of Finch Capital is joined by Silvi Wompa. Silvi is the head of portfolio underwriting at Swiss Re, one of the largest reinsurers in the world with over $30B in revenue. Over the past 18 years, Silvi has built an international executive career in insurance across Life & Pensions, Property & Casualty, Broking and the Lloyd’s Market at companies like Hiscox, Old Mutual and Willis Towers Watson. She also co-founded Ch.AI in 2018, an insurtech start-up based in London focused on mitigating price risk in raw materials. In this conversation, Aman and Silvi discuss the insurtech landscape, why disruption in insurance has not kept up pace with other areas of fintech, why enablement may trump disruption in insurtech, and what incumbent insurance companies are doing to stay relevant. For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Aman Ghei and Silvi Wompa.
The fintech industry has rapidly matured in recent years. Once a collection of aspirational early stage founders catering to tech early adopters, fintech companies are increasingly offering highly respected, professional grade solutions to mainstream consumers and businesses. Challenger banks, online lenders, payments companies and API connectivity layers once competed for fringe customers in a handful of urban centers. Now, they’re pursuing global rollouts, pushing $10 billion valuations and piquing the interest of incumbent acquirers from FIS to Fiserv to Visa. How far will private funding take fintech? Will a wave of IPOs follow? Will M&A entice leading startups before their valuations make takeovers uneconomical? What will happen when local fintech successes clash at the global level? This special episode was recorded live at a Rebank event in London hosted by Shearman & Sterling, a global law firm with a specialist fintech practice. Visit fintech.shearman.com to find out more. In this conversation, we're joined by Noel Monro, Director at Rothschild & Co, an investment bank, Tim Levene, CEO of Augmentum Fintech, a venture capital firm, Ian Sutherland, CFO of Tide, a business banking service and Pawel Szaja, Capital Markets Partner at Shearman & Sterling. For all of our past episodes and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Noel Monro, Tim Levene, Ian Sutherland and Pawel Szaja.
Today, Rebank co-host Aman Ghei of Finch Capital connects with Steve Toland, founder and CEO of TransFICC, an e-trading technology company providing solutions for fixed income and derivative markets. Steve has over 25 years experience working in the global capital markets. He was previously the Head of LMAX Interbank, led global sales for MarketFactory, and held the positions of Head of FX Sales for EMEA and America at ICAP and Head of Sales for Americas at Thomson Reuters. Aman and Steve start by discussing why there has not been much innovation in capital markets infrastructure compared to traditional retail brokerage and how trading desks at various product groups like fixed income are waking up to the new wave of API driven technology to provide the best speed of execution in highly regulated markets. It's interesting to think about how trading desks at big banks and asset managers will need to adapt to an increasingly competitive and technology driven marketplace. Thank you very much for joining us today, please welcome Steve Toland.
Today, Rebank co-host Aman Ghei of Finch Capital connects with Wayne Marc Godfrey, founder and CEO of Purely Capital, an entertainment finance platform. Wayne is a prolific film producer and financier, having raised over $300 million and produced over 125 films with over $1 billion in production spend. He recently closed a $150 million facility for Purely Capital from a leading institutional lender. Media and entertainment is one of the biggest industries in the world, grossing over $700 billion annually. Underpinning all those receipts is a web of financing and distribution deals with networks and streaming operators. Aman and Wayne discuss the media financing value chain and why now is the right time to build a finance technology business in this space. They also explore how traditional funders are reacting to changes in production and consumption habits, and more. This is a fascinating conversation about how financial services are interpreted and reinterpreted in other industries, and how rapid technological change in other sectors, in this case media, is impacting innovation in financial services. In addition to the audio version of this podcast, today's conversation is also available on video on our YouTube channel, thanks to LaunchPod studios. Link in description. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome Wayne Marc Godfrey.
Juan Andrade (EMBA2018) of Rebank had a clear idea of what he wanted out of London Business School. Before LBS he also had a clear blueprint for his start-up and despite not holding an undergraduate degree he applied looking for that something extra. In this podcast he chats to LBS’ Jeff Skinner about why the EMBA proved to be the experience he needed. After graduating, he executed a refined strategy, successfully launching Rebank with Simon White. Rebank gives you a complete view of your business banking and optimises the way you make payments - without forcing you to switch banks.
How (and When) Will Digital Banks Operate Profitably? No one can question the ability of the digital banks to grow their customer bases. Or their ability to raise equity capital. But what we have not seen yet is a profitable digital bank. In this session we will explore what it will take for these new banks to turn the corner on profitability. Giles Andrews, Zopa Norris Koppel, Monese Moderator: Will Beeson, Rebank
Freddy Kelly is the Founder and CEO of Credit Kudos, a UK company redesigning the credit bureau for the modern age. Unhappy with the inaccuracy, opaqueness and questionable data ethics of the traditional model, Credit Kudos is using Open Banking, machine learning and customer consent in an attempt to create a more transparent, more predictive credit scoring system. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy.> For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Freddy Kelly.
Immad Akhund is the founder and CEO of Mercury, a bank for startups. Mercury, which launched to market in April, has raised $26 million from Andreessen Horowitz and a number of others, including the founder of Silicon Valley Bank, a respected player in the startup banking space. Mercury offers FDIC-insured checking and savings accounts, along with payments, cashflow analytics and API-access to its customers and plans to continue rolling out functionality. The startup banking space is hot, with players like Brex and Divvy capitalizing on the credit card and corporate spend side, and new players like Mercury exploring banking more comprehensively. We hope you’ll bear with us on audio quality today. We picked up a bit of background noise while recording, but the conversation itself is great. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Immad Akhund.
Naftali Harris is the Co-Founder and CEO of SentiLink, a synthetic fraud prevention company. Naftali was the first data science hire at Affirm, where he built some of the lender’s first fraud models. For the past couple years, Naftali has been working to solve the problem of synthetic fraud, a surprisingly pervasive and little-discussed source of credit losses for banks. Earlier this year, SentiLink raised a $14 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, in which Affirm's Max Levchin, and Plaid CEO Zach Perret also participated. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Naftali Harris.
Lex Sokolin is the Global Fintech Co-Head at ConsenSys, the leading crypto software development studio and venture builder. As regular listeners know, Lex is one of the world’s leading authorities on the intersection of crypto, disruptive technologies and financial services. In this conversation, we get Lex’s perspective on where crypto is focused today, the emergence of decentralized finance and the practical implications for financial services. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
Joseph Healy is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Judo Bank, an SME challenger bank in Australia. Fresh off a A$400m equity raise from Bain Capital and others, Judo is on track to lend A$1 billion by year end. Prior to starting Judo, Joseph held executive positions at NAB, ANZ, CIBC World Markets, Citibank and Lloyds. From 2008-2014, Joseph ran NAB’s Business Banking unit, the largest business banking division in Australia. Joseph and I discuss the state of business banking in Australia, why he needed to start a new bank rather than seeking to reform an incumbent bank from the inside and the learnings from decades as a traditional banking executive that Joseph is applying at Judo. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Joseph Healy.
Oliver Prill is the CEO of Tide, a leading business banking provider for UK SMEs. Charles McManus is the CEO of ClearBank, the first new clearing bank in the UK in nearly 200 years. Tide and ClearBank recently won a £60 million grant as part of the RBS remedies program, which we’ve discussed before on the podcast and which Charles describes to start us off. With the funding, Tide, backed by ClearBank, aims to achieve high single-digit market share in the UK SME banking market with its digital proposition. In this conversation, we discuss Tide’s plans as well as the UK SME market in general. The first voice you’ll hear in the conversation after mine is Charles’s, followed by Oliver’s. You’ll hear us refer to the BCR, or Banking Competition Remedies, the body responsible for administering the remedies program. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Oliver Prill and Charles McManus.
Seth Rosenberg focuses on fintech at Greylock, one of Silicon Valley’s most storied venture firms, with noteworthy investments including LinkedIn, Facebook, Airbnb and many more. In this conversation, we talk through Greylock’s fintech thesis, Seth’s view of where the industry is going and the way the firm looks at investments in general. We reference a deck Greylock published, accessible here. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Seth Rosenberg.
Mike Massaro is the CEO of Flywire, a Boston-based payments company. Flywire specializes in large-value payments for education, healthcare and travel. Flywire has raised over $140 million from leading investors including Spark Capital, Fidelity’s F-Prime, Bain Capital, Temasek, Accel Partners and QED Investors. In this conversation, Mike and I discuss the drivers and implications of recent consolidation in the payments industry, existential threats to payments incumbents and the trend of payments integration into vertical software platforms. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Mike Massaro.
Ryan Gilbert is a General Partner at Propel, a San Francisco-based venture firm with investments in companies including Coinbase, Personal Capital, Trussle, Prosper and many more. Prior to joining Propel, Ryan founded and ran SmartBiz loans, a leading SBA loan originator. In this conversation, we explore a few interesting fintech verticals, including mixed commerce, insurtech and payroll benefits, by way of recent investments Ryan has made. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ryan Gilbert.
Sankaet Pathak is the Founder and CEO of Synapse, a platform banking provider. Fresh off a Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz, Synapse is operating at the leading edge of the potentially massive platform banking trend. In this conversation, we discuss the issues with existing sponsor banking infrastructure, examples of new propositions that can be created using a platform like Synapse and the implications of big tech and non-banks increasingly surfacing banking and financial services products within their offerings. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Sankaet Pathak.
Donna Parisi is a Derivatives Partner and Global Head of Financial Services and Fintech for Shearman & Sterling, a leading global law firm. In addition to her work on a range of derivatives, structured products, securitization, capital markets and commodities matters, Donna has built specific expertise in crypto, tokens and digital assets, which are the subject of our conversation today. Donna and I discuss regulatory frameworks and institutional infrastructure for digital assets, where the space is going and why. You’ll note that we intentionally don’t dig into Facebook’s Libra project, which I may pick up in a standalone episode in the future. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Donna Parisi.
Jon Stein is the Founder and CEO of Betterment, one of the world’s leading digital investments companies. We first connected with Jon in January 2018 in a great episode that’s still very relevant today. Since then, Betterment has added $4 billion in assets under management to its platform, and today, they’re launching checking and savings accounts as they extend their offering into banking. This move is a compelling one at a time when consumer fintechs are increasingly extending early product sets in pursuit of comprehensive financial services offerings. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Jon Stein.
The subject of today’s conversation is design in financial services. We talk all the time about the new customer experiences shaping the evolution of finance, generally focusing on the implications of those forces and others on the trajectory of the industry. Today, we take a closer look at those experiences themselves, through the eyes of the people designing them. The first voice you’ll hear after Will's is that of Yenny Otero, Head of Design at TSB. The following speaker is Nick Haley, Product Design Principal at Idean, a design agency. The fourth and last voice that enters the conversation is that of Noel Lyons, Experience Design Director at Barclays. Design is an increasingly important function in financial services, with organizations around the world embedding it in product development and leveraging it for better traction, engagement and ultimately, monetization. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Yenny Otero, Noel Lyons and Nick Haley.
The investments space is changing as fast as any other financial services vertical, with roboadvisors, free stock trading apps, contextual behavioral experiences, software automation, AI, new pricing structures and crypto all shaping the future direction of the industry. Today, we discuss the current state and likely future of the space with two of the leading firms in the industry. Chris Worle is the Chief Digital Officer at Hargreaves Lansdown, the UK’s leading retail investments platform. Joe Parkin leads the UK iShares business and digital wealth for Northern Europe at BlackRock, one of the world’s leading investment firms. This conversation is a great complement to past episodes with Nutmeg, Betterment and Scalable Capital exploring the evolution of investment management. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Chris Worle and Joe Parkin.
Paul Taylor is the founder and CEO of Thought Machine, a cloud native core banking platform. We first connected with Paul in November 2017, where we walked through his background as a Google AI engineer and the origins of Thought Machine. Today, we zoom out and update, digging deeper into what drives banks’ decisions to modernize core infrastructure and how, what approaches are best for what organizations and who is furthest along in the journey. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Paul Taylor.
Michael Rolph is the co-founder and CEO of Yoyo, a payments, loyalty and receipt app enriching commerce for customers and merchants. The payments space has been actively lately, as incumbents consolidate and startups seek new attack vectors leveraging open banking, native device components, tokens and other emerging technologies. Michael brings a value perspective to recent developments in the space and talks through where payments might be headed. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Michael Rolph.
Nick Hungerford is the founder of Nutmeg, the UK’s leading roboadvisor. Nick founded Nutmeg in 2011 and ran it for five years. Currently, Nick is a partner at Portag3 Ventures and serves on the boards of Nutmeg, multiply.ai and Hong Kong based digital bank Neat. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Nick Hungerford.
Ron Suber is the former head of Prosper, one of the original peer-to-peer lenders. Prior to getting involved in Prosper, Ron built and sold Merlin, a tech-first prime broker for the long-tail of hedge funds, acquired by Wells Fargo in 2012. Ron invests in and advises a number of fintech companies and has developed views on the space and where it’s headed, all of which we get into today. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ron Suber.
David Green is the Chief Product Officer at Earnest, a digital student lender and refinancing provider. The student debt market in the US is unique in the world. College is exceedingly expensive, and students fund their educations by borrowing from the government and private lenders. Despite the size of the market and its decades-long history, student lending doesn’t necessarily operate with the same sophistication you would find in other credit markets. David and I talk through some of these points and explore some of the more innovative approaches being taken to address student debt levels and align the interests of students and schools. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to startups, investors and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we support startups in proposition definition, investors with deal flow and due diligence and corporates in making sense of the rapidly evolving fintech industry and the implications for their businesses. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
Matt Harris is a partner at Bain Capital Ventures focused on fintech and financial services. Matt is a fintech legend in New York. Everyone I talked to about this conversation knew Matt and sang his praises effusively. Matt has been an early stage investor since 1997, which is basically forever in fintech years. His portfolio includes Acorns, IEX, Roofstock, SigFig and many more. Matt has highly developed views about the future of payments, lending, banking and investing, which we work through in our discussion. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Matt Harris.
Samvit Ramadurgam is the Co-Founder & President and Kelly Rodriques is the CEO of Forge, a secondary market for private shares. Forge provides access to shares of virtually all of the top 50 privately held tech startups, including Slack and many more, and offered trading in the likes of Spotify, Dropbox, Snap and DocuSign before they IPOed. According to Crunchbase, Forge has raised $88.5m from investors including Peter Thiel, Tim Draper, FT Partners and others. Unlike earlier players in the space, Forge has focused on building out a robust technology platform, including institutional grade clearing and custody infrastructure to support global counterparties. Forge’s proposition is particularly relevant as companies stay private for longer. More investor value is captured pre-IPO, so access to private shares is important. Additionally, because IPOs happen later, early employees are often unable to access liquidity for years, making it difficult to buy homes or diversify risk. We dig into all of these issues with Samvit and Kelly. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Samvit Ramadurgam and Kelly Rodriques.
Dee Choubey is the Founder and CEO of MoneyLion, a digital bank combining a comprehensive financial offering with AI-driven personalized guidance. With four million users and counting, MoneyLion aspires to build a private bank for the middle class, initially by providing financial access, education and advice to Americans underserved by the financial system. I find MoneyLion’s vision highly compelling. As we’ve said before on the podcast, it feels like many B2C fintechs are converging to the same place. MoneyLion, on the other hand, has sought to be there from day one. Dee and I connected at MoneyLion’s beautiful downtown San Francisco office, which meant sirens, honking horns and general urban background noise. We hope you’ll bear with us, as the conversation itself was excellent. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Dee Choubey.
Ryan King is the Co-Founder and CTO of Chime, one of the leading digital banks in the US. Chime offers free banking to over three million customers, helping them save hundreds a year on banking and gain control of their financial lives. This episode was recorded at LendIt in San Francisco. A huge thanks to Peter Renton and his team for inviting us to participate. As listeners know, digital banking is a space we follow closely. The US is a fascinating market to watch, given the importance of spending, borrowing and investing, prevailing incumbent pricing structures, digital penetration and customer expectations. And with the number of well-funded fintechs converging on comprehensive digital financial offerings, including Robinhood, Acorns, Betterment, MoneyLion, Chime, Varo and others, not to mention European digital banks like Monzo, N26 and Revolut, the space will get competitive fast. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ryan King.
Erin Collard is Co-Founder of Blend, a digital mortgage origination platform. Blend sits atop incumbent systems and digitizes the mortgage process, massively reducing costs for lenders and expediting origination. Blend’s software is compelling. So compelling, in fact, that 25% of the market now uses Blend’s technology to originate $1 billion of US mortgages every day. Blend has raised $160 million from leading investors including Greylock and Founders Fund. Erin has a fascinating background, which he runs through to kick us off. In addition to the insights we deliver through our podcast and newsletter, Rebank offers advisory services to fintechs, banks and corporates. Drawing on our experience starting, running and advising fintech businesses and our vast network of the most impactful fintech entrepreneurs, investors and innovators around the world, we help companies make sense of fintech, work through specific questions and optimize proposition and strategy. For more information about our services, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Erin Collard.
SME banking is a particular interest of mine, as long-time listeners know. We've covered it from a number of angles on Rebank, including challenger banking with OakNorth, digital lending with iwoca and Spotcap, payments with GoCardless and support services with Xero, to name a few. If one area of fintech has been getting increasing interest lately, it's SME banking, and it's about time. Last week, Pool A of the RBS Capability & Innovation Fund was allocated, with massive cash grants going to winners Metro Bank, Starling and ClearBank to enhance existing business current account offerings. The cash injections are sure to shake up competition in the space. Today, we're joined by Richard Davies to talk through recent developments and the broader trajectory of the space. Richard runs business banking and sits on the Executive Committee at TSB, the UK's 7th largest bank. If you enjoy today's episode, please take 30 seconds to leave us a review on iTunes. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Richard Davies.
Welcome to the third instalment of our Founder Sessions series. Tom Blomfield is the Founder & CEO of Monzo, one of the UK's leading digital banks. For Tom's full backstory, check out Rebank Episode 17, when we first connected with him. For an update on Monzo, including recently hitting the million customer milestone, check out Episode 108. Special thanks to everyone who responded to our request and rated and reviewed Rebank on iTunes. We've seen a marked boost to listenership already. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please enjoy today's episode with Tom Blomfield.
Tom Blomfield is the co-founder and CEO of Monzo, one of Europe's leading digital banks. For Tom's full backstory, check out Rebank Episode 17, when we first connected with him. In today's conversation, we discuss Monzo's recent milestones, future plans and much more. If you're a regular listener, please take two minutes to rate and review Rebank on iTunes or your go-to podcast platform. It really helps drive traffic. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please enjoy today's episode with Tom Blomfield.
Scott Sage is a Partner at Crane, a Venture Capital fund focused on complex enterprise software, much of which incorporates AI. Abhirukt Sapru is the Chief Revenue Officer of Tessian, an AI-powered email security company. Tim Pullan is the Founder and CEO of ThoughtRiver, a legal tech company offloading contract work to artificial intelligence, and Ed Challis is the CEO and Co-Founder of re:infer, a company leveraging artificial intelligence to extract sentiment and insights from vast quantities of corporate information, including email. I was clearly out of my depth in a room full of PhDs and advanced computer scientists, but wow, what a fascinating topic. We cover everything from funding and growing enterprise software businesses to where is society artificial intelligence is likely to have the greatest impact. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you like today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Scott Sage, Abhirukt Sapru, Tim Pullan and Ed Challis.
This week, we're joined by Harry Franks, Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Zego, an on-demand insurance platform founded by former Deliveroo employees. We're also joined by Nigel Walsh, Partner at Deloitte and insurtech specialist. This is an interesting conversation about how changes in the way people live and work impact their requirements for traditional financial services. Lots to think about here. You can check out the report Nigel and his team recently conducted on the gig economy, in conjunction with Lloyds of London, here. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you like today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Harry Franks and Nigel Walsh.
Hello and welcome to Rebank. I'm your host, Will Beeson. Or should I say, I'm your guest, Will Beeson. Today's episode is different. The mic got turned on me this time to discuss CivilisedBank, the SME opportunity and the future of fintech more broadly. The host is Carlos Espinal, Partner at Seedcamp, one of the most active seed funds in Europe. This conversation originally aired earlier this week on Carlos's podcast, This Much I Know, which everyone should totally check out. Hope you enjoy the role reversal. Be back next week with another regular episode.
Will Beeson is one of the founding members of CivilisedBank, a new challenger fintech business bringing together people and technology to help UK companies do business and people save money with an overall mission to make banking more civilised. In this podcast, Will shares his journey from investment banking into fintech with stops in New York, London and Rome along the way. It was in Italy, where Will worked on transforming a paper-based underwriting operation into something fit for the 21st century and became fascinated with the potential impact of technology on financial services. In addition to his role in CivilisedBank, Will investigates the future of financial services through hosting the Rebank podcast, where he tackles topics ranging from consumer banking to roboadvisory. Tune in to hear his thoughts on the challenges ahead and where impact is yet to be made in the financial sector. On one of the hottest segments of the market, consumer banking, Will notes: “We have seen the marketing and user acquisition side, but I feel that the natural next step has to be the lending model component of banking. I don’t see long-term success for retail or business banks, who don’t leverage lending as a core component of what they are doing." Links: Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com CivilisedBank: https://www.civilisedbank.co.uk/ Rebank Podcast: https://bankingthefuture.com/ Carlos: medium.com/@cee www.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal twitter.com/cee Will: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willbeeson/ https://twitter.com/will_beeson
Today we’re joined by Lex Sokolin, head of Autonomous Next, the disruptive technologies arm of research firm Autonomous. Topics of conversation today include Amazon vs Google vs Facebook for financial services disruption, the shortcomings of open banking and what the past few months in crypto tell us about what’s next. In the conversation, we make reference to the newsletter Lex writes and to his recently published crypto report, both which you can find at next.autonomous.com. Let us know what you think of today’s episode @rebankpodcast on Twitter or in the comments section on the website. Thank you very much for joining us today, please welcome, Lex Sokolin.
This is part two of a two-part episode. We published part one on August 21st as Rebank episode 99. We recently participated in an event with PIMFA, the UK Personal Investment Management and Financial Advice Association, on the subject of Millennials and Financial Services, as part of a research project they're undertaking. The research looks at how people in their 20s and early-30s think about life, work and the future, and how that influences their financial decisions. We spoke with a range of guests at and around the event, ranging from incumbent investment managers to fintech startups to millennials themselves and stitched those conversations together into this two-part episode. In part one, we heard from PIMFA's CEO, Liz Field, and Head of Research, Gary Sunderland, as well as Sally Allan of Wealthify and Ellie Duncan of the FT. In part two of the episode, we sit down with Nina Mohanty of fintech marketplace platform Bud and Sophie Winwood, formerly of Innovate Finance and soon to be with Anthemis, for a deeper dive into the way Millennials think about life, work and money. A huge thanks to PIMFA for coordinating the event and facilitating our involvement. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you like today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Nina Mohanty and Sophie Winwood.
In today's episode, we catch up with Marieke Flament, Chief Marketing Officer of Circle, one of the most noteworthy crytpo companies. Circle was the first company to receive a BitLicense from the State of New York and the first virtual currency business to receive an e-money license from the British government. Circle has raised over over $246 million since 2013, including a $50 million round led by Goldman Sachs. Earlier this year, Circle acquired crypto exchange Poloniex for $400 million, with leaked documents suggesting an aspiration to make Poloniex America's first regulated crypto exchange. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you like today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Marieke Flament.
Hello and welcome to Rebank. I'm your host, Will Beeson. This is part one of a two-part episode. We recently participated in an event with PIMFA, the UK Personal Investment Management and Financial Advice Association, on the subject of Millennials and Financial Services, as part of a research project they're undertaking. The research looks at how people in their 20s and early-30s think about life, work and the future, and how that influences their financial decisions. We spoke with a range of guests at and around the event, ranging from incumbent investment managers to fintech startups to millennials themselves and stitched those conversations together into this two-part episode. In part one, we'll hear from PIMFA's CEO, Liz Field, and Head of Research, Gary Sunderland, as well as Sally Allan, Chief Marketing Officer of Wealthify, a roboadvisor, and Ellie Duncan, Deputy Content Editor at FT Adviser. In part two of the episode, which we'll release in the coming weeks, we'll hear from Nina Mohanty, Business Development at fintech marketplace platform Bud, and Sophie Winwood, formerly of Innovate Finance and soon to be with Anthemis, a Venture Capital firm, for a deeper dive into the way Millennials themselves think about life, work and money. A huge thanks to PIMFA for coordinating the event and facilitating our involvement. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you like today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Liz Field, Gary Sunderland, Sally Allan and Ellie Duncan.
This week, we look at the massively important topic of fintech for small businesses. Joining us are Edward Berks, Head of Fintech at Xero, a cloud-based accounting platform, Caroline Plumb, Founder and CEO of Fluidly, a cash flow forecasting tool, and James Haycock, Founder and Managing Director of Adaptive Lab, now Idean, following their recent acquisition by Capgemini. These three guests bring a wealth of experience solving problems for sole traders and small businesses and are excellently placed to explore today's topic. During the conversation, James mentions a report his team did on SMEs, which you can find here. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you like today's episode, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Edward Berks, Caroline Plumb and James Haycock.
Today, we're launching Founder Sessions, a new series looking at the entrepreneurial process through the experiences of some of the most noteworthy fintech founders around the world. We've connected with a phenomenal selection of entrepreneurs over the years on Rebank, and we wanted to create a dedicated place to share their insights. Each episode of Founder Sessions will take the form of a short, focused discussion of the most important insights, lessons and advice our guests have to offer around startup success, based on their own first-hand experience. We'll mix Founder Sessions into our regular episode release schedule, so watch your feed. To kick things off, we connected with Husayn Kassai, founder of Onfido, one of the world's premier regtechs, specializing in customer authentication. Let us know what you think of the new format on Twitter @rebankpodcast, and feel free to send any guest ideas to rebank@bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Husayn Kassai.
Today we're joined by Dan Hegarty, Founder and CEO of Habito. Habito is a digital mortgage platform helping homebuyers makes sense of the more than 10,000 mortgage offers available in the UK. Habito is backed by some of the biggest names in venture capital including Mosaic, Ribbit and Atomico. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you like today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review. Thank you very much for joining us today, please welcome Dan Hegarty.
Today we're thrilled to be joined by acclaimed author Dave Birch, back on Rebank for Round 2. Dave previously joined us on Episode 24 to explore developments in digital identity. Dave is an internationally-recognized thought leader in digital money and digital identity. He has been named one of the global top 15 best sources of business information by Wired Magazine, one of the top ten most influential voices in banking by the Financial Brand, one of the top ten Twitter accounts for innovators by PR Daily, and one of the top three most influential people in London’s fintech community by City A.M. Dave is perhaps Europe’s most influential commentator on emerging payments and adjacent technologies, including digital identity, blockchain and privacy. Dave recently published a new book, called Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin, which looks at money as a concept and the ways it may evolve. Today, we look at the current crypto boom and what it's telling us about the future of money and economies. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you're a regular Rebank listener, please sign into iTunes and leave us a review. It helps others find the show.
Welcome back after a week off last week - our first in a year. Wow. Hope everyone's having some fun this summer. We've got some amazing guests lined up over the next few months, so stay tuned for that. We're increasingly active in our newsletter lately - if you'd like to be a part of that, you can subscribe on our website at www.bankingthefuture.com. Today, we've got one for the entrepreneurs. We've had some great episodes with venture capitalists and founders going through the most interesting opportunities their seeing, ideas about areas of fintech ripe for further innovation, startup advice and more. We're pulling all of that together in one place in a nod to our founder and aspiring founder listeners, of which there are many. A lot of the questions that come up most often in our community are around turning concepts into action. One of our core tenants at Rebank is that its delivery that matters. The discussion and analysis of high level ideas and trends are part of the work that takes place around and in support of execution, but with no action, the reflection is only so relevant. Today, we hear from a number of past guests, including Michael Kent of Azimo, Steve Lemon of CurrencyCloud, Nigel Verdon of Railsbank, Alex Macpherson of Octopus Ventures, Carolina Brochado of Atomico, Michael Treskow of Eight Roads, Ameya Upadhyay of Omidyar, Charlie Delingpole of ComplyAdvantage and Aman Ghei of Orange Growth Capital. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you like today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review. Please enjoy today's special episode on starting a fintech.
Aman Ghei is a Principal at Orange Growth Capital, a London- and Amsterdam-based venture capital firm focused on high growth fintech companies. Prior to joining Orange Growth Capital, Aman worked at Facebook and Accel Partners. Aman first joined Rebank for Episode 37, together with Alvaro Alvarez del Rio, where we looked at similarities between fintech and other tech verticals, including gaming. We're trying out a new format in this episode. Rather than breaking down high level trends like we usually do, we're going deep on a single business model from the point of view of the investor and the entrepreneur. Today we look at the opportunity in wealth management software, leveraging tech to provide automated personalized financial management to the masses. Let us know what you think of today's format. If you guys like it, we'll get some more VCs on in the future and do it again. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you like today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Aman Ghei.
Danny Gilligan is back for round 2 with Rebank, this time to discuss the future of data. Danny is the co-founder of Data Republic, a company building the rails to support the emerging data industry. Danny is also co-founder and managing partner of Reinventure, an Australia-based, fintech venture capital fund. Danny joined us in Episode 28 in late February with his Reinventure partner Simon Cant to talk fintech investing, and we promised we'd follow it up with an episode on data at some point. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you like today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Danny Gilligan.
Peeling back the banking stack, layer by layer. This week, we've put together a special show looking at a couple of the biggest topics in fintech. Rebank is lucky to host some of the most noteworthy figures in fintech. The perspective and insight they provide is often an indicator of where things are going. One of the trends we've discussed on the show in the past is the move to component front, middle and backend layers to replace proprietary pieces of the financial services technology stack. Today, we start by taking a closer look at that trend before digging into data analytics, AI and machine learning. We wrap up by looking at the potential for quantum computing to change the way we think about processing for different types of tasks. If you enjoy today's show, reach out. Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. For more on the topics covered today, check out the full episodes on our website, iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice.
Simon Cant and Danny Gilligan, founding partners of Reinventure, an Australia-based, fintech venture capital fund, join us today for a discussion on fintech investing. Simon and Danny are entrepreneurs, and they bring that experience and mindset to venture investing. We cover a number of interesting topics today, including how Reinventure thinks about fintech investing, how best to engage and support startups, where fintech is going in the next decade, the untapped opportunity in data and more. If you like today's show, reach out. Tweet at us @rebankpodcast or at me, your host, @will_beeson. You can subscribe to Rebank on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice. Thanks so much for joining us today. Please welcome Simon Cant and Danny Gilligan.
Shazam founder Dhiraj Mukherjee joins the show today. Dhiraj is currently Head of Innovation at Virgin Money, a prominent UK bank and part of Richard Branson's Virgin Group. After graduating from Dartmouth College and then Stanford GSB, Dhiraj co-founded Shazam, one of the best known apps of all time. Launched in 2002, the platform is alive and well today. Dhiraj is a seasoned digital innovation and experience design professional, launching digital platforms around music, movies, advertising and social networking. He has advised on innovation for Reuters and other large corporates, and now carries the innovation flag at Virgin Money. In addition to his work at Virgin Money, Dhiraj is an insightful thinker in his own right, and it's in that capacity that he's sitting down with us today. If you enjoy today's show, please leave us a review on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice. Positive feedback is instrumental in helping others find the show. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you'd like to join Rebank's insider community to receive exclusive content, event information, highlights and more, check out the sign-up page on our website. Thanks so much for listening today. Please welcome, Dhiraj Mukherjee.
Sophie Guibaud is Head of European Expansion for Fidor Bank, one of Europe's original and best known digital-only banks. Originally launched in Germany in 2009, Fidor expanded into the UK in 2015. Prior to joining Fidor, Sophie led product strategy and commercialization at Bankable, a white-label banking platform provider. Before that, she was the Chief Marketing Officer at HelloFresh, a Rocket Internet-backed ready-to-cook meal delivery startup. Sophie is regularly mentioned among top fintech influencers, appearing on the Innovate Finance Women in Fintech Powerlist, CityAM's Fintech Most Influential Powerlist and Women in Fintech Powerlist and many more. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com. If you enjoy today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, Overcast, player.fm, or wherever else great podcasts are distributed. Final note: our very first exclusive Rebank update went out to our insider community this week. Sign up at bankingthefuture.com. Thanks so much for listening today.
Dave Birch (@dgwbirch) is Director of Innovation at Consult Hyperion, a secure electronic transactions consultancy. Dave is an internationally-recognized thought leader in digital identity and digital money. He has been named one of the global top 15 best sources of business information by Wired Magazine, one of the top ten most influential voices in banking by the Financial Brand, one of the top three most influential people in London’s FinTech community by City A.M, and more. Dave is perhaps Europe’s most influential commentator on emerging payments and adjacent subject areas, including digital identity, blockchain and privacy. This episode is a timely follow-on to recent episodes with Pascal Bouvier (Ep 22) and Taqanu founder Balazs Nemethi (Ep 23), both of which raised the topic of digital identity. When it comes to digital identity and the technologies required to support its implementation, few are as knowledgeable as Dave Birch. As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Tweet at us @rebankpodcast or @will_beeson. If you like Rebank, please subscribe on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice and consider leaving us a review. Please enjoy today's show with Dave Birch.
We've got a great episode today with Tom Blomfield (@t_blom), co-founder and CEO of Monzo (@monzo), a new, digital-only challenger bank in the UK. Monzo is seeking to fundamentally change the way banking is done and challenge a lot of assumptions about the way people want to interact with their money. Tom is a serial entrepreneur, he founded an e-commerce platform for students called boso.com while he was in college and later launched GoCardless, a B2B payments company that raised funding from the likes of Accel, Balderton and Passion Capital and went through Y Combinator in 2011. In 2013, Tom and his GoCardless (@GoCardless) co-founders were named among the top 5 entrepreneurs by the European Commission. Tom got involved in the digital, challenger bank space in the UK relatively early, at the bank now known as Starling before moving on to found Monzo which plans to launch in early 2017. Monzo has generated a phenomenal following and has a live beta with thousands of active users and an extremely long waiting list. As a special treat for Rebank listeners and a profound thank you for your support through our first 17 episodes, Tom is offering up a Monzo card giving immediate access to the highly sought after beta for one lucky listener. To participate, send an email with your name and the title of your favorite Rebank episode so far to rebank@bankingthefuture.com. We'll draw a winner at 5pm GMT on Friday, December 9th, so get your submissions in. As always, connect with us on Twitter @rebankpodcast or with Will directly @will_beeson. If you like the show, subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher or one of the numerous other platforms where we're distributed. Thanks, and enjoy today's episode with Tom Blomfield.