Tearsheet Podcast: Fintech Investor Podcast

Our guest for this episode is Caribou Honig, a founding partner of QED Investors. QED has quietly become one of the top investors in the financial technology space -- their investment portfolio includes early big successes like SoFi and Prosper and also firms like LendUp, borro, Orchard, Avant Credit, blooom, and ApplePie Capital. 

As part of our conversation, Caribou shares his personal path to how he ended up as part of the founding team of QED after a post-MBA career at Capital One where he developed a passion for data-driven marketing,, including responsibility for a $50 mm marketing budget, management of a 200 person underwriting operation, and cracking the code on digital credit card origination. This experience, along with his co-founders which include the founder of Capital One, provides a differentiator for the investment firm when it comes to deal flow and portfolio building. 

Caribou shares his views on trends in the fintech space, how incumbent financial institutions view startups in the space and how they’re planning for their futures, and we drill down into his portfolio to discuss his holdings and the investment thesis behind them.

Lastly, we’ll talk about where Caribou is looking to make investments in the future.

You can find this episode and 4 years of our archives on our website, www.tradestreaming.com

***Thanks for joining us on the Tradestreaming Podcast.

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QED Investors' Caribou Honig on investing in today's early stage fintech

Last week, we had Caribou Honig of QED Investors on the podcast and I said that his portfolio is one of the strongest in fintech. If I had to name the top investors in the next generation of finance companies, Charles Moldow of Foundation Capital  would definitely be near the top of the list, as well. Charles joins us this week on the Tradestreaming Podcast to talk about his thesis behind why he likes to invest in a trillion dollar industry that, in his words, “doesn’t do a great job servicing its customer base”.

His white paper, A Trillion Dollar Market By the People, For the People is essential reading for anyone who wants to know about the marketplace lending space:  its size, structure, and potential. We’ll include a link in the show notes to it. His current portfolio includes auxmoney, BTCJam, Finxera (formerly Bancbox), LendingClub [IPO 12/11/14], Lending Home, Motif Investing, and On Deck Capital [IPO 12/17/14]

I think you’ll find my conversation with Charles to be thought-provoking -- pay attention to why he prefers to build standalone B2C finance companies as opposed to firms that partner and sell into incumbent financial institutions. Contrarian and a very interesting point.

You can find this episode and all the years of our archives on our website, www.tradestreaming.com

***Thanks for joining us on the Tradestreaming Podcast.

If you're listening to this episode on iTunes, please give it a ranking and rating so that others know of the value you're finding in it. Thank you ahead of time.****

Why Foundation Capital's Charles Moldow invests in B2C fintech companies

We’ve explored various themes on investing in financial technology on this show.

We’ve interviewed Caribou Honig at QED Investors. We’ve also spoken to to Foundation Capital’s Charles Moldow.

If you were to put together an all-star team of fintech investors, you’d also want to include Dan Ciporin from Canaan Partners. He was the first institutional investor in Lending Club and has a portfolio that includes CircleUp, Orchard, borro, and direct match. You can see the marketplace finance and marketplace lending theme played out in his investments.

Dan joins us on this week’s episode of the Tradestreaming Podcast. We talk about a variety of different things: first and foremost, we talk about his investments, why he made them, and what he’s looking at investing in in the future. We talk about his background — how being the CEO of Shopping.com and selling it to eBay and his previous experience at MasterCard influenced his perspective on consumer credit and its investability.

It’s a great episode and glad you’ve joined us. Now, here’s our interview with Dan Ciporin of Canaan Partners.

Canaan Partners' Dan Ciporin on investing in marketplace lending

Next up, we’ve got Phin Upham. Phin is a principal at Thiel Capital, famed-fintech investor Peter Thiel’s investment office. Peter is a renown entrepreneur (founded PayPal and Palantir) and an equally talented investor. Phin’s experience helping to deploy Peter’s capital and his own has given him a ringside seat into identifying, investing, and growing some of today’s top fintech firms (names that include SoFi, OnDeck, and Avant). Phin’s perspective on his own and Thiel’s investment mandate is really interesting. Also, I was blown away about the student loan market and the opportunity it provides for new technology-driven entrants.

We discuss whether many of the unicorns he’s invested in are truly revolutionary or merely evolutionary, migrating existing businesses online. We chat about where the financial industry is headed and where the opportunities are for innovation. I’m confident you’ll really appreciate my conversation with Thiel Capital’s Phin Upham.

Phin just wanted it to be clear that his comments are his own and aren’t necessarily representative of his firm.

Thiel Capital's Phin Upham on investing in tomorrow's financial giants

This episode is another in an ongoing series on this show where we talk to some of the leading investors in the financial technology space. This week’s guest provides an interesting perspective we haven’t really heard from yet — Kevin Bhatt is a partner at Long Ridge Equity Partners. He and his firm are growth stage investors — typically coming in a bit later in a company’s growth cycle than some of our other guests on the Tradestreaming Podcast: guys like Phin Upham of Thiel Capital, Caribou Honig of QED, Charles Moldow of Foundation Capita and Canaan’s Dan Ciporin . Those guys are frequently the first institutional capital into a young company while Kevin’s firm comes in after a company has a product in the market and is generating millions of dollars of revenue. 

I think you’ll find our conversation interesting as we talk about investment opportunities in financial services that you probably haven’t thought of. Kevin’s an astute analyst of the financial services ecosystem with a long term view on organic themes and changes in the industry.

 We talk about some of his investment themes, discuss some of the investments he’s made and where he’s looking to deploy more capital. 

You can get this episode and over 120 episodes in our archive on our website, www.Tradestreaming.com. We’re also available on iTunes and SoundCloud. If you head on over to our website, make sure you sign up for our daily and/or weekly newsletter. It’s a go-to resource for thousands of financial professionals to identify and understand the impact technology is having on the business of money.

Here’s my interview with Kevin...

Investing in growth-stage financial services with Long Ridge's Kevin Bhatt

This episode is another in an ongoing series on this show where we talk to some of the leading investors in the financial technology space. This week’s guest Amir Goldman of Susquehanna Growth Equity is bit of a pioneer in the space. His firm has been investing in — and exiting — top fintech firms for more than a decade now. He takes concentrated positions and doesn’t need to diversify, so he’s swinging for the fences.

Some of his best-known current investments in his portfolio include Credit Karma, Payoneer, and PaySimple.

Amir’s been around long enough to have exited about a third of his fintech portfolio and has been an active participant in the technology-driven changes that the financial services industry has undergone.

We talk about those changes, some of the investments Amir and his firm have made in the fintech space and why he made them. We also discuss where he’s looking to deploy capital now and where he thinks some of the best opportunities in fintech will come from in the future.

Susquehanna Growth Equities' Amir Goldman on investing in fintech

Investment Banker Steve McLaughlin left Goldman Sachs in 2002 to start FT Partners, a boutique investment bank focused on fintech. Since then, Steve has played a major role in the growth of the industry. Now, 15 years in and with a team of 70 people, Steve and FT Partners have completed hundreds of transactions in the fintech space.

I sat down with Steve to talk about how fintech has changed over his career, how the industry grew to become cool, and how the interactions between incumbent financial institutions and fintech startups should continue to play out.


Top fintech banker Steve McLaughlin on the future of wealth management

If you want to drill deeper into the topics we discuss weekly here on the show, you're going to want to attend our upcoming event, Tearsheet Money. We'll be convening June 5th in New York City to hear about the state of the art in fintech and read some of the industry tea leaves with talks from senior executives at firms like JP Morgan, BlackRock, Silicon Valley Bank, Umpqua Bank, HSBC, Citizens and American Express. I'm excited — I hope you'll join us. 

Go to www.tearsheet.co/events  (http://www.tearsheet.co/events) to learn more and register. 

We're continuing our series of interviewing some of the smartest corporate investors at some of the largest firms in the financial industry. I'm trying to understand their process, the *why* behind their investment strategies, and how their firms use investing as part of their innovation programs.

This week's guest on the podcast is Dan Reed, managing director of American Family Ventures. As a corporate investor at insurer American Family, he's looking for early stage technology firms that can help the firm modernize its distribution while remaining true to the legacy of the agents who helped build his business. We also discuss how his career path, through strategy and business development roles, informs his investing practice at a 90 year old insurance company.

You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on iTunes. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud.

Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. http://www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

American Family Ventures' Dan Reed: Fintech investing answers questions that haven't been asked yet

What do you do as a sell-side analyst when you write the seminal research report on Bitcoin? You join a new type of venture capital firm that invests solely in the blockchain ecosystem. 

Today's guest is Spencer Bogart, head of research at Blockchain Capital, which has made dozens of investments in blockchain. Bogart was previously at Needham and Company, where I had first read his work on the rise of Bitcoin as an asset class. 

We talk about the transition from the sell-side on Wall Street to venture capital and how his experience impacts his research. We also discuss his newest fund which was funded in its own cryptocurrency, BCAP. This form of investing, still really just an interesting experiment, could potentially change the mechanics of investing in private companies.

You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co. If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on iTunes. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud.

Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry.  www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

Here's my conversation with Spencer.

Blockchain Capital's Spencer Bogart: 'Wall Street should be paying attention to blockchain now'

We're continuing on our series of interviewing top corporate venture capitalists in the finance industry to get their perspectives on where things are headed by looking at where they're investing. 

Today's guest is Doug Russell, managing director of MassMutual Ventures. We talk about his experience as an operator before moving into a corporate investor role and how that influences his investment practice. Of course, we talk about MassMutual Ventures' portfolio and drill down into the investments Doug has made.

You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on iTunes. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud.

Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

Here's my conversation with Doug.

MassMutual Ventures' Doug Russell: 'Our objective is to generate insights into our ecosystem'

After 18 plus years in corporate venture capital, credit bureau Experian brought in Alex Marquez last year to launch their own investment vehicle. While the firm has been pretty acquisitive throughout its history, this was a new initiative for the firm as it invests in innovation. 

Alex is our guest today on the Tearsheet podcast — we discuss Experian's investment mandate and how he measures the success of his corporate venture program. We also talk about how the investment side integrates into the firm's larger strategy.

You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud.

Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

Experian Ventures' Alex Marquez: 'Venture is our listening post to all the innovation going on'

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

As Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and initial coin offerings push to new heights, top financial institutions and banks are rushing to figure out just what their future role will be around the blockchain.

Join Tearsheet this September to explore these advances in distributed ledger technology and to hear firsthand from institutions pushing on the edge of finance. To see the agenda, speakers and to get more information about purchasing a ticket or sponsoring the event, click on the events tab on our website, Tearsheet.co.

As part of an ongoing series, we talk to professional investors in the fintech space to get a feel for what's on their radar screen. I enjoy these discussions because, if these investors are right in their analysis, they give you a little taste of what's to come in the near future in financial technology.

Today's guest is Chris Sugden, Managing Partner at Edison Partners, a Princeton NJ growth equity firm that invests in companies generating revenues of $5 to $20 million. After 31 years in the business, Edison is on its 8th fund. Chris leads the firm's activity in fintech and was previously an entrepreneur in the billing and payment space.  

Chris joins us today on the Tearsheet podcast to discuss the role growth equity plays in the fintech ecosystem. We get the low down on his firm's portfolio which includes investments like early forex leader Gain Capital, vertical payments player PHX, and personal finance manager MoneyLion. Lastly, we talk about where Chris and Edison are looking to make fintech investments in the future.

You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as 160 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.Tearsheet.co. If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud.

Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry. http://www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

Edison Partners' Chris Sugden: 'With growth equity, dogs are already eating the dog food'

As one of the largest financial institutions in the world, Citi takes its innovation efforts seriously. Combining internal and external models of collaboration with a disciplined corporate venture arm, the financial services giant ensures that it has a lot of coals in the innovation fire. 

Leading those efforts is Vanessa Colella. Vanessa runs Citi Ventures and is the Chief Innovation Officer at Citi. In my talk with Vanessa, we explore how Citi combines internal and external innovation and what role venture investing plays in the overall mix. For her, all this talk and activity around innovation addresses something very simple: how to get the best results for Citi's clients.

Vanessa Colella is our guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

You can get this episode of the podcast, as well as nearly 180 previous episodes in our archive, at our website, www.tearsheet.co 

If you get value out of these episodes, please take a minute to rate us on Apple Podcasts. Doing so, helps other people find us. We're also available on SoundCloud.

Also, if you're not signed up for our newsletter, subscribe now. 10,000 industry professionals read our Tearsheet newsletter every week to explore the impact technology is having on the financial services industry.  www.tearsheet.co/subscribe

Here's my conversation with Vanssa .

Citi Ventures' Vanessa Colella: 'No one runs innovation. It's all about unleashing it.

Ruth Foxe Blader cut her teeth on digital innovation at PepsiCo and Allianz. It was inside one of the world's largest insurance firms that she grew to appreciate just how much opportunity there is for innovation in financial services.

 Now, she's a director at fintech VC, Anthemis, where she focuses on corporate venture investment, bringing her own perspective to venture investing.

In our talk, Ruth describes how the definition of fintech has evolved and where she thinks the sector is headed in the future with a particular emphasis on insurtech. We talk about trends and where Anthemis is placing its bets. Lastly, we analyze some of the firm's most exciting portfolio companies.

My guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast is Ruth Foxe Blader.

Before we jump into the interview — If you get value out of this podcast, we'd appreciate a review wherever you get your podcasts. We do this for you and reviews are the fuel that make this podcast go and help others to discover it.

You can access this episode and our archives of 200+ podcast episodes at www.tearsheet.co

Here's my interview with Ruth.

Anthemis' Ruth Foxe Blader: 'Like Google, insurance firms are data companies'

It may seem odd that one of the leading fintech venture firms, Anthemis, launched an online zine that explores the big issues impacting financial services to raise attention and create action.

But when you speak to the firm's chief marketing officer, Leslie Campisi, the non-finance finance publication — called Hacking Finance -- makes total sense. We talk about why she launched Hacking Finance and what attitudes she set out to change.

Leslie wears a few hats at Anthemis and we explore those, as well. Like, what are the biggest challenges her firm's fintech portfolio companies face in growing and how she coaches them? Also, how does she approach branding Anthemis itself, especially in front of raising a new fund.

If you are interested in how the sausage is made at one of the best fintech investment firms out there and how a seasoned pro approaches branding and increasing awareness around new finance brands, you're not going to want to miss my discussion with Leslie.

Leslie Campisi is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Why fintech VC Anthemis launched an online zine (kind of)about finance with CMO, Leslie Campisi

Today's guest on the show is Ben Malka, a partner at venture firm, F-Prime Capital. Beginning at Capital One Partners and F-Prime, Ben's been investing in financial technology in capital markets, banking, insurance, and payments. 

Ben's career has spanned over quite a change in fintech investing and our discussion takes us through how fintech has changed and where he's looking for opportunities now. We talk about Plaid's massive investment round and the role data aggregation plays in the entire industry and what his investment, Quovo, is doing in the space.

Lastly, we travel through Ben's and F-Prime's fintech investment portfolio which includes Snapsheet, Flywire, and Toast. Ben wants listeners to know that if you'd like to contact him, his email address is included in the show notes. So head on over to our website if you'd like that.

F-Prime Capital's  Ben Malka: 'There's lots left to do in insurtech'

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

Investors are definitely warming up to the opportunities in proptech — technology applied to real estate. The numbers are still out on 2018 but over $12 billion was invested in real estate technology in 2017. Some early funds have been investing in the space for years already.

One such fund is Camber Creek. What makes Camber Creek so interesting, in my opinion, is that its investors own, operate and manage over 150 million square feet of real estate in the U.S. Sure, this perspective helps in due diligence feedback, as the firm can solicit investment feedback from its LPs. But it also gives Camber Creek a competitive advantage because its investors also become paid users of its portfolio companies. 

Jeffrey Berman, a general partner at Camber Creek, joins us on the podcast to discuss the genesis of the venture firm, as well as its investment methodology. My favorite part of interviewing investors is digging in to their portfolio companies — we do that as well.

Here's my interview with Jeffrey Berman.

Investing in proptech with Camber Creek's Jeffrey Berman

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

We continue to talk to the best fintech investors in the business. Up today is Jonathan Ebinger, partner at BlueRun Ventures. BlueRun is probably best known in fintech circles for its early stage investments in Paypal and in Kabbage, where Jonathan still sits on the board. Jonathan talks about how fintech has evolved over time and where he sees opportunities in today's market. We dig into a few choice selections in the BlueRun portfolio and how they signal Jonathan's core fintech theses.

Jonathan Ebinger is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

PayPal's first institutional investor, BlueRun's Jonathan Ebinger on investing in fintech today

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

Today's guest on the podcast is Arvind Purushotham, who heads up venture investing at Citi Ventures. We spend time talking about some of the themes around Citi's venture investing and how the bank and its venture arm think about innovation.

We drill down into the Citi Ventures portfolio which has some of the biggest names in fintech, like Betterment, C2FO and Plaid. Arvind describes to us how his background in engineering at Intel and investment experience at Menlo inform his approach to venture vesting. Lastly, he shares with us where he thinks the market is headed and where he expects investment opportunities to be found in the future.

Arvind Purushotham is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Citi Ventures' Arvind Purushotham: 'What happened in lending has migrated to all financial services'

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

Many of our listeners might be familiar with Accion, the global non profit that uses digital technology to create a more financially inclusive world. Accion was founded in the 60s and has roots in microfinance. 

Fewer people know that Accion has a venture arm. Accion Venture Lab invests capital and provides support to innovative fintech startups with a mandate* *to improve access, quality, and affordability of financial services for the underserved at scale. 

Vikas Raj is a managing director at Accion Venture Lab and sits on the board of companies like Konfio, Self Lender, StreetShares, and Tienda Pago. We talk about his approach to seed investing with a social impact and certain trends that cut through Accion Venture Lab's portfolio.

Vikas also hosts a podcast at Venture Lab entitled VentureKast (https://soundcloud.com/accioninternational) about the cool financial inclusion startups around the world and the entrepreneurs who build and grow them. Check it out.

Vikas Raj is my guest on the Tearsheet Podcast.

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Before we hop into the interview, I'm excited to tell you about a new award program we're launching.

Tearsheet's digitally-native awards programs are intended to be a better type of award program — no posh dinners or long speeches. We're serious about identifying the winners in our industry and making our celebration of them global, digital, and open.

For March, we're looking for the Best and Most Creative Bank/Fintech Partnerships. We want to hear about collaborations between incumbents and tech players that go beyond just an integration and a press release. 

If your firm has a special story to tell about partnerships, we want to hear about it. To get more info and to submit your entry, go to the Tearsheet homepage and click on the Awards tab. Or go here (https://pro.evalato.com/303/)

How Accion Venture Lab invests in the next generation of inclusive financial services firms

Tearsheet is news, opinion, and analysis on the business of finance.

Candid conversations with senior executives, fintech entrepreneurs, investors, industry experts -- all weigh in on the trends impacting the industry and the disruptive impact technology is having on the business.

Where social media, technology and finance intersect.