Wharton Fintech Podcast

Tarang Gupta hosts Michele Alt, Co-Founder & Partner, and Jonah Crane, Partner at Klaros Group. Klaros is an advisory and investment firm at the intersection of innovation, financial services, and regulation. In this episode you will hear about: - Sneak peak into the policy making process - Advising fintechs dealing with regulatory uncertainty - Potential M&A opportunities arising from economic downturn - What led to the failure of SVB and its impact on banking and fintech - Their opinion on the resilience of the US economy And much more! About Michele Alt Michele is a Co-Founder and Partner at the Klaros Group and she advises fintech clients on their banking and regulatory strategies by drawing on her prior experience at the Promontory Financial Group and as a senior legal official at the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. About Jonah Crane Jonah is a Partner at the Klaros Group and he advises on business and product strategy, regulatory and compliance risk, and regulatory engagement. He has

Tarang Gupta hosts Kevin Greene, CEO and Chairman of Tassat. Tassat is a leading provider of private, permissioned blockchain-based solutions for commercial banks. In this episode you will hear about: - What are private permissioned vs public blockchains - Why focus on minimizing regret when making life decisions - How blockchain is changing the banking industry - Why a business' success depends 95% on testing + execution and only 5% on the idea - Kevin’s proudest basketball moment And much more! About Kevin Greene Kevin is the Chairman and CEO of Tassat Group. He joined Tassat in 2017 and was named Executive Chairman in 2019. Previously Kevin served as the Chairman & CEO of Capital Resource Holdings, LLC and founded Bryant Park Capital, a privately held investment bank. Before this he was a senior consultant with McKinsey & Company. Kevin earned a B.A. in Economics from Georgetown University, a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University and an MBA from New York University. About Tassat Founded in 2

In this episode, our host, Josh Benadiva, engages in a meaningful conversation with Sankaet Pathak, Founder and CEO of Synapse. They discuss Sankaet's journey from establishing the foundation of embedded finance and banking-as-a-service to scaling the company since its inception in 2014. Sankaet shares his insights on creating a startup within the embedded finance sector, his perspectives on hiring and product development, and strategies for centering teams and company efforts around a cohesive vision. Sankaet Pathak wears the hat of the founder and CEO of Synapse, a leading banking-as-a-service provider. His journey with Synapse began in 2014 during his Master's degree at the University of Memphis and has since blossomed into a remarkable success story. Synapse, a comprehensive banking-as-a-service platform, offers a range of services such as payment, card issuance, deposit, lending, compliance, credit, and investment products in the form of APIs to over 15 million end users. Boasting an annualized transac

Tarang Gupta hosts Stephane Lintner, Co-Founder and CEO of Jiko. Jiko is a bank and broker-dealer with modern trading and ledgering technology that offers real-time programmatic access to Treasury bills, thereby combining the yield and security of T-bills with the flexibility of a bank account. In this episode you will hear about: - Unlocking the power of T-bills for businesses, startups, and consumers - Building a vertically integrated de-levered bank - Why T-bills provide a higher yield than bank accounts - Jiko’s $40M Series B raise last year - Stephane’s thoughts on disruption opportunity in payments And much more! About Stephane Lintner Stephane is the CEO and Co-founder of Jiko. He graduated from Caltech with a PhD in Applied and Computational Mathematics and holds degrees in Machine Learning and Computer Science from the Ecole Normale Superieure in France. Prior to founding the company, Lintner worked as a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs’ Securities Division for almost a decade. During his nearly

Russell Matambo hosts Dare Okoudjou, Founder and CEO of MFS Africa, a leading Pan-African Fintech company, operating the largest digital payments hub on the continent. They discuss how Dare’s telecom networking experience influenced is journey into Fintech, the importance of mobile money in Africa, MFS Africa's role as a connector of mobile money networks, and much more! About Dare: Dare is the Founder and CEO of MFS Africa, a leading Pan-African Fintech company, operating the largest digital payments hub on the continent. The MFS Africa Hub connects over 400 million mobile wallets in Africa, offering unparalleled reach into the growing African digital consumers. MFS Africa was named by Fast Company as one of Africa’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies. Prior to founding MFS Africa, Dare worked at MTN Group, where he developed its mobile payment strategy and led its implementation across 21 countries throughout Africa and the Middle East. He began his career as a management consultant with PriceWaterhouseCoop

Tarang Gupta hosts David Frank, Founder and CEO at Stonehaven. Stonehaven is a private capital markets FinTech operating system for investment bankers and placement agents to support companies and investors. In this episode you will hear about: - Pivoting a traditional financial services company into a fintech player - Building a capital markets operating system to automate fundraising and deal execution processes - Running a successful bootstrapped business and the right time to seek venture funding - His opinion on what makes a great CTO And much more! About David Frank David founded Stonehaven in 2001 and pivoted it into a fintech business in 2018. Prior to Stonehaven, he worked at Robertson Stephens in San Francisco. David graduated with honors from University of Michigan with a BBA, he is a CFA Charterholder, and holds the Series 7, 24, 31, 66, 79 and 99 registrations with FINRA. He is also an active member of the Young Presidents’ Organization where he helps lead the Investment Banking Network. About

Nihar Bobba hosts Angela Strange, General Partner at a16z. She focuses on Financial Services including fintech infrastructure, insurance, real estate, and increasing financial inclusivity. In the Fintech world, Angela is well known for coining the idea that "Every Company Will Be a Fintech Company"— and idea driven by the influx of new, transformative financial infrastructure tools that enable non-fintech companies to derive a significant portion of their revenue through financial products. Today, Angela serves on the boards of Addi, Casai, Jeeves, Moov, SeedFi, SynapseFi, Tally, and Valon. Prior to joining a16z, Angela was most recently a product manager at Google where she launched and grew Chrome for Android and iOS. And she started her career as a consultant at Mercer. In this episode you will hear about: - Angela's time at Google, and what operating principles she uses in her investing role - Why every company is a fintech company - The state of fintech today, and so much more

In today's episode, Josh Benadiva sits down with Omry Ben David from Viola Ventures to discuss how Omry identifies top entrepreneurs and how to think about investing in early-stage FinTech companies. Josh and Omry delve into the future of embedded FinTech, the next generation of InsurTech, and so much more. Omry is a General Partner at Viola Ventures. He joined the fund in 2017, bringing with him 15 years of technology-focused experience across investment banking, startup operations, and both institutional and private venture investments. Omry's areas of investment at Viola Ventures include FinTech, Enterprise/SMB Software, and Vertical AI. Omry was a Captain and Company Commander in an elite combat unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Management from Tel Aviv University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Viola Ventures is one of the leading Israel-based funds focused on early-stage investments. With a portfolio of over 90 companies, Viola Ventures has bac

Tarang Gupta hosts Stephanie Choo, Partner at Portage. Portage is a global investment platform focused on fintech and financial services with over $2 billion in AUM. In this episode you will hear about: - Stephanie’s career pivots that led her to venture capital - Areas in fintech she focuses on and her contrarian views on consumer fintech - What is embedded infrastructure within fintech - How Portage defines innovation And much more! About Stephanie Choo Stephanie has served as a Partner at Portage since 2016, focusing on consumer fintech, crypto/DeFi, and fintech infra. She is passionate about funding the next generation of fintech entrepreneurs and currently serves on the boards of Albert, Atomic Financial and Conquest Planning. Prior to Portage, Stephanie led a team, which built and launched a leading digital advice platform in Canada. Before that she was an early employee at a payments startup – working on mobile banking solutions and a management consultant at BCG. Stephanie holds a Bachelor’s from Qu

The Wharton Fintech Conference, held on March 30-31st, brought together some of the most prominent innovators and investors in the fintech ecosystem, including start-up founders, managing partners of VCs, and Bill McNabb, former chairman and CEO of Vanguard. Join Kailee Costello, Joshua Benadiva, and Tarang Gupta as they discuss the highlights and main takeaways from the conference, covering topics such as embedded finance, Chat-GPT, and more. With so much to learn from the top people in the fintech industry, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in fintech innovation. To stay up to date with the latest developments in fintech and to find out about next year's conference, follow us on social media or visit https://whartonfintechconference.com/

In today's episode, Andrew Janssens hosts Alex Johnson, the creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter. Alex has been bringing thoughtful takes and commentary on all topics Fintech for many years, and has most recently been working at FICO, the credit scoring company, and Cornerstone Advisors. Alex publishes Fintech Takes, one of the leading newsletters in Fintech, twice a week, and regularly teams up with Jason Mikula (and others) on the monthly "Fintech Recap" podcast. In this episode we cover a whole host of topics, including: • The growth of the Fintech Takes newsletter • Alex's creative process, and how he dives into new topics • A fintech 2023 rapid fire • How VCs can actually help to promote diversity And much, much more! For more FinTech insights, follow us below: WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Andrew’s Twitter: twitter.com/Adhjanssens Andrew’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/andrew-p-janssens/

Tarang Gupta hosts Nick Chandi, Co-Founder and CEO of ForwardAI. ForwardAI provides a full suite of accounting data solutions for banks, lenders, fintechs, accountants, and small businesses. In this episode you will hear about: - Why most SMEs struggle to get funding from traditional banks - How ForwardAI uses data aggregation to predict clients’ cashflow needs - State of the fintech ecosystem in Canada - Nick’s vision for the next 5 years And much more! About Nick Chandi Nick is the CEO and Co-founder of ForwardAI. Before starting FowardAI, Nick co-founded SlickPie, which provides online accounting software for over 40,000 small businesses. In 2019, Nick had a successful exit from a firm he co-founded called Welcome Networks. Nick has an MBA and a bachelor’s in engineering. He is also Co-chair of the British Columbia Tech CEO Scale C-Council and regularly contributes to the Forbes Finance Council. About ForwardAI FowardAI is a Canada-based fintech startup that provides aggregated accounting and business d

Kailee Costello hosts Jesse Greif, the COO of OneChronos. OneChronos pioneered the technology to run a unique kind of optimization in electronic trading markets; their approach draws from Nobel prize-winning auction techniques and solves for execution quality outcomes rather than just speed. In this episode you will hear about: - How OneChronos ‘takes speed out of the equation’ and instead optimizes for what the majority of users define as great trading execution quality. - How the Nobel Prize-winning ‘smart market’ concept has been applied to enable traders to express indifference and substitutes in the context of equities trading - The SEC’s proposal to increase competition for retail order execution - The challenge of capturing both the supply and demand side of the market to launch a new trading venue - OneChronos’ partnership with the NYSE - And much more! About Jesse Greif Jesse Greif is the COO of OneChronos. Prior to joining OneChronos, Jesse spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs, where he most recentl

Tarang Gupta hosts Sachin Kumar, Co-Founder and CTO of Clear Street. Clear Street uses a tech-first approach to provide financial institutions with clearing, custody, execution, and prime brokerage tools and services. In this episode you will hear about: - What is the prime brokerage market - How Sachin went about building Clear Street’s tech platform - Sachin's opinion on the rise in retail investing apps - Why he is bullish on embedded finance And much more! About Sachin Kumar Sachin Kumar is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Clear Street. Prior to Clear Street, Sachin was the co-founder and CTO at Tolo Technologies, an international derivatives high-frequency trading firm with global presence in China, Japan, and Australia. Before founding Tolo, Sachin co-founded his first company, QED Trading, where he led the development of a high frequency market making platform. Sachin has a B.S. in Computer Science from Michigan University. About Clear Street Founded in 2018, Clear Street is a Series-B

In today's episode, Josh Benadiva sits down with Dovi Frances from Group 11 to discuss the future of Fintech and Venture Capital. Josh and Dovi discuss how Dovi sees Fintech hitting an inflection point in the near future, how venture capital is ripe for disruption and more. Dovi Frances is a financial services entrepreneur and the Founding Partner of Group 11, a venture capital firm based in Los Angeles, California. Over the course of his career, Frances has invested over $550 million in some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent and disruptive financial technology companies, including Tipalti, Navan (fka TripActions), Next Insurance, Papaya Global, HomeLight, Sunbit, Masterschool, EquityBee, Venn, and Lili to name a few. Group 11 invests in revolutionary software companies that are redrawing the landscape of the financial services industry. As FinTech continues to gain momentum and to disrupt the traditional industry value chain, Group 11 has positioned itself as a partner of choice to provide capital and gui

Kailee Costello hosts Kurt Lin, CEO and Co-Founder of Pinwheel, a leading payroll connectivity API provider. Pinwheel’s mission is to create a fairer financial system, by enabling consumers to share their payroll and income data with financial institutions, which then use this data for direct deposit switching, income and employment verification, earned wage access, and more. In this episode you will hear about: - Pinwheel’s vision to help fintechs and financial institutions to build products that will lead to better financial outcomes for customers - How Pinwheel’s API is currently being used for direct deposit and earned wage access, and what the next generation of use cases will look like - Pinwheel’s survey insights on blindspots in the financial services industry - How the current macroeconomic environment has increased the need for real-time payroll data - Pinwheel’s “north star” metric, and key factors that have contributed to Pinwheel’s success - Why Pinwheel brought on the former first-ever deputy

Andrew Janssens hosts Rex Salisbury, General Partner at Cambrian Ventures. Rex recently launched Cambrian, a solo-GP fund, after three years at Andreesen Horowitz establishing their Fintech team. In his last appearance on the podcast he talked about setting up the Cambrian fintech community (formerly Fintech Devs & PMs meetup). Cambrian is a U.S fintech fund investing $500K non-lead checks in Fintechs at the pre-seed and seed level. The Cambrian community allows Fintech founders and operators to connect via their slack channel and regular activities such as bi-annual founder matching. In today's episode we cover: -The evolution of Fintech Devs & PMs into the Cambrian community - Rex's investing philosophy - Rex's fintech predictions for 2023 - And much, much more For more FinTech insights, follow us below: WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Andrew’s Twitter: twitter.com/Adhjanssens Andrew’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/an

Tarang Gupta hosts Pushkar Mukewar, CEO and Co-Founder of Drip Capital. Drip Capital is a California and India-based fintech company, focused on solving the working capital problem for SME exporters using tech. In this episode you will hear about: - Working capital challenges that SMEs face - Differences in how financial services operate across the globe - Starting up in emerging markets - Value that an MBA added to Pushkar’s startup ambitions And much more! About Pushkar Mukewar Pushkar is the Co-Founder and CEO of Drip Capital. In his 13-year career, Pushkar has worked across various geographies and has an in-depth understanding of the global financial services industry. Prior to starting Drip Capital, Pushkar was a venture capitalist at Saama Capital and was involved with several high-growth start-ups in India. He has also been a Consultant with Oliver Wyman and started his career at Capital One, developing credit risk analytics for the subprime consumer loans business. Pushkar holds an MBA degree from T

Tarang Gupta hosts Dee Choubey, CEO and Founder of MoneyLion. MoneyLion is an all-in-one finance app that gives consumers access to a comprehensive suite of products and personalized advice, making it more engaging to bank, borrow, save, invest, and grow. In this episode you will hear about: - Building a culture of innovation within an organization - How to be successful in B2C vs B2B fintech - Challenges of taking a fast growing private company public - Why starting up is easier than it was a decade ago - Where does crypto fit in consumer finance And much more! About Dee Choubey Dee Choubey is the Co-Founder and CEO of MoneyLion. Prior to starting MoneyLion, Dee was an investment banker and had worked at Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup; he also served as a Vice President at Citadel Securities. Dee holds a BA in Economics with Honors from the University of Chicago. About MoneyLion Founded in 2013, MoneyLion is a public company on a mission to rewire the American banking system to make money more app

Kailee Costello hosts Caesar Sengupta, CEO and Co-Founder of Arta Finance. Arta is a digital family office that offers proprietary AI-Managed Portfolios and gives customers access to alternative asset investments such as private equity and real estate. In this episode you will hear about: - Arta’s mission to give more people access to the ‘financial superpowers of the rich’ and how Arta’s technology differs from other robo-advice and AI/ML personal finance offers - Trust and transparency in financial investing - Caesar’stransition from being a leader at a large tech company to founding a startup, and his advice for anyone looking to start a FinTech company - Arta’s recent acquisition of Money Minx - Trends impacting the personal finance sector - Challenges and learnings from Ceasar’s experience leading Google Pay - And much more! About Caesar Sengupta Caesar Sengupta is the co-founder and CEO of Arta Finance. Prior to Arta, Caesar was at Google, where he was the VP & GM of Payments & the Next Billion Users