The Full Ratchet (TFR): Venture Capital and Startup Investing Demystified 503. The Future of Fintech, If VC Growth Has Become a New Asset Class, and the Case For and Against Vertical Integration in the AI Age (Eric Byunn)
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Mar 2, 2026 Eric Byunn, co-founder and partner at Centana Growth with decades in fintech investing, discusses the future of financial services innovation. Conversation hits due diligence as value creation, why fintech keeps evolving, identity and fraud with AI, vertical integration versus unbundling, and how growth-stage investing dynamics have shifted amid more capital and specialized funds.
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Capital Proliferation Makes Strategy The Differentiator
- Growth-stage capital has proliferated, so capital itself is less of a differentiator than idea, founder quality, and go-to-market.
- Eric says firms must stay fluent across many capital structures and routes companies use to scale today.
Bridge Between Venture And Growth
- Centana positions itself on the earlier side of growth, bridging venture and growth to capture benefits of both.
- That positioning attracts founders who want long-term partnership but not the mega-fund approach.
Multiple Winners Are Real In Many Markets
- The industry over-indexes on single-winner monopoly narratives, but many markets support multiple meaningful winners.
- Centana looks for defensible advantages while accepting winners two and three can still create strong returns.