Wharton FinTech Podcast

SPACs, SPACs, and more SPACs. It has been a SPAC mania over the last year, catapulting a fringe financial transaction to the front page of the Journal as hundreds of SPACs went public. Ryan Zauk sits down with Lee Einbinder, CEO of FinServ Acquisition Corp 1 and 2, and former Vice Chairman at Barclays. A long-time FIG and Fintech banker at Lehman and Barclays, Lee comes on the show to help demystify SPACs, what they do, and the advantages and concerns of them. They also dig into: - FinServ Acquisition Corp 1’s announced merger with Katapult - What Fintech was like in the late 90s (including a "baby" Elon Musk & Peter Thiel) - His retort to the Upstart CEO's critique of SPACs in our episode with him - The industry trends he’s most excited about in the coming year - And a rapid-fire round with a surprising answer about what students should do after graduating school in 2021. Katapult: https://katapult.com/ D&O Insurance: https://www.thehartford.com/management-liability-insurance/d-o-liability-insurance/explained For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

Ryan Zauk sits down with Rana Yared, Partner at Balderton Capital, one of Europe’s most storied venture capital firms. Rana is a former partner at Goldman Sachs, and helped lead the firm's principal strategic investments in the US and UK. She represented Goldman Sachs on the Boards of Tradeweb, NAV, Vestwell, New York Shipping Exchange, and Swapclear @ LCH. Rana joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2020, focusing on fintech investments. In today’s episode, they discuss: - Her long journey from Wharton to Goldman to Balderton, and a surprise stop for a masters in securities analysis (nukes and bombs, not stocks and bonds) - The secret sauce of Balderton, the Balderton Collective, and their fantastic track record - The two fintech verticals she’s most excited about - The 3 key things on her investor checklist and what is an immediate dealbreaker - Her investment in Unqork while at Goldman and Flywire while at Balderton - Why she’s so excited about Europe, Balderton’s new liquidity fund, and the massive “bridge” opportunity she sees - And a rapid-fire round including her best pastry, favorite restaurant in London, and her advice to founders. For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

In a long-anticipated episode for her, Ally McCloskey sits down with Titan Co-CEO & Co-Founder and fellow Wharton alum, Clayton Gardner. Clay and team set out to democratize active money management by offering the proverbial 'back of the restaurant' investment menu to the masses. Said differently, Titan is an active investment management platform that unlocks world-class investment products and experiences for everyone. Since its founding in 2018, the company has graduated from Y Combinator and grown from zero to over $500M in assets under management and over 25,000 clients with essentially zero marketing budget, making them one of the fastest growing advisors on record. Titan also just raised its $12.5M Series A led by General Catalyst with participation from Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures, Lee Fixel, Instagram founder Mike Krieger, Eventbrite founder Kevin Hartz, and many others. In this episode, Ally and Clay discuss: -How Clay and his co-founder Joe reunited 6 years after meeting in Wharton undergrad to democratize active investing -the investor persona Titan was built for and why active management in public equities hasn’t gone out of style -Clay’s most memorable week in markets rejecting a portfolio company’s initial acquisition tender offer -his advice to entrepreneurs on product-market fit, when to raise capital, and how to measure true customer loyalty -what he’s most excited about in the future of investing -the investor he admires most And MUCH more Clay Gardner Clay (@virtualclay) is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Titan, an active investment management platform democratizing elite investment products and experiences for everyone. Prior to Titan, Clay was an investor at several hedge funds and investment firms including Farallon Capital Management and Cerberus Capital Management. He graduated summa cum laude from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology at the Wharton School and the School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania where he earned dual degrees in Economics and Computer Science. As mentioned in the episode, you can download Titan's mobile app at www.titanvest.com and get invested in just minutes. For more Fintech insights, please follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ally's Twitter: twitter.com/AllyMcCloskey LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

In today's special episode, Ryan Zauk sits down with Bill McNabb, former Chairman & CEO of Vanguard, one of the world's largest and most important financial institutions with over 7 Trillion AUM. A Wharton MBA alum, Bill joined Vanguard in 1986 and became CEO in 2008 and Chairman of the Board of Directors / Board of Trustees in 2010. He stepped down as CEO at the end of 2017 and as Chairman at the end of 2018. In "retirement," Bill serves on the boards of IBM, United Healthcare, and Axiom, as well as a new fintech company called Altruist (linked below). He also serves as chairman of EY's Independent Audit Committee. In this powerful conversation, Ryan and Bill cover a wide range of topics including: - His long journey from teaching Latin, to Wharton, to becoming Vanguard's CEO (2:50) - His most critical leadership lessons from Jack Bogle & Jack Brennan, and what crisis leaders can learn from American prisoners of war (13:20) - How Vanguard positioned itself during the great rise of Fintech and wealth management tech (18:20) - Gamestop, Robinhood, and his frustrations with his day-trading mother (23:20) - How Vanguard is positioning itself for the long term and his interest in the tokenization + ESG (30:35) - The Fintech company Altruist that he is on the board of (40:06) And so much more! Enjoy the show. -- Referenced in this episode: Altruist https://altruist.com/ Public https://Public.com -- For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

This one-of-a-kind episode brings you inside the recent Wharton FinTech Conference for evergreen access to a raw and informative conversation between Asya Bradley, COO & Co-Founder at First Boulevard, and Amy Nauiokas, Founder and CEO of Anthemis Group and Archer Gray. Of the Conference's 30 panels and 6 fireside chats featuring 150+ speakers, this conversation was one of the standouts, so we're thrilled to share it with you here. In this special episode, Asya and Amy discuss: -how being an immigrant from South Asia and, more specifically, what the UN calls a “girl-child” ignited Asya's ambition and entrepreneurial spirit -why even now, Asya still fails KYC in the US -the explosion of niche and community-based neobanks and their tough path to profitability -how George Floyd’s murder inspired Asya and co-founder Donald Hawkins to create a legacy to break the cycle -bank deserts, zip code discrimination, and the ethics of AI -why the term “underserved” is NOT synonymous with impoverished and MUCH more! Asya Bradley is the Co-Founder & COO of First Boulevard as well as the Founder of #HowSheWorks, an inclusive grassroots community of underrepresented founders and allies that highlights the diverse paths to professional and personal success. Asya previously served as SVP of Revenue at SilaMoney, the Banking as a Service provider, and as VP of Partnerships at Socure, which uses AI and machine learning to provide a frictionless solution to ID verification in financial services. Prior to Socure, she was on the Founding Team at Synapse as the Chief Revenue Officer which develops banking APIs to help bank the unbanked of America by connecting innovative Fintech platforms to banking institutions. Asya is a champion of diversity and gender balance in the workplace and works tirelessly to promote women, minorities, LGBTQ+ and other underrepresented communities. Asya is also an angel investor, advisor and board member of numerous startups. First Boulevard is the unapologetically black, digitally native neobank building generational wealth for black America. Asya and her co-founder, Donald Hawkins, formed First Boulevard in August of 2020 under the premise that Black Americans are “massively underserved consumers” of financial products and services despite having a collective spending power of $1.4 trillion annually. The startup’s mission is to empower Black Americans “to take control of their finances, build wealth and reinvest in the Black economy” via a digitally native platform. In February of 2021, First Boulevard raised $5 million in seed funding from Barclays, Anthemis and a group of angel investors such as actress Gabrielle Union, Union Square Ventures’ John Buttrick and AutoZone CFO Jamere Jackson. Amy Nauiokas is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Anthemis, the leading digital financial services investment firm, and Founder and CEO of Archer Gray, a media production and content company. She is a visionary executive, investor, producer and a recognized leader in innovation, strategy, and management across a variety of markets and industries. As a venture capitalist, Amy identifies and invests in early stage technology companies focused on the disruption of media, financial services and marketplaces. She has built a strong investment portfolio of best-in-class, high growth companies. Current investments include Betterment, Trov, Happy Money and Currencycloud. Amy previously held senior positions at Barclays and Cantor Fitzgerald after receiving a master’s in international business from Columbia University, where she has also served as an Adjunct Professor in the business school, and her BA in International Studies from Dickinson College. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/ WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech

Anirudh Singh sits down with Ty Harris, CEO and Co-Founder of Openly. In this episode, they discuss: - Openly's origin story - Inefficiencies in the insurance market - Openly's talent acquisitions/expansion strategy and much more! Ty Harris: Ty Harris is CEO and co-founder of Openly. Openly uses technology to provide re-imagined and beautifully simple home insurance. Backed by leading VC firms and insurance industry veterans alike, Openly is growing rapidly towards its goal of being a leading national provider of personal insurance. Before founding Openly in 2017, Ty spent 12 years at Liberty Mutual, a top 5 global insurer, where he was most recently EVP and Chief Product and Underwriting Officer. Before joining Liberty Mutual, Ty worked at the Brookings Institution and taught economics and statistics at MIT and Northeastern. Ty received his AB from Duke University, studied graduate economics at MIT, and is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society. Ty lives in Charleston, SC, with his wife and two children. He’s an enthusiastic runner, snowboarder, and windsurfer. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/ WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Anirudh's Twitter: twitter.com/avsingh_24

Ryan Zauk sits down with TaxBit Co-Founders, Austin and Justin Woodward, in the wake of their $100M Series A! If you did a double-take at the last name - yes, these cofounders are brothers! Austin and Justin, a CPA and Lawyer respectively, are solving the massive problem of taxes and cryptocurrency. They offer a suite of products for consumers, enterprises, and governments to easily aggregate and analyze crypto balances, generate and review tax forms, recommend tax-loss harvesting strategies, and more through their API suite and software. Whether you're a platform that needs to issue 1099s, or a user that needs to report their taxes, TaxBit’s cryptocurrency tax software unifies the process. REFERRAL CODE: https://taxbit.com/invite/whartonfintech/ (discount code: whartonfintech) This $100M round included a who’s who of investing: Tiger Global, Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, PayPal ventures, Winklevoss Capital, Bill Ackman, Qualtrics Co-Founder Ryan Smith, and more. Ryan & The Woodward Brothers Cover: - Their great founding story and the interesting ways they each got involved in crypto - Their deep bullishness on crypto, blockchain, and a tokenized economy - How TaxBit works and benefits each customer type - The difficulties of hiring and how it acts as the litmus test for success in the early stages - The good and bad of building a company with your brother - The crypto regulatory environment - New products and launches to look forward to And more! For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

Miguel Armaza sits down with Jason Gross, Co-Founder and CEO of Petal, a new kind of credit card company that has pioneered the Cash Score – an alternative measure of creditworthiness based on income, savings and spending history – to make credit more accessible. Founded in 2016, the company has raised over 100 million equity and close to 500 million in debt from industry leaders including Valar ventures, Third Prime, Afore Capital, Story Ventures, and Jefferies. We discussed: - Jason’s non-traditional startup founder background - The story and inspiration behind Petal - Taking the company from 0 to 1 - The state of consumer credit and open banking and what has changed over the last five years since launching Petal - Why Petal has actively collaborated with the US regulator and why Jason considers this extremely important - Founder advice - And a lot more! Jason Gross Jason Gross (@jasonbgross) is the CEO and co-founder of Petal, a New York-based fintech company on a mission to make credit honest, simple, and accessible. Jason has served as a member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Consumer Advisory Board, and as a guest lecturer on topics ranging from financial inclusion to A.I. and machine learning in financial services. Previously, Jason practiced law, representing leading technology firms and financial services companies. He holds a JD from Harvard Law School. About Petal Petal is a new kind of credit card company founded to help people financially succeed (http://www.petalcard.com). Petal utilizes the CashScore to make credit more accessible, especially for people just starting out with credit. Petal offers a simple, modern digital experience that encourages members to build credit, avoid debt, and spend responsibly. Petal is located in New York, NY, and Richmond, VA. Petal credit cards are issued by WebBank, Member FDIC. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Substack: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

Anirudh Singh sits down with Yan Wu, Co Founder of Bond Financial Technologies. In this episode, they discuss: - Yan's career journey - Why all brands will become fintechs - How bond rapidly adjusted to a remote environment - Bond's goal to be the premier BaaS platform and much more! Bond helps brands embed financial services products into their existing offerings, helping brands increase activation, improve retention, and therefore increase customer lifetime value. Their investors include Coatue Management, Canaan Partners, Goldman Sachs, MasterCard, as well as prominent angel investors such as Sarah Friar, Jackie Reses, Steve Freiberg, and Eric Yuan to name a few. Yan Wu Yan Wu is a Co Founder at Bond Financial Technologies, Inc., banking as a service platform that has raised over $42 million from Goldman Sachs, Mastercard, Coatue, and Canaan Partners. Bond seeks to allow any brand to embed financial products to improve their customers' experience. Previously, Yan was Head of Data at SoFi, an $8 billion consumer fintech focused on digital lending. His team of over 60 data scientists and engineers used analytics, data science, and machine learning to improve marketing, underwriting, product, and operations. Prior to fintech, Yan spent 15 years in the investment industry, most notably at BlackRock, where he was Head of Analytics and Portfolio Construction in BlackRock's $400 billion quantitative investment group. Yan earned an MBA from Wharton and a BS in Engineering from UC Berkeley. Yan is a perennial mentor at Data Science 4 All's Women's Summit. Yan was a former board member at WOMAN Inc. and a mentor at Upwardly Global. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: https://medium.com/wharton-fintech LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/ WFT Twitter: https://twitter.com/whartonfintech Anirudh's Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsingh_24

Ryan Zauk sits down with Max Friedrich, Fintech Analyst at ARK Invest! Ryan & Max cover a great deal in today's episode, including: - ARK's 5 "Big Ideas" that they believe future historians will name as big of a disruptor as the computer or electricity (4:45) - Why Tesla was missed by many great analysts (7:25) - The power of Twitter and ARK's open-source research approach (8:30) - The boom in Digital Wallets (18:23) - His Square thesis (23:50) - Current private valuations (33:45) and much more! ARK Invest focuses solely on disruptive innovation and offers investment solutions to investors seeking long-term growth in the public markets. They offer numerous products including ARKF, their Fintech Innovation ETF that Max spends his time on. You can read more about ARK here, including some topics we weren't able to cover: ARK's website: https://ark-invest.com/ ARKF: https://ark-funds.com/fintech-etf?__hstc=84851910.be9763230a0db87d6116b034315ac1e4.1612294925805.1615993803285.1619283124294.5&__hssc=84851910.6.1619283124294&__hsfp=1895777627 ARK Liquidity Commentary: https://www.etftrends.com/ark-coo-tom-staudt-deep-dive-on-liquidity/ ARK Liquidity Commentary II: https://www.etf.com/sections/etf-industry-perspective/investing-innovation-capacity-liquidity-analysis-ark-invest ARK's Big Ideas Report: https://ark-invest.com/big-ideas-2021/ Max's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mfriedrichARK ARK's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARKInvest -- For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/