1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Alexander Ross of Illuminate Financial (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Alexander Ross was recorded in July 2018.

Alexander Ross, Founder at Illuminate Financial, talks about his firm’s FinTech investment thesis.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a little bit about your fund and your investing focus. Let’s get to know one another. Let’s introduce you to our audience.

Alexander Ross: Our fund is called Illuminate Financial. We are a financial market technology-focused venture capital fund. We saw a space in >>>

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Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Rob Reid, EVP of Sage Intacct (Part 1)

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Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Sage Intacct.

Rob Reid: Sage Intacct is an ERP solution provider for the midmarket. We have been an innovation leader for the last 10 years and also a customer satisfaction leader in the industry eclipsing all others. It’s pretty interesting. We moved to being a cloud solution as an industry. The industry used to be called SaaS.

We deliver the best technology we possibly can as well as provide white-glove service so that your customers maximize their success >>>

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Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to 2Checkout and yourself.

Erich Litch: I’m Erich Litch. I’m the Chief Revenue Officer for 2Checkout. 2Checkout is a leading payment and e-commerce company. We do business all over the world supporting over 10,000 merchants in every part of the world and handle payment processing, e-commerce management, subscription billing and management, and all kinds of things that enable businesses to seamlessly and easily sell all over the world.

Sramana Mitra: Can you double-click down a little bit and talk about what kind of customers are the ones that you are going >>>

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Jeremy Almond, CEO of PayStand (Part 1)

The B2B digital payment space is changing. Listen to Jeremy discuss the developments.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as PayStand.

Jeremy Almond: I’m the Founder and CEO of a company called PayStand. PayStand is a B2B digital payment network. What Venmo does for consumers, we do for commercial transactions. We believe that there is a huge transformation that’s going on in the commercial side of financial services. We’re bringing about change in three clear ways. We call it no paper, no fees, and no monopoly.

Sramana Mitra: When you say B2B payment, could you elaborate on how you’ve gone to market. What segments >>>

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Levi King offers a unique perspective into small business lending in this TLFT interview.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as Nav.

Levi King: We started the business about six years ago. My business partner is an attorney. We offer free credit and financial education to small businesses in the US. Eventually, we’ll move to other parts of the globe. Small business owners can sign up and see their personal credit, business credit, and their checking data through an educational lens that helps them understand how >>>

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This interview is an interesting window into how financial technology is addressing specific niches within the banking sector.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself and BankMobile.

Luvleen Sidhu: I’m the Co-Founder and President of BankMobile. BankMobile is the largest and fastest-growing digital bank that serves the underserved and low middle income Americans and has a strong overlap with millennials as well.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of lending are we talking about? Is it peer-to-peer? >>>

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We’re seeing a plethora of blockchain applications and in the TLFT series, will be bringing you more case studies to show you how entrepreneurs are thinking about the technology. Stox is one such that mediates crowdsourced predictions.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself and Stox.

Yossi Peretz: I’m the CEO of Stox. For the last 15 years, I’ve been in many managerial roles in financial companies. I’m a true technology and cryptocurrency enthusiast. I’ve been working on leading products and services. I have played a role in the FinTech >>>

Roundtable Recap: October 26 – From FinTech to SportsTech

We spoke with three interesting entrepreneurs today across various sectors of tech.

Investable Benchmarks
First, David Kreinces from Thousand Oaks, California, pitched Investable Benchmarks, a FinTech company with specific technology to manage ETF portfolios using proven techniques in use by big firms like Bridgewater and Blackstone. David wants to make this approach affordable.

CricClubs
Then Ganesh Nallapareddy from Ashburn, Virginia, pitched CricClubs, a cricket league management technology company that is already doing ~$100k in revenue.

>>>

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In this wide-ranging discussion, perhaps the most thought-provoking question is the one about data and who owns it.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by having you introduce yourself as well as Gemalto to our audience.

Hakan Nordfjell: I’m responsible for the Digital Banking segment within Gemalto. Gemalto is a digital security company based in Amsterdam. >>>

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Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Sergio Furio: I’m Spanish. I graduated in 2000 in Business Administration. I spent five years in Deutsche Bank doing investment banking.

Sramana Mitra: In Spain? >>>