Fintech One•On•One Tim Newell, CEO & Founder of GreenFi, on building a climate-friendly fintech
In this episode, I'm joined by Tim Newell, CEO and founder of GreenFi, a climate-focused fintech that emerged from the ashes of Aspiration's consumer banking business. Tim brings a fascinating fintech and climate tech pedigree, having previously sold a solar financing company to SolarCity, run financial products at both SolarCity and Tesla, and even survived five years working for Elon Musk. When Aspiration decided to pivot away from consumer banking to focus on global carbon markets in 2022, Tim saw an opportunity to acquire and restructure their consumer business. Through a complex licensing deal, he successfully transitioned over 98% of Aspiration's customers to his new platform while radically downsizing from 400 employees to just 40.
GreenFi targets the 100 million Americans who cite climate as a significant worry, about 40% of U.S. adults, offering them banking products that guarantee their deposits won't support fossil fuels, automatically offset carbon from gas purchases, and enable tree planting through everyday transactions. We dive into how Tim thinks about the intersection of fintech and climate action, the challenges of building a sustainable business model in today's capital environment, and his ambitious vision to become "Patagonia for your bank account.”
In this podcast you will learn:
- Tim’s deep background in financial technology and climate tech.
- What was involved in Aspiration’s pivot away from consumer fintech to the carbon markets.
- How Tim was able to spin out the consumer fintech business from Aspiration.
- How GreenFi grew out of that business.
- The product set for GreenFi and near term product roadmap.
- The huge percentage of deposits that moved over from Aspiration to GreenFi.
- The specific ways they are making their financial offerings carbon-friendly.
- Who makes up their target market.
- How the swing in Washington against climate initiatives is impacting GreenFi.
- How they restructured the business to a radically different cost base.
- How they are offsetting their own carbon footprint.
- The process for raising their $17 million seed round.
- Their different revenue streams.
- The scale that GreenFi is at today.
- Tim’s vision for GreenFi.
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