Wharton FinTech Podcast

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 Queen’s University. About Portage Founded in 2016, Portage is a global investment platform focused on fintech and financial services. Portage has raised three venture funds since 2016 and expanded to late-stage fintech and financial services through a SPAC in 2021 and Portage Capital Solutions in 2022. For more FinTech insights, follow us on WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Tarang’s Twitter: twitter.com/tg_tarang Tarang’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/taranggupta100

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 data to help businesses to gain insight and control over their financial information. For more FinTech insights, follow us on WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Tarang’s Twitter: twitter.com/tg_tarang Tarang’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/taranggupta100

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 recently was a Vice President. He earned an MBA from The Wharton School and his Bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University. About OneChronos OneChronos is a technology company at the intersection of capital markets, machine learning and mechanism design, providing innovative execution venues to those in the electronic trading world. The company was founded by executives from Goldman Sachs, Accenture, and top quantitative asset managers with a common vision to leverage domain expertise and emergent technologies to make electronic trading simpler, more transparent and more efficient for institutional investors and traders. OneChronos is a Y Combinator alum backed by top venture investors in fintech, digital marketplaces and A.I. For more FinTech insights, follow us on WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Kailee’s Twitter: @KaileeCostello_ Kailee’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaileecostello/

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 fintech startup building technology infrastructure for institutions engaged in capital markets. Clear Street started by offering a cloud-native, prime brokerage platform that improved access, speed, and service for clients. But today, they offer institutions, professional traders, and brokers a plethora of services including clearing and custody, prime financing, active trading, execution, and capital introduction. For more FinTech insights, follow us on WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Tarang’s Twitter: twitter.com/tg_tarang Tarang’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/taranggupta100

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 guidance to entrepreneurs that are creating the world’s next generation of financial services industry leaders. Since its inception, the firm has deployed over $550 million in some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent and disruptive financial technology companies, including Tipalti, TripActions, Next Insurance, Papaya Global, HomeLight, Sunbit, Masterschool, EquityBee, Venn, and Lili to name a few.

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 director of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as an advisor - And much more! About Kurt Lin Kurt Lin is co-founder & CEO of Pinwheel, the leading payroll connectivity API. The son of two immigrant parents, Kurt saw how the lack of credit history created a greater struggle for them to access and secure financial products. This experience became a driving force for him and his co-founders to create Pinwheel. Prior to Pinwheel, Kurt has been involved in multiple startup acquisitions: first Idean and later with Luxe. About Pinwheel Pinwheel is the market-leading income and employment API. With Pinwheel, fintechs and financial institutions are empowered to build the next generation of financial products that will help create a fairer financial system. Pinwheel provides access to consumer-permissioned income & employment accounts and actionable insights that help them make sense of the data they need to tailor their tools and services for consumers. Fintechs and financial institutions leverage Pinwheel to power direct deposit switching, earned wage access, income & employment verification, and build innovative new products. For more FinTech insights, follow us on WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Kailee’s Twitter: @KaileeCostello_ Kailee’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaileecostello/

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/andrew-p-janssens/

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 The Wharton School and an MS degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology. About Drip Capital Founded in 2015, Drip Capital is on a mission to make global trade easy and accessible for small businesses. Drip is using technology to re-build core parts of the international trade finance infrastructure and make the underwriting and financing of international B2B transactions seamless for small businesses. Special Announcement The 3rd Annual Wharton Fintech Conference scheduled for March 30 and 31, 2023. This year's lineup includes speakers from Greycroft, QED Investors, Ribbit, Visa, PayPal, Chime, Ripple, and more. Go to www.whartonfintechconference.com to get tickets! For more FinTech insights, follow us on WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Tarang’s Twitter: twitter.com/tg_tarang Tarang’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/taranggupta100