The Fintech Blueprint

In this conversation, we chat with Prashant Fuloria – CEO of Fundbox. With decades of experience in payments and monetization, he has served in a wide variety of leadership, operational, and product roles at prominent technology companies. Prior to Fundbox, Prashant served as SVP of Advertising Products at Yahoo, having joined through the acquisition of Flurry, where he was the Chief Product Officer. He also served as Senior Director of Product Management at Facebook, where he led the company’s advertising and payment product efforts, and Product Director at Google, where he built their global payment platform and managed all of Google’s products for the APAC region. Prashant received a B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He also holds an MA in Business research; an MS in Statistics; a Ph.D. minor in Engineering-Economic Systems & Operations Research; and a Ph.D. in Business, all from Stanford University.Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD. Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

In this conversation, we chat with Chris Brookins – co-founder of RociFi, a new DeFi primitive for under-collateralized lending. Chris is a crypto veteran, having entered the space in 2014, and prior to RociFi, founded Valiendero Digital Assets, a quantitative cryptocurrency investment fund, founded out of Carnegie Mellon University. Valiendero utilized machine learning and data-driven investment strategies over a variety of liquid digital assets. Chris also held the COO position at a 2015 Y-Combinator alumni - Valor Water Analytics (a SaaS utilities firm which was acquired by Xylem Inc.) and was founder and COO at data driven research and venture firm - Pugilist Ventures.Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD. Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

In this conversation, we chat with Matt Kopko – DailyPay's Vice President of Public Policy, where he manages DailyPay's interactions with regulators, legislators, other government officials and stakeholders. Prior to his role at DailyPay, Matt served in a similar role – Director of Public Policy – at Bird, the micromobility company. Matt was also a senior government official and member of the Senior Executive Service, as well as an attorney in private practice. Matt holds a bachelor's degree from Princeton University, and a JD/MBA from the University of Chicago.Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD. Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

In this conversation, we chat with Jacobc.eth, the now Head of Product Strategy for BitDAO’s Windranger Labs, and Head of Product for the Game7 DAO. Previously, Jacob worked as Lead of Operations at MetaMask, and before that he led product for the Panvala grant funding DAO, one of the earliest grant DAOs in the Web3 ecosystem. Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD. Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Ivan Bakrac - is a Senior DeFi Market Strategist at ConsenSys, as well as Adjunct Professor in Blockchain Technologies & Decentralized Finance at Stevens Institute of Technology, and Adjunct Professor - Global Fintech: AI, Blockchain, Business Data Science at Berkeley College.Ajay Mittal - is a Senior Strategist, Cryptoeconomics at ConsenSys, as well as Co-Lead of Treasury at Friends With Benefits.James Chung - is a Senior DeFi Market Strategist, Cryptoeconomics at ConsenSys, as well as Founder at BANKR.David Shuttleworth - is a DeFi Economist at ConsenSys, with a history in HealthTech, data analytics, and token engineering. Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

In this conversation, we chat with Simon Taylor, the head of strategy and content at Sardine.ai, which is a modern compliance infrastructure. Before this, Simon served as the Co-Founder and Blockchain Practice Lead at 11:FS. Simon has been immersed in the technology of financial services for as long as he’s been working and is consistently voted one of the most influential people in Banking, Insurance and Fintech by banks, his peers and a number of industry bodies. Simon Led Blockchain Research and Development at Barclays, where Barclays became the first bank in the world to perform a live trade finance transaction over a Blockchain / DLT with a real customer attached. Today Simon advises Governments, Regulators and some of the worlds largest Banks, Financial Institutions and Corporations on how Blockchain and DLT will impact their business in the short, medium and long term. Prior to this Simon helped build the Barclays www.thinkrise.com programme and held a number of roles in payments, banking and the telco sector. In addition Simon is a co-host of both Fintech Insider the #1 Business Podcast in Europe and Blockchain - the fastest growing business podcast and the home of Blockchain knowledge and first rate interviews.Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD. Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

In this conversation, we chat with Meidad Sharon, the CEO and founder of the award-winning retail finance SaaS network platform ChargeAfter, the first global network to provide a complete solution to Point-of-Sale financing from multiple lenders. Meidad is a long-time high-tech industry veteran, with over 15 years of experience scaling global payments and SaaS businesses with a people and customer-first approach. As well as, demonstrating how simple payment processing and fraud prevention solutions can meet complex needs, and lead to maximum profitability and a seamless end-user experience.Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD. Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

In this conversation, we chat with Ivan Maryasin, the co-founder and CEO of Monite, an embedded finance startup that is automating back-office accounting for SMEs. Earlier this year Monite raised $5M (€4.4M) in a funding round led by Point72 Ventures. Ivan lived for a time in Boston and San Francisco, working for different startups and going to school before settling in Berlin. A natural entrepreneur, Ivan began his first marketing consultancy at age 16, and he founded Monite after witnessing first-hand the pain points that SMEs are facing with finances, whilst leading growth for Penta, one of the key German B2B neobanks and realized small businesses struggle a lot more with admin and accounting than they do with banking More specifically, we touch on the differences between marketing, advertising, and growth hacking. As well as the lag in fintech expansion in Germany and how starting a fintech there was challenging, and how painpoints from SMEs and retail customers lead to the building of an embedded finance startup, and so so much more!Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD. Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

In this conversation, we chat with Nick Lombardo, co-founder of Arc Technologies. Nick previously worked in private equity in New York where he experienced firsthand the limitations of traditional capital raising. In 2021, Nick and the other co-founders of Arc teamed up with Y Combinator and met with hundreds of software founders in the SF Bay Area and realized that they all shared a common pain point – startup funding is costly and distracting. Arc was founded to give founders an alternative to the status quo that helps them grow – with technology and without dilution. More specifically, we touch on investment banking vs. private equity, capital raising and the purpose of finance for early stage startups, invoice financing/invoice factoring vs revenue-based funding, embedded finance, and so so much more!Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD. Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

In this conversation, we chat with Will Beeson, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer at digital bank BELLA. Previously, Will was a Principal at Rebank, a fintech advisory firm, as well as he co-founded Allica, a digital bank for businesses in the UK. After starting his career at Citigroup in New York, Will spent nearly a decade in Europe working with and managing financial services companies prior to launching Allica. Will holds a BA from Amherst College (USA) and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charterholder. More specifically, we touch on frameworks for navigating down markets, valuations, multiples, why some fintechs have to disclose themselves as tech companies than banks, covid-19 implications, buy now pay later developments, and so so much more!Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD. Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, Daniella Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.