The Fintech Blueprint

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.

In this conversation, we chat with Kurtis Lin, the co-founder & CEO of Pinwheel, a 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. Kurt has been involved in multiple startup acquisitions, first Idean and later with Luxe. Following Luxe’s acquisition by Volvo, he received an HSA and experienced similar challenges to those of his parents. He realized if you didn’t have money to pre-fund an account - which most Americans don’t - opening an HSA was basically impossible. Kurt and his co-founders set out to create a more automated HSA process and soon realized the key problem was actually inaccessibility to the data and controls in payroll systems. Thus Pinwheel was born with the mission to build a fairer financial system. More specifically, we touch on the journey to building a fintech API infrastructure play, integrating inset payroll systems via APIs, the demise of payday lenders, 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 Sami Start, the Co-founder and CEO of Transak. Transak is one of the fastest and securest way to buy 100+ cryptocurrencies on 75+ blockchains. Users can pay via Apple Pay, UPI, Bank Transfer or use a credit or debit card. The company is trusted by more than 2 million users globally and empowers wallets, gaming, DeFi. NFTs, Exchanges and DAOs in more than 145 countries. Sami is based in London and has worked in high frequency trading and B2C fintech – his passion for fiat onboarding arose from his time at Smarkets. He has degrees in Physics from Imperial College and Computer Science from UCL More specifically, we geek out on problem solving philosophies and processes, market makers, building the best Web3 applications involving money, the inception of Transak and how it aims to power all web3 companies to facilitate payments using its developer-friendly infrastructure and easy UX/UI, the future of DeFi and CeFi and their convergence with TradFi, 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 Steven Goldfeder, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Offchain Labs – the team building Arbitrum. He holds a PhD from Princeton University, where he worked at the intersection of cryptography and cryptocurrencies. Before Offchain, he attended Princeton as a PhD candidate, where his research explored economics, anonymity, and incentive compatibility of cryptocurrencies. More specifically, we geek out on the heydays of early cryptography and the connection to cryptocurrency, zero-knowledge proofs, the fundamental structure of Ethereum and how this birthed Arbitrum, the application of optimistic roll-ups, the existing data storage issues of Layer 1s and how Arbitrum seek to solve them, 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 Marieke Flament, CEO of Near Foundation. Marieke is a French-born computer engineer who has worked across the globe in a diverse range of companies that include Boston Consulting Group, LVMH, and Expedia’s Hotels.com. In her previous role, she was Managing Director of Europe and Global CMO for Circle, one of the world’s largest crypto companies. At Circle, she pioneered the consumer application of blockchain, taking several products to market and building a user base of over two million in less than two years. She also helped move the blockchain agenda forward by working with key decision makers, including governments and financial policy makers across Europe. She is passionate about exploring the ways in which technology can be used to change people's lives and is an advocate for diversity and inclusion in finance and technology. Marieke was recognised in the Women in FinTech Powerlist for 2019 and frequently provides media commentary on technology and the future of finance. More specifically, we touch on the journey from Fintech Web2 to Layer-1 protocols and Web3, the neobanking ecosystem and comparatives, the role of the NEAR protocol and its Foundation, the three foundational pillars of NEAR, 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 Mona El Isa, the co-founder of Enzyme, one of the industry’s leading decentralised asset management protocols, and founder and CEO at Avantgarde Finance. She is also President of MAMA (Multichain Asset Managers Association), and was nominated Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and Digital Shaper in Bilanz magazine. Mona is a former star-trader at Goldman Sachs, promoted to Vice President by the age of 26 and made the “Top 30 under 30” list in Trader Magazine in 2008 and Forbes Magazine in 2011 after profitably trading the 2008 and 2011 crashes. She moved to Geneva-based macro fund Jabre Capital in 2011, before deciding in 2014 that the future of finance lay in blockchain technology. She studied Economics & Statistics at University College London. More specifically, we touch on the magnificent and harrowing journey from institutional finance during the financial crisis, to family office portfolio management, to multiple attempts at Web3 and DeFi. Mona has been through some incredible successes, as well as, harsh failures. Give this one a listen! 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 Gene Hoffman, Chief Operations Officer and President at Chia Network. Formerly CEO & co-founder Vindicia, eMusic, PGP, PrivNet. Recognized by the San Francisco Business Times with the “40 under 40 Emerging Leaders Award” in 2012, Gene has deep experience with building companies that disrupt markets. As head of eMusic, Gene was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine as a member of the July 1999 E-Gang, and named one of the 100 most influential entrepreneurs in technology in Upside Magazine’s November 2000 Elite 100. Gene led the acquisition of eMusic by Vivendi/Universal in June 2001. Before founding eMusic Gene was Director of Business Development and Director of Interactive Marketing of Pretty Good Privacy. More specifically, we touch on the early days of encryption, digital signatures, cryptocurrencies, and copyrights. As well as, the evolution of intellectual property management, the mechanics behind subscription infrastructure, how to build an alternative network to Bitcoin’s, 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 Dan Heyman, Co-founder and CEO of Palm NFT Studio and Network. Dan is a blockchain industry leader with experience building and leading organisations through the design, development and implementation of enterprise-grade blockchain protocols. Prior to Palm, Dan was the co-founder and Program Director of PegaSys, focusing on the strategy and operations of the team. Prior to joining PegaSys and ConsenSys, he was co-founder and CEO of Stack AI, COO of the Demeter Entrepreneur Support Network and Project Manager at MIT's Poverty Action Lab. He has an M.B.A. from MIT Sloan and a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Columbia University. More specifically, we touch on Dan’s fascinating journey from working with the poverty action lab to founding Palm, as well as, Dan’s experience at MIT, ConsenSys’s enterprise solutions, the philosophy behind Crypto Art, NFTs and their value to large media enterprises, setting up a creator-focussed DAO, some exciting upcoming collaborations with DC Comics, and 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.