Fintech Leaders: Recent Episodes
Miguel Armaza
Learn from today’s global leaders building the organizations that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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I sat down with Farooq Malik, CEO & Co-Founder of Rain, a $2Bn company that’s building infrastructure for Stablecoin-powered products, including card issuing, payments, wallets, and much more for businesses like Western Union, Slash and Nuvei. In 2025 they grew 30x and they recently raised a $250m round led by ICONIQ Capital.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
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I sat down with Victor Cardenas, Co-Founder and CEO of Slash, one of the fastest growing fintechs in America that went from $10M to $300M in annualized revenue in 24 months And just crossed a $1.4 billion valuation after a $100M Series C led by Ribbit Capital, Khosla Ventures and Goodwater Capital. The company powers over $30Bn in annualized payment volume across wires, ACH, stablecoin, and card for over 5,000 businesses. Victor is a Venezuelan immigrant, Stanford dropout, and Thiel Fellow. He started Slash at 19 serving sneaker resellers, lost 60% of his revenue almost overnight, and rebuilt the company into a rocketship by betting on vertical banking.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
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I sat down with Max Levchin, Co-Founder and CEO of Affirm and one of the living legends of tech and fintech. He co-founded PayPal with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, invented anti-fraud technology that's still foundational today, and has spent the last 14 years building Affirm into one of the largest publicly traded fintechs in the world with a mission to replace credit cards with transparent lending. He is one of the most thoughtful and brilliant founders I've spoken with.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Send us Fan Mail
I sat down with Rob Heyvaert, Founder and Managing Partner of Motive Partners, a fintech-focused private equity firm with over $6Bn in AUM, 80 portfolio companies representing over $15 trillion of assets in the wealth management space. Rob is a serial entrepreneur who started his first company at 24, sold it to IBM, and later founded Capco and sold to FIS to hundreds of millions of dollars, before launching Motive in 2016. He is a true fintech builder and it was inspiring to learn from him. We recorded this episode live at Motive's NYC office as part of New York Fintech week.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Send us Fan Mail
I sat down with Renaud Laplanche, Co-Founder and CEO of Upgrade, a consumer fintech valued at $7.3 billion. Since 2017, Upgrade has originated over $45 billion in credit to 7.5 million customers, crossed $1 billion in annualized revenue, and has been cash flow positive for years. Renaud also founded Lending Club and took it public in what was the largest US tech IPO of 2014. He is one of the most accomplished entrepreneurs in fintech and someone I personally admire. We discussed building a multi-product platform from day one, how a company acquisition became their best customer generation engine, the first AI-native product Upgrade is shipping soon, and much more. Outside fintech, Renaud is an avid Sailor holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest Newport to Bermuda sailing crossing.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
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I sat down with Tom Sosnoff, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in financial services. Tom spent 19 years on Chicago’s CBOE trading floor and then left to build Thinkorswim, the first online broker specialized in options, which he sold to TD Ameritrade for $600 million. He then built Tastytrade and sold it nine years later for a billion dollars to IG Group. He is now building Lossdog, a career optimization platform to help fight wealth inequality. What I enjoyed the most of this conversation is how genuine Tom is. He’s kind and cares about fairness and inequality. Prioritizes legacy over money. And he is a builder at heart that loves to take risks.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Send us Fan Mail
I sat down with Andrew Endicott, fintech entrepreneur and my co-founder at Gilgamesh Ventures. Andrew is also the author of the recent book "Is Finance Technology?", a practical guide for founders, operators, and investors in financial services. The book covers everything. From the common mistakes that kill fintech companies, to how to think about risk, fraud, and regulation across verticals.
I highly recommend picking up a copy. Few people have operated across as many roles and verticals as Andrew has. Having been a financial services lawyer, investment banker, entrepreneur, board member, and now investor, this book reflects that breadth.
Timestamped Overview:
00:00 Finance origins and early technology
05:56 Necessity driving creativity
07:42 Solving everyday consumer challenges
13:49 Impact of emerging technologies
16:44 Fintech innovation and successful founders
19:30 Challenges of choosing customers and partners
21:39 Dealing with fraud challenges
26:00 First movers in payment industry
31:11 Writing the book and changing views
32:46 Fintech companies becoming banks
37:01 Venture capital trends and shifts
39:32 Writing process and challenges
42:27 Hoping to inspire future entrepreneurs
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Send us Fan Mail
I sat down with Ali Mazanderani, Chairman of Lesaka, a nasdaq traded, leading fintech in Southern Africa with over $400 million in revenue and 2 million active customers. Ali is a fintech veteran investor and builder, who’s been closely involved with several multi-billion dollar fintechs in emerging markets, including Stone, Pine Labs, Kushki, Thunes and is also a co-founder of Teya.
We discussed why Southern Africa is one of the most exciting fintech opportunities in the world, how Lesaka is turning 120,000 merchants from cash-only to digital, the strategy behind acquiring Bank Zero, and why being a publicly traded company is a feature, not a bug.
Timestamped Overview:
00:00 Intro & Ali’s Background
05:00 Creating positive impact through fintech
09:23 Founding Taya Joy in Building
10:32 Customer first approach to success
14:49 Benefits of Public Market Discipline
18:12 Fintech's Limited Impact in Africa
20:36 South Africa's business opportunities
25:45 Bank Zero Digital Advantage
27:46 Customer-First Mindset & Innovation
32:27 Key Focus Growth and ARPU Trends
33:41 Value Over Price Wins Customers
38:35 Driving Merchant Payment Efficiency
42:52 Digitizing Africa's Future
43:58 Ambition for global excellence
47:14 Authenticity and empathy drive success
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Send us Fan Mail
Miguel Armaza interviews George Robson, Partner at Sequoia Capital, one of the most legendary venture firms in the world. Founded in 1972 by Don Valentine, Sequoia has backed some of the most successful tech and fintech companies in history including Nvidia, Apple, Google, Nubank, and Stripe. Sequoia-backed companies make up over 25% of the Nasdaq's market cap, and add up to $13+ trillion in market cap.
George is one of 19 investing partners at Sequoia and was previously a product manager at Revolut. We discuss how Revolut built a multi-product machine by treating every team like a startup, how Sequoia uses storytelling to calibrate its investors on what generational founders look like, and why the next wave of fintech winners will be full stack companies that internalize the technology instead of selling it to incumbents.
Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & George’s Background
04:14 Finding My People at Revolut
07:37 Building Self Sufficient Cross Functional Teams
10:57 Focus on Growth and Profitability
14:45 Crucial Decision and Growth
17:49 High-Conviction Investment Strategy
19:07 Parth's Inspiring Entrepreneurial Path
23:38 Entrepreneur Growth and Resilience
28:19 Storytelling Key to Early Success
31:05 Effective Board Dynamics
34:14 Entrepreneurs Investors and Problem Discovery
36:42 Outsiders Tackling Big Markets
40:21 Rewriting Business Laws of Gravity
44:04 Humbling Reads and Insights
46:17 Doug Leone Fierce and Kind
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 80,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Send us Fan Mail
Miguel Armaza sits down with Michael Calvey, one of the most successful and legendary emerging markets investors of our time. Mike moved to Moscow at age 27 in the early 90s and built Baring Vostok into a powerhouse with $10+ billion invested in Russia. They backed now-decacorns like Yandex, Revolut, Tinkoff, and Kaspi at their earliest stages. Yandex alone was a 450x return for the fund.
Along the way, he survived a 98% market crash, was detained by Russia's secret service, and made billions of dollars for his investors.
He's also incredibly thoughtful about the ingredients of great founders, what separates the ones who win from those just chasing money, how the best companies constantly stack new S curves, and why being a hands-on owner but never a hands-on manager is the key to a great investor-founder partnership.
Timestamped Overview
00:00 From Oklahoma to Russia - Intro & Michael’s Background
10:32 Building an Elite Emerging Markets Team
14:36 Geopolitics, Economics, and Market Resilience
20:25 Fewer Investments, Better Focus
24:08 Successful Entrepreneurs Value Purpose
28:47 Management KPIs and Key Insights
33:45 3 Cs of Ownership Focus
42:53 Marketplace vs. Fintech Growth Dynamics
44:02 Marketplace Dominance and Financial Complexity
52:25 Emerging Markets: Talent vs. Geopolitics
54:51 Emerging Markets and Fintech Ventures
01:00:20 Medici Family: Banking and Intrigue
01:05:59 Starting Over as Entrepreneur
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Send us Fan Mail
Miguel Armaza welcomes Edward Woodford, founder and CEO of ZeroHash, to Fintech Leaders for a candid, insightful conversation on the future of blockchain infrastructure and the lessons learned from nearly a decade of building in crypto.
Edward offers a unique perspective as a London-born, MIT-educated entrepreneur who’s seen ZeroHash grow into one of the most critical and least visible companies powering the global blockchain ecosystem. He shares his journey— from getting rejected by Oxford and taking the leap to the US, to building his first fintech business and discovering Bitcoin at the MIT bookstore.
Join Miguel and Edward for a conversation packed with actionable insights for fintech founders, builders, and investors aiming to navigate the fast-evolving landscape at the intersection of crypto, infrastructure, and financial innovation.
Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Edward’s Background
05:49 Balancing Business and Personal Life
08:58 MIT Bitcoin and Career Exploration
13:14 Tech-Driven Market Shift Insights
16:07 Tokenization and Global Interoperability
20:08 Impact of the founding team
21:54 Founding team dynamics explored
26:32 Power versus influence in investing
29:25 Effective Infrastructure Pricing Strategy
33:44 Weighted performance-based churn metric
35:00 Founder Mode Intensity Defined
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Send us Fan Mail
Miguel Armaza sits down with Nikolay Seleznev, Co-Founder of Uzum, Uzbekistan’s first tech unicorn rewriting the playbook for e-commerce and fintech in Central Asia. From Moscow to Tashkent, Nikolay Seleznev brings global banking experience and entrepreneurial grit to a country leapfrogging straight into the digital economy.
In this episode, Nikolay Seleznev shares the origin story of Uzum and how a simple, subpar online shopping experience sparked the vision for a super app serving millions. He dives into the challenges of building next-day delivery and financial services from scratch—without warehouses, 3PL infrastructure, or widespread digital adoption. Discover how Uzum managed to issue 4 million debit cards in a single year, reach 20 million monthly active users, and outperform their first-year GMV forecast by 4x, all while driving massive change in a historically cash-based society.
Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Nikolay’s Background
05:45 Building a Super App Ecosystem
08:05 Time as the ultimate resource
10:51 Uzbekistan’s rapid transformation
15:13 Commerce and Fintech Ecosystem Overview
20:12 Building trust through products
23:15 Uzbekistan’s first unicorn funding
26:57 Scaling success and adaptation
28:22 Super app strategy adjustments
32:02 Super Apps and Local Adaptation
35:41 Self-focused entrepreneurial perspective
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
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Miguel Armaza interviews returning guest Dan Westgarth, COO of Deel, the company that's redefining how businesses hire and pay talent anywhere in the world.
Deel has grown into one of the most valuable private tech companies on the planet. In 2025, they crossed one billion dollars in revenue, achieved a $17 billion valuation, and paid out $22 billion in payroll globally. Dan oversees an organization of 3,300 people across more than 100 countries. Before Deel, he was an early operator at Revolut.
Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Dan’s Background
05:51 Expanding products and global reach
06:30 Optimized systems scaling go-to-market
12:55 Begging for Ghostbusters Expertise
13:41 RevOps solved with Ghostbuster
18:05 Building a Streamlined Goal System
20:26 Payroll and Adjacent HR Services
26:09 Keep It Simple Prioritize People
28:15 Morning Routine and Work Prioritization
31:46 Clarifying Communication for Alignment
35:27 Building payroll processing engines
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
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Miguel Armaza recorded this episode at FinTech Nerdcon in Miami with Steve McLaughlin, Founder and CEO of FT Partners, the largest fintech-focused investment bank. Since 2001, Steve has built a 250-person firm that's advised on landmark deals including Coinbase's $4.3 billion Deribit acquisition and Revolut's multi-billion dollar raises. FT Partners works with everyone from early-stage startups to industry giants.
In this conversation, Steve shares his unfiltered views on Fintech's dramatic recovery, the tokenization revolution, and why AI will completely reshape financial services.
Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Steve’s Background
02:18 Fintech thrives with smarter strategies
07:45 Crypto M&A Major Deals Emerging
09:38 Future of Asset Tokenization
12:41 AI transforming digital business
17:45 AI enhances analyst efficiency
21:08 Efficient AI investment insights
25:57 Closed-Loop Ecosystem Dominance
27:42 Building a passionate resilient team
30:07 Subscribe for more interviews
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp
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Miguel Armaza sits down with René Lacerte, founder and CEO of Bill, one of the fintech industry’s most successful and enduring leaders. From building PayCycle in the 1990s to now leading a publicly-traded company powering the “Fortune 5 Million”—the SMBs that are the backbone of America—René brings nearly three decades of hands-on experience in financial operations, product innovation, and organizational culture.
In this episode, René shares his singular journey, starting with childhood influences from a family steeped in entrepreneurship and jazz music, and moving through decades of building for small and mid-sized businesses. He dives deep into why serving SMBs is both uniquely challenging and vital for communities, and reveals how Bill processes over a trillion dollars annually for nearly half a million clients across the US, in partnership with more than 9,000 accounting firms.
René also shares rapid-fire insights on metrics he obsesses over (customer happiness and escalations), the importance of deep networks for founder success, and why investing in culture is the ultimate bet for long-term company excellence.
A must-listen for founders, fintech builders, and anyone passionate about the future of entrepreneurship, financial technology, and the creative power of small businesses.
Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & René Lacerte’s Background
04:41 Piano passion and perseverance
07:34 Dreaming of Wyntons Talent
11:52 SMBs community and identity
16:15 Entrepreneurship Requires Growth and Accountability
18:39 Being present and appreciating
20:11 Tech inspiration for SMBs
25:37 Scorecards Over Job Descriptions
29:47 AI Enhancing Creativity and Impact
33:09 Touchless Workflow Automation
35:38 Trust, data, and fintech success
39:07 Financial ecosystem and acquisitions
41:39 Embracing healthy workplace conflict
45:42 The Power of Networking
48:54 Celebration honors collective effort
51:48 The lasting impact of gratitude
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
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[Original air date, November 19, 2024]Miguel Armaza travels to Alexandria, Virginia for an in-person interview with a fintech legend: Nigel Morris, Co-Founder of QED and Capital One.
QED is a global fintech venture capital firm that has backed numerous amazing companies, including Credit Karma, Nubank, Avant, SoFi, and Klarna. They currently have over $4.0 billion in AUM.
Prior to QED, Nigel co-founded Capital One in 1994. The bank today is amongst the 10 largest banks in the US with almost $500 billion in assets. They are also one of the most innovative financial institutions that have inspired countless of entrepreneurs worldwide.
Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro
01:25 Nigel’s Background
05:02 Driven by Curiosity and Empiricism
09:03 Banking economics and unsecured credit
10:10 Data economics and scientific method
14:12 Intentional Leadership Shapes Culture
18:25 NuBank exceptional net promoter scores
22:37 Fintech Journey Early Stages
25:06 Financial inclusions global expansion
27:50 Big Tech AI Dominance
33:16 Co-Founder Synergy and Longevity
36:00 Effective board meeting essentials
37:25 Effective Board Meetings Matter
42:09 Climbing a million feet yearly
44:21 Fintech empowering global change
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~70,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Send us Fan Mail
Miguel Armaza sits down withAndrew Wang (CEO) andLinda Du (COO) of Valon, the AI-native infrastructure platform transforming mortgage servicing in America. They have quietly built a top-10 national mortgage servicer with over $100 million in revenue and more than one million loans under management, all while achieving profitability. Valon is now selling their battle-tested platform to the largest servicers in the country. They are backed by a16z, Westcap, Jefferies, and Alleycorp, amongst others.
What makes their story remarkable is how they built it: $100 million in revenue sold entirely through founder-led sales, no marketing team, and a seven-year detour of becoming a servicer themselves just to prove their software works. Their journey from burning $4 million per month to 70% operating margins offers a masterclass in operational discipline and unconventional company building.
Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Valon’s Background
04:14 Finding Trustworthy Growth Partners
07:55 Navigating startup licensing challenges
09:55 Overcoming Loan Licensing Hurdles
15:53 Proving Value Through Integration
18:22 Servicing philosophy shoot higher
21:23 Valenos Success Without Marketing
23:21 Building Two Businesses Two Strategies
27:01 Monetizing operations with efficiency
30:14 Debating AGI's future impact
34:52 Modern CTO Strategies Culture Infrastructure
38:19 LLMs redefining productivity models
41:39 Mentorship sparks business collaboration
44:02 Choosing New York over SF
47:55 Ali's thoughtful guidance and clarity
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 80,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
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Miguel Armaza sits down with Santiago Suárez, Co-Founder & CEO of Addi, one of Colombia’s fastest-growing fintech and commerce platforms. With a background that spans global finance and a track record of driving innovation in Latin America, Santiago shares a candid, in-depth look at lessons from scaling Addi to over $1.3 billion in annualized GMV, serving 2.5 million customers, and achieving industry-leading gross margins above 55%.
In this episode, Santiago and Miguel dive deep into Addi’s unique approach to board management—treating every board meeting as a “dirty laundry” session to maximize transparency, trust, and tangible input from world-class investors like Andreessen Horowitz, GIC, and Union Square Ventures. Santiago also unpacks the company’s relentless focus on operational excellence, from shifting to a North Star-driven management style to building a contentious yet high-performing executive team with global talent from Amazon, Capital One, and PayTM.
Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro
03:57 Monthly updates streamline meetings
09:00 Building Success Amid Challenges
13:02 Seamless commerce and finance ecosystem
14:20 Persistent Networking Pays Off
18:49 Marketplace built on consumer demand
21:43 Scaling globally through self-funding
24:00 Show Your Work The Why
27:30 Empowered Customer Service Equity
31:30 AI Agents Powering Transactions
34:10 AI Data and Deployment Nuances
38:30 Building success through early funding
41:30 CEO weekly field day
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Miguel Armaza sits down with Nico Simko, CEO and co-founder of Clair, for an inside look at the journey, pivots, and insights behind one of the most innovative companies in earned wage access and embedded fintech.
From his early days as a competitive fencer on the Swiss national team—where he learned the mental agility and resilience needed for entrepreneurship—to his high-impact stints at J.P. Morgan, Nico shares how his personal story shaped his approach to building and scaling Clair. He dives into founding Clair and the surprising early missteps around product-market fit, the company’s evolution toward deep partnerships with payroll and workforce management platforms, and why saying “no” is a crucial leadership skill for founders.
Timestamped Overview
- 00:00 Intro
- 05:31 Entrepreneurship as Mission, Not Title
- 08:35 Building Empowered Engineering Teams
- 09:29 Rethinking Direct Deposit Banking
- 14:22 Transparency in Company Pivot
- 16:32 AI-Driven Efficiency in Fintech
- 21:05 Strategic Partnerships with Payroll Firms
- 24:06 Business Payment and Tip Challenges
- 27:15 Unique Payroll Underwriting Edge
- 30:07 Passion Drives Success and Growth
- 31:27 Startup Reality's Tough Lessons
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Alan Patricof and Howard Morgan, two of the most influential figures in the venture capital industry. From the early days of just 50 annual deals to today’s 10,000 opportunities, they’ve helped shape the industry’s explosive growth over the last five decades.
In this episode,Alan and Howard share lessons from navigating multiple crises, their vision for the AI revolution and a future with humanoid robots, and why mentorship and legacy matter more than money when building enduring companies.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Art Levy, Chief Business Officer of Brex. Brex has scaled to over $100 billion in processed transactions while becoming one of the most influential multibillion-dollar fintechs in the world. In this episode, Art shares the strategies behind Brex’s hypergrowth comeback, its extreme focus on three core products, and the culture that continues to produce founders of billion-dollar companies.
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Miguel Armaza interviews the CEO of Shift4. Shift4 has been at the forefront of the global payments industry for 26 years—and they’re only getting started. In this episode, CEO Taylor Lauber reveals the strategies that have kept the company ahead in a competitive, fast-moving market.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews the CEO of Cashea. In a country where credit vanished, Cashea built a new system from scratch. CEO Pedro Vallenilla shares how they scaled BNPL to 3% of Venezuela’s GDP, through trust-based lending, merchant financing, and a bold vision for national impact.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Steve Stagner, CEO of Crete, an AI-powered roll-up deploying $500+ million to modernize the accounting industry. Backed by Thrive Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and others, Crete is acquiring US accounting firms and transforming them with OpenAI-powered tools. Steve brings battle-tested insights from building Mattress Firm from a single $1,300 franchise to a $3.8 billion Fortune 500 giant.
In this episode, we discuss (1) Why "People, Process, Technology" - in that exact order - is the only formula that works for AI transformation; (2) How Crete's partner equity model differs from traditional PE roll-ups, letting firms keep their culture while accessing enterprise-grade AI tools; (3) Why firms that don't embrace AI will lose and how Crete has already seen 30-50% efficiency gains through AI-powered trial balance normalization and audit testing... and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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[Original air date, April 9, 2024]Miguel Armaza interviews Jack Zhang, CEO & Co-Founder of Airwallex, a global payments and treasury giant that moves $7 billion in monthly transaction volume and serves 100,000+ clients, including Brex, Rippling, and SHEIN.
Founded in Melbourne in 2015, Airwallex was last valued at $6.2 billion and has raised over a billion dollars from Sequoia, DST, Square Peg, Greenoaks, Mastercard, Tencent, Salesforce, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How investing in a coffee shop led him to co-found a global payments network
- Why Airwallex prioritizes people with great leadership skills who are also technical
- The impact of AI in financial services
- New risks of AI-powered financial fraud
- Partnering with almost 100 banks around the world… and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Eynat Guez, CEO and Founder of Papaya Global. She has built an HR and payroll platform that has transformed how companies manage and operate global teams across 180 countries. After having faced over 1,000 rejections from VCs, Papaya has now grown to process $34 billion in payments annually and they've raised significant funding from Insight Partners, Bessemer, Greenoaks Capital, and more.
We discuss why brutal honesty and direct leadership creates stronger companies, how founders need to learn "investor language" to sell the company vision rather than the product, the operational complexity of building global from day one across 160 countries, and how being a mother of three shaped her approach to building a hypergrowth company.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Chen Amit, CEO and Co-Founder of Tipalti, a global fintech platform processing billions in payments and serving over 4,000 mid-market companies worldwide. By focusing on the underserved mid-sized companies, Tipalti has achieved 99% gross revenue retention over 15 years and secured licenses across 50+ jurisdictions.
We discuss:
- Navigating "once-in-a-decade" disruptions that now seem to happen every six months
- Why customer intuition can override conflicting data points
- How saying "no" to your customers or partners can sometimes be the right strategic move
- Why licenses, bank integrations, and data moats matter more than ever in the AI era... and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza sits down in NYC with Anré Williams, Senior Executive Advisor at American Express. Anré has spent over 35 years at Amex, rising from summer intern to, most recently, CEO of American Express National Bank (which represents ~60% of the company's revenues). Under his leadership, Amex transformed its banking business into a top 25 US bank by assets.
Amex is one of the oldest financial services companies in the world. The company is 150 years old and in 2024, they reported record revenues of $66 billion dollars.
We discuss:
- The Amex playbook for maintaining industry-leading low loss rates even through major economic crises
- Building the AmEx digital bank from a small operation into a powerhouse with over $100 billion in assets
- How hyper-targeted data analytics revolutionized Amex's global expansion strategy
- Lessons from pioneering fintech partnerships with disruptors like Square, insights on effective mentorship... and lots more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza travels to Sao Paulo for an interview with Eduardo Chedid, CEO of PicPay, a Brazilian fintech giant that has quietly become one of the most important financial companies in Latin America.
With 60 million customers and handling 11% of all Pix payments transactions in Brazil, PicPay has achieved profitability while maintaining hyper-growth—posting 61% revenue growth and 7× higher profits in 2024.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How PicPay transformed from a digital wallet into a multi-product financial platform
- The power of business unit autonomy and prioritizing top talent acquisition
- Building a two-sided ecosystem that serves both consumers and businesses with separate monetization strategies
- Why Brazilian market volatility creates resilient managers and how to avoid the "incumbent trap"... and lots more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza stops by the New York Stock Exchange to interview Yoshi Yokokawa, CEO & Co-founder of Alpaca, an API-first brokerage infrastructure company that has raised over $100 million to serve more than 200 financial institutions across 40 countries, with 5 million brokerage accounts on their platform.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Balancing data-driven decisions with entrepreneurial instinct
- Why Alpaca's self-clearing model slashes dependencies, cuts costs, and accelerates innovation
- Why API-first companies need a sandwich approach: bottom-up developer community and top-down enterprise sales
- Why Japan's economic history shaped a generation of domestic entrepreneurs while global founders like Yoshi remain the exception… and lots more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Daniel Vogel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bitso, one of Latin America's leading cryptocurrency platforms serving over 12 million customers across Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and Brazil. Bitso processes over 10% of the remittances flowing from the US to Mexico ($6 - $7 Billion), and is pioneering the use of stablecoins for cross-border transactions throughout Latin America.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why rate of learning is one of his core principles for company culture and personal growth
- Using transparency to drive company performance and employee engagement
- How stablecoins are transforming global payments and why Bitso is betting big on this technology
- Building personal side projects that feed a curious mind and nurture innovation... and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Bam Azizi, Co-Founder and CEO of Mesh Connect, a fintech infrastructure company that has transformed from a consumer-focus to a fast-growing B2B platform serving hundreds of corporate clients including Revolut, and Coinbase. After raising nearly $130 million, including a Series B closed in just one month, Mesh is now focusing on serving the stablecoin ecosystem.
We discuss:
- The rollercoaster journey from B2C to B2B and the painful but necessary pivot decisions
- Why stablecoins represent a $37 trillion opportunity that's reshaping global finance
- How fragmentation across chains, wallets, and currencies creates the perfect infrastructure opportunity
- The immigrant mindset needed to survive funding cycles and build through market volatility and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Johnny Ayers, CEO and Co-Founder of Socure, a leader in digital identity verification that has transformed the industry using machine learning and graph databases. From surviving a major risk event in 2014 to becoming a trusted partner for the largest financial institutions, consumer businesses, and government agencies, Socure now processes over 15 billion rows of data weekly and has verified more than 3 billion identities globally.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How Socure rebuilt in 2014 and turned a near disaster into an advantage
- Why government fraud prevention lags 15-20 years behind the private sector, costing billions to tax payers
- Johnny's strategic approach to M&A, including their acquisition of Effectiv
- Preventing $3 billion in fraudulent disaster relief applications in just six weeks
- The future of digital identity: from biometrics to tokenized credentials and wearables... and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Shensi Ding, Co-Founder of Merge, an integrations infrastructure platform that has quickly grown from serving early-stage startups to powering integration layers for some of the largest financial services companies in the world including Revolut, Airwallex, Ramp, Brex and many more. They have raised a total of $75 million from great investors including NEA, Addition, and Accel.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Building credibility with engineers and product teams
- Unique advantages of being a first-time founder. Plus some hard lessons learned.
- How customer obsession and early security investments shaped company strategy
- Why fundraising is a game with rules first-time founders need to learn... and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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[Original air date, February 6, 2024]Miguel Armaza sits down with David Magerman, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Differential Ventures, an early-stage fund that invests in data-focused entrepreneurs building enterprise technology.
In a past life, he spent 22 years in leadership roles at Renaissance Technologies (RenTech), a legendary hedge fund with over $100 billion in AUM and probably the most successful fund in history.
David is also a contrarian thinker and a non-conformist, which made our conversation even more interesting.
We discuss:
- How David and a small group of engineers helped introduce quantitative data science to trading and public capital markets investing
- Why he is highly skeptical of the new wave of GenAI
- A very convincing argument to introduce friction in online communication processes to restore balance and reduce its negative effects on society… and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Ryan Graciano, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Credit Karma, one of the most successful fintech companies serving over 130 million customers. Credit Karma was bought by Intuit for $7.1bn in 2020, marking one of fintech’s largest acquisitions ever. Ryan began his journey as CTO after a brief stint at IBM and helped build Credit Karma from the ground up since 2007.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Key technical decisions that shaped Credit Karma's success
- Ryan's vision for the future of AI in personal finance
- Lessons from raising capital and building the company during the global financial crisis
- How to create excitement and drive organizational transformation... and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza welcomes back Jackie Reses, CEO and Co-Founder of Lead Bank, a pioneering bank reimagining modern financial infrastructure and fintech partnerships. Jackie previously held leadership roles at Square and Yahoo, and served on the board of Alibaba, working alongside visionaries like Jack Dorsey and Jack Ma.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How Lead Bank achieved instant product-market fit before even acquiring their bank charter
- Why banking regulation needs a "first principles" rethinking approach and why the CFPB may need significant reform
- The evolution of AI in financial services and why regulators are becoming more open to algorithmic innovation
- Invaluable leadership lessons from working with Masayoshi Son, Jack Ma, and Jack Dorsey... and lots more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews John Waldmann, Founder & CEO of Homebase, a company on a mission to help modernize local business teams in the US. Since launching in 2014, Homebase has grown to support over 150,000 businesses and 3.8 million workers, processing hundreds of millions of shifts annually.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why founders should have more courage and conviction in their early cultural choices
- Creating a culture of ownership and high-velocity decision-making
- The dangers of consensus decision-making and the power of individual ownership
- How to maintain operational velocity as you scale… and lots more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Howard Lindzon, a seasoned investor, entrepreneur, and founder of StockTwits, the largest social network for investors and traders. Howard is also the founder of Social Leverage, a venture capital firm that has backed great companies like Robinhood and eToro.
Often called "The Larry David of Finance" for his candid, no-nonsense takes on markets and investing, his newsletter and sharp social media commentary have earned him a loyal following among investors and entrepreneurs alike – not for sugar-coating reality, but for calling it exactly as he sees it.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why public market investing experience makes better early-stage investors
- His philosophy and approach to missing big opportunities, including Twitter, Zynga, and Carta
- The evolution of markets from Web2 to the all-consuming "degenerate economy"
- Markets may be rigged, but once you know the rules of the game, you can still win big... and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Ali Hamed, Co-Founder of Treville (formerly CoVenture), a $2 Billion investment firm that's breaking traditional asset class boundaries. Hamed has built one of the most distinctive firms in the industry, combining venture capital, credit, and asset-backed strategies with a uniquely rigorous approach - all starting from cold emails during his college days.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The "founder fair" philosophy and lessons from partnering with Michael Ovitz
- How to maintain control of your time while building authentic relationships and a powerful network
- Why investing across multiple asset classes creates a competitive edge
- Creating a culture of speed, intensity and conviction... and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Savneet Singh, CEO of PAR Technology (NYSE: PAR), a company he helped transform from a struggling legacy hardware with a small market cap into a thriving restaurant technology leader now worth nearly $3 billion in the public markets.
When Savneet joined PAR's board in 2018, he found a company facing multiple crises - from DOJ investigations and activist investors to negative customer satisfaction scores and just $3.4 million in cash reserves. What started as a temporary CEO role to help sell the company evolved into a remarkable turnaround story.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The art of corporate triage and how to prioritize when everything is on fire
- Building conviction to make non-consensus bets as a leader
- Key lessons from M&A strategy and product integration
- The reality of transforming a public company while "changing the wheels in motion"... and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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We bring you a compilation of some of the best and most popular episodes of 2024. The guests of this episode have either founded or held key leadership roles in companies with a $200 Billion combined market cap, including Capital One, Kaspi, Mercado Libre, and Xero.
It was an amazing year for Fintech Leaders with 42 new guests from 13 countries. Our interviews were viewed almost 3 million times across all platforms and we reached people in 184 countries. Thank you for tuning for what was an amazing year and I’m excited to bring you a 2025 full of rockstar business leaders.
In this episode, you'll hear from:
- Mikhail Lomtadze, CEO of Kaspi.kz(Nasdaq:KSPI)
- Diya Jolly, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Xero
- Pedro Arnt, CEO of dLocal(NASDAQ:DLO)
- Eric Poirier, CEO of Addepar
- Nigel Morris, Co-Founder of QED & Capital One
- Rujul Zaparde, CEO & Co-Founder of Zip
- Jack Zhang, CEO & Co-Founder of Airwallex
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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[Original air date, March 21, 2023]For this Christmas Eve episode, I revisit my 2023 interview with Adam Nash, Co-Founder and CEO of Daffy, a special fintech platform that encourages charitable giving.
Giving to charity is a powerful way to create change; even a small contribution to the right cause can transform lives and it’s a chance to make a real difference. As the year comes to an end and you get a chance to reflect back, I encourage you to learn more about Daffy. Adam was nice enough to provide a $25 bonus for Fintech Leaders subscribers → sign-up today to get an extra $25 for charity when you join Daffy. Claim your $25 here!
Adam is also a fintech veteran and prolific angel investor, who has been on the boards of Shift and Acorns, and was previously CEO of Wealthfront. He previously held leadership roles at Dropbox, LinkedIn, eBay, and Apple.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Adam’s journey at Silicon Valley and what it was like to work with Steve Jobs at Next & Apple
- Building the first fully functioning donor-advised fund in the app store and how Daffy is helping people give more to charity
- Lessons from the role of the CEO and why it’s the only role that truly understands how a company’s pieces are going to fit together
- Why Adam remains excited and bullish on consumer-focused fintech businesses, the importance of building a great team… and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Daragh Murphy, CEO & Co-Founder of Imprint, a fast-growing and leading fintech in the co-branded credit card space that has raised $200 million from Thrive Capital, Ribbit, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Stripe, and a many more great investors.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Challenges and lessons building Imprint, including pivoting and finding product-market fit
- Why a great Return on Equity (ROE) is what really matters when building a company
- Using heuristics to find values-aligned talent at Imprint
- A cautionary tale on the fragility of life and a reminder to live fully… and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Kamran Zaki, Partner at ICONIQ Growthand former COO of Adyen. ICONIQ growth is a multi-billion fund that has backed dozens of amazing companies, 27 of which have IPOd and together comprise a market cap of over $1.5T. Some of their fintech investments include Adyen, Chime, Ramp, Robinhood, Monzo and Bill.com.
In this episode, we discuss:
- What it means to be a value-add investor and VC
- Lessons from Adyen - the keys and challenges of building a truly global company
- Taking Adyen public and lessons for company leaders looking to IPO in the coming years
- Kamran’s take on stablecoins
- Traits and patterns of great leaders… and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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[Original air date, October 10, 2023]Miguel Armaza sits down with Josh Reeves, CEO & Co-Founder of Gusto, one of the largest HR & Payroll companies in the US, focused on serving small and medium-sized businesses. In addition to HR, payroll, and benefits, Gusto is a strong player of embedded fintech solutions and in 2023 announced a very large partnership with JPM Chase.
Founded in 2011, Gusto now serves over 300,000 businesses in the US and in 2022 Gusto had revenues of more than $500 million dollars. They are backed by General Catalyst, YC, Kleiner Perkins, Obvious Ventures, Felicis, Ribbit, CapitalG, Altimeter, and a very long list of fintech investors.
We discuss:
- Finding Product-market fit in the highly complex SMB sector
- Becoming a strategic partner and building the people platform for small businesses
- Lessons from building and launching Gusto’s embedded fintech strategy
- How Gusto built a structured and scalable hiring process
- Insights and learnings from the evolving role of CEO… and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Alan Patricof, Co-Founder of Primetime Partners, Greycroft, and Apax Partners. It’s hard to explain just how important Alan has been for tech and VC. He’s one of the true pioneers in venture capital worldwide, having started his first VC firm in the 1970s, Alan Patricof and Associates, which later became Apax Partners and currently has over ~$80Bn AUM.
We sat down live on stage at Barclays Rise in NYC for the Gilgamesh Ventures Summit, an annual meeting where we gather over 150 Limited Partners, Founders, Co-Investors, and friends for a series of events and discussions about the future of financial services.
Alan is an inspiring figure, not only because of his success in the business world but also because of his vitality and contagious optimism.
We recorded the episode a day after his 90th birthday and candidly, he had more energy than most people I know.
We discussed:
- The early days of Venture Capital and Tech in the 1970s and beyond
- Alan grew up in NYC and built his career in NY – how was the city back then?
- Building primetime partners to invest in the fastest growing market, people over-60
- Staying healthy. How Alan keeps fit, focused and is closing deals at 90 Years Old
- Why your reputation is all that matters in this business… and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza travels to Alexandria, Virginia for an in-person interview with a fintech legend: Nigel Morris, Co-Founder of QED and Capital One.
QED is a global fintech venture capital firm that has backed numerous amazing companies, including Credit Karma, Nubank, Avant, SoFi, and Klarna. They currently have over $4.0 billion in AUM.
Prior to QED, Nigel co-founded Capital One in 1994. The bank today is amongst the 10 largest banks in the US with almost $500 billion in assets. They are also one of the most innovative financial institutions that have inspired countless of entrepreneurs worldwide.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Building Capital One and the principles and innovations that shaped the success of the bank
- Nigel started investing in venture capital 17 years ago – what has he learned about backing great founders?
- Why Nigel is still very bullish about the future of fintech
- What makes an effective board meeting, a day in the life of Nigel… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Howard Morgan, Chair at B Capital, and also co-founder of Renaissance Technologies and First Round Capital.
Howard and Miguel sat down live on stage at Barclays Rise in NYC for the Gilgamesh Ventures Summit, an annual meeting with over 150 Limited Partners, Founders, and Investors for a series of events and discussions about the future of tech and financial services.
In this inspiring conversation, Howard discussed:
- How B Capital is using AI to improve their operations
- Launching Renaissance Technologies and their quantitative trading strategies
- The evolution of venture capital from local to global investing
- Qualities of great founders and investors, Howard’s work in philanthropy… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Jouk Pleiter, CEO & Founder of Backbase, a global fintech that’s modernizing software and infrastructure for banks around the world.
Founded in 2003, Backbase was bootstrapped to €200M in annual revenue until they raised a single Private Equity round of €120M from Motive Partners in 2022, valuing the company at €2.5B. They have now grown to over €300M in ARR, work with 150 banks, and continue to expand across the world.
We discuss:
- Bootstrapping the company and why they eventually decided to raise external capital
- Successful strategies for fintechs trying to sell software to banks
- Why company leaders should think in five-year chapters
- Amsterdam as a tech and fintech hub… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Benjamin Fernandes, CEO & Founder of NALA, a global, cross-border payments company that helps customers send money in and out of Africa.
Founded in 2018, NALA today is profitable and has raised over $50 million from Accel, Acrew, Amplo, Bessemer, DST, and NYCA.
We discuss:
- Why NALA built their own infrastructure and stopped relying on local African incumbents
- Challenges of going through a company pivot from local to cross-border payments
- The important role that VCs can have on founders, positively and negatively
- How Benjamin’s background as a TV host led him to payments… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Richie Serna, CEO & Co-Founder of Finix, a US full-stack payment processor and infrastructure provider that processes billions of dollars a year for software platforms, marketplaces, retail, and e-commerce businesses.
Founded in 2015, Finix has raised over $135 million to date and is backed by ActOne Ventures, Homebrew, Bain Capital Ventures, Insight, Visa, AmEx, Inspired Capital, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Navigating the complex world of payments
- The fundamental reasons why building a large payments company takes a long time
- Some of their secret sauce to product development
- Fundraising lessons and a big anecdote… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Pedro Arnt, CEO of dLocal (NASDAQ:DLO), a multi-billion dollar payments company that specializes in cross-border and local payments in emerging markets. Founded in Montevideo, Uruguay, dLocal today operates in 40 markets across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Pedro has an impressive background and you’ll learn a lot from him. Prior to his appointment as dLocal CEO, he spent 24 years at MELI and was the CFO of the company from 2011 to 2023. During his tenure as CFO, MELI had an amazing run and went from a market cap of $4 Billion to $70 Billion. Today, MELI has a market cap of over $100 billion.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Lessons from the early days of MELI and launching Mercado Pago
- Stepping into the role of CEO as a non-founder, and avoiding Manager Mode
- How to build beautiful products
- Expanding globally
- How to hire amazing people… lots more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza travels to San Francisco for an interview with David Fortunato, CEO of Wealthfront, an asset management giant with $70+ billion in assets under management and over a million clients.
Founded by Andy Rachleff almost 15 years ago, Wealthfront is now one of the most defining financial brands for millennials and Gen Zers. David joined the company in 2009 as a junior software engineer and became CEO almost four years ago.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Building a culture of engineers and automation
- Product expansion strategies
- A sustainable business model that looks a lot more like SaaS and not a financial institution
- Buy, Build, or Partner, and what it takes to successfully build most of your tech in-house… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Abdon Nacif, Co-Founder of Nexu, the leading auto financing and dealership software platform in Mexico and one of the fastest-growing fintech companies in the Americas.
Nexu is growing fast, approaching $50 million in net annual revenue, and has been profitable for nearly two years. They have raised just over $30 million in equity and over $150 million in debt from Altos Ventures, Valor, HSBC, Wollef, Y Combinator, Fintech Collective, Clocktower, FJ Labs, and Gilgamesh Ventures.
I’m a big fan of Abdon and I love getting a shot of inspiration after every conversation with him. Not only have I known Abdon for over a decade, but at Gilgamesh Ventures we have been investors in Nexu for the past three years, with a front row seat into their incredible story.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Developing mental toughness as an entrepreneur
- The principles and discipline that led them to build a profitable business at a very early stage
- Near-death experiences and a pivotal decision that resulted in a shift in business model
- Abdon's leadership philosophy and focus on authentic, selfless leadership… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza travels to SF for an interview with Rujul Zaparde, CEO & Co-Founder of Zip, a leading SaaS & Fintech platform recently valued at $1.5 Billion that’s focused on bringing smarter procurement and spending software for small and large enterprises.
Founded in 2020, Zip today serves hundreds of clients, including giants like Snowflake, Coinbase, Reddit, Canva, Databricks, and Discover. Zip has raised $180m in equity from CRV, Y Combinator, TwentyTwo VC, and Tiger Global.
We discuss:
- The strict process and criteria they first used to validate Zip as a potential large business, before getting started
- The importance of moving fast, learning, and iterating
- Why Rujul loves rewarding and promoting talent from within the company
- Nailing enterprise sales… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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Miguel Armaza interviews Michael Tannenbaum, CEO of Figure, one of the largest US fintech platforms building infrastructure and embedded products. Founded in 2018 by Mike Cagney, also the founder of SoFi and past guest of the show, Figure is now the largest non-bank originator of Home Equity Lines of Credit in the US having done $11 billion in AAA securitizations.
Every time I talk to Michael I’m impressed by his clarity of thought and his skill in sharing valuable insights. He was previously COO of Brex and you can check out our 2023 Fintech Leaders episode for an in-depth conversation about his time there.
We discuss:
- Bringing fresh energy and founder mode, even as a non-founder CEO
- The importance of organizational design and aligned priorities for a company’s success
- How Blockchain helps Figure provide “Truth over Trust” to reduce transaction and origination costs
- Why standardization is crucial to enable embedded finance services at scale… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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Miguel Armaza interviews Diya Jolly, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Xero(XRO.AX), a $22Bn tech giant that offers accounting and CFO management services for small businesses worldwide.
Xero is one of the largest fintechs in the world. Their latest total annual revenue was $1.6Bn and they’ve doubled in size over the last three years.
Prior to Xero, Diya was the Chief Product Officer at Okta and before that she held multiple leadership product roles at Google. She’s extremely thoughtful and this conversation is a delightful masterclass on building a tech and software business.
We discuss:
- The tensions of product managers and how to navigate them
- Is cannibalizing your own product ever a good idea?
- How AI is revolutionizing accounting.
- Frameworks to make good decisions with incomplete information… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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Miguel Armaza interviews Raimundo Morales, CEO of Yape, the dominant fintech app in Peru and certainly one of the biggest consumer fintechs in the world. Yape has 16 million users in Peru, which represents 80% of the country’s total population. On average, they process 550+ million payments a month and are doubling in volume on a yearly basis.
They are big and extremely important for the country. If Latin America runs on WhatsApp, it’s fair to say Peru runs on Yape.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The strategy to led them to onboard 65% of Peru’s adult population as daily active users in just eight years
- Yape was built within Credicorp, a $14Bn company traded on the NYSE. How were they able to build a fintech disruptor within a large corporation?
- The road to building a super-app
- Why you should always set irrational goals, winning the war on cash… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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Miguel Armaza interviews Darian Shirazi, General Partner at Gradient Ventures, an early-stage venture fund focused on AI and data-rich companies, with Google as its major LP.
Prior to Gradient, Darian founded and sold Radius, a B2B Customer Data Platform. He is also an early investor in companies including Lyft, Udemy, Carbon Health, Palantir, and Niva. Fun fact, he was Facebook’s first intern back when the company had only 10 people.
We discuss:
- Joining Facebook as its first intern and working directly for Mark Zuckerberg. Why is Mark such a special tech leader?
- Gradient’s three different strategies to invest in AI
- Why the evolution of AI will be exponential and not linear
- The incredible story of how Darian’s family had to escape Iran and rebuilt itself into one of the strongest tech families in the US… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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In this episode, I sit down with Andrew Endicott, who’s my co-founder at Gilgamesh Ventures and who also previously built Petal, a New York fintech company.
Andrew and I discussed a research report we recently published in collaboration with the Wharton School of Business. We examined the incredible impact that 15 leading fintech companies are having on the broader fintech ecosystem by helping train the next generation of founders in fintech and tech in the Americas.
Some of our interesting findings, include:
- These 15 companies have spawned almost 2,600 founders in the Americas, 12% of which left to build fintech companies, while others are building in AI, SaaS, HealthTech, and beyond.
- The founders building in fintech have raised $4.3Bn collectively. With Square, Zillow, and SoFi alumni representing 60% of this total.
- Product and engineering leaders represent 50% of all fintech founders.
- And 48% of the founders we studied launched their fintech companies in 2022 and 2023.
For more details, please visit our website or the Fintech Leaders newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza brings you a deep dive into one of the most pressing issues facing the financial industry today: consumer fraud prevention and identity verification.
Over the last couple of years, Miguel has interviewed some of the top leaders in identity management and fraud-fighting, and in this episode you’ll hear a summary of the most interesting takeaways from five of the most extraordinary industry leaders:
- Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me
- Nick Peddy, CTO of Clear
- Soups Ranjan, CEO of Sardine
- Trisha Kothari, CEO of Unit21
- Tommy Nicholas, CEO of Alloy
In this episode, you'll learn about:
- The current state of financial and identity fraud and the creative tactics used by fraudsters
- Advancements in anti-fraud measures and identity verification
- The delicate balance between security and user experience
- Innovative products from each of these companies to prevent fraud… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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[Original air date, March 28, 2023] Miguel Armaza interviews Mercedes Bent, Partner at Lightspeed, a global venture capital firm founded in the year 2000. Over the last 23 years, they have secured over $18 billion in committed capital and backed over 500 companies, including Snap, Affirm, Faire, Grubhub, Carta, Blend, and a long list of great firms.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Investing in marketplaces or credit-driven businesses and what founders and investors should keep in mind when looking at these verticals.
- Benefits of having a global investment team how Lightspeed often invests in similar trends and businesses around the world
- The Latin American fintech opportunity. Mercedes leads the LatAm practice at Lightspeed – what are some of the biggest ideas taking place in Brazil, Mexico, and beyond?
- Potential AI applications in Fintech
- Lessons for emerging VCs
- Lightspeed’s portfolio construction strategy… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Alex Konrad, Senior Editor at Forbes, where he covers venture capital and startups. Alex also edits and curates the famous Midas List and The Forbes 30 Under 30 VC category. He is a central figure in the world of Venture Capital, Tech, and Fintech and I suspect you’ll enjoy hearing what he has to say.
We discuss:
- A behind-the-scenes look of the Forbes Midas List and the growing influence of FinTech in it
- The Impact and adoption of AI in the financial industry
- Evolution and future of the VC industry
- The role of media in tech, curating the 30 Under 30… and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Melissa Guzy, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Arbor Ventures, a global fintech-focused fund with offices across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the US. Founded in 2012, some of their portfolio companies include Tabby, TrueAccord, Grab, and Fundbox.
We discuss:
- Melissa’s early days as a VC investor at VantagePoint Capital where they navigated the dot com crash and later invested in Tesla’s Series A
- Building Arbor Ventures and pioneering fintech investing in China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East
- How Arbor has successfully generated liquidity from fintech investing in emerging markets
- Why real-time payment networks have the potential to transform fintech… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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[Original air date, May 9, 2023] Miguel Armaza sits down with David Haber, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of the largest Venture Capital funds in the world, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.
Based in NYC, David focuses exclusively on investing in global fintech. Before a16z, he founded Bond Street, a NY fintech that aimed to transform small business lending in the US. Bond Street was eventually acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2017.
We discuss:
- Company building lessons from his experience at Bond Street and why he always looks for people with “humble confidence”
- The power of storytelling and why David believes effective storytelling is crucial for entrepreneurs and investors
- The future of fintech
- Key qualities of a good venture capital investor
- A look inside a16z and the vision of Mark and Ben for the firm… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Rakefet Russak-Aminoach, Managing Partner at Team8, a global Venture-Creation and VC Fund with over a 1 billion dollars in AUM, that creates and invests in companies focusing on Fintech, Cybersecurity, Data & AI, and Digital Health. Since launching in 2014, Team8 has built 20 companies and achieved over two billion dollars in exits.
Prior to Team8, Rakefet was the CEO of Bank Leumi, which she drove to become the largest company by market cap in all of Israel.
We discuss:
- Team8’s process behind incubating and launching massive companies
- Transforming and building a company’s culture
- How great talent is the most important ingredient behind achieving great results
- Why embedded fintech will drive the future of financial services… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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[Original air date, July 4, 2023] Miguel Armaza brings you a curated selection of the best lessons, stories, and candid reflections about raising venture capital.
You’ll hear directly from some of the strongest fintech entrepreneurs around the world spanning four continents. The founders featured in this episode have built revolutionary companies. Many of them multi-billion-dollar enterprises. To get there, they’ve successfully raised venture capital from some of the most respected investors in the world.
We feature nine founders:
- Alex Prot, CEO/Co-Founder of Qonto
- Laura Spiekerman and Tommy Nicholas, Co-Founders of Alloy
- Itai Damti, CEO/Co-Founder of Unit
- Brynne McNulty Rojas, Co-Founder of Habi
- Katlego Maphai, CEO/Co-Founder of Yoco
- Jorge Combe, CEO/Co-Founder of DD360
- Kurt Lin, CEO/Co-Founder of Pinwheel
- Rob Petrozzo, CPO/Co-Founder of Rally
Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur just starting your journey, or a seasoned founder facing new challenges, we hope you find valuable takeaways in this episode.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza interviews Anthony Denier, Group President of Webull Corporation, a global digital investment platform serving 20 million users in over a dozen countries worldwide.
We discuss:
- What it takes to be a great trader on and off the trading floor
- How technology, client demands, and regulation transformed the trading industry in the last two decades
- Why Webull decided to expand beyond the US, making a big push in places like Latin America and Asia
- Webull’s plan to go public via a $7 Billion SPAC… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza interviews Mikhail Lomtadze, CEO of Kaspi.kz (NASDAQ:KSPI), one of the largest publicly traded fintechs in the world and the leading tech platform in Kazakhstan. Kaspi is traded on the Nasdaq and has a current market cap of $24 billion dollars.
They also have incredible numbers. They serve 15 million customers, in a country with a population of 20 million; 2/3 of their clients use them daily; 2023 revenue was $4.2B with net income margin of 45%, and they’re growing at ~50% YoY.
We discuss:
- Transforming the company from a bank to leading tech giant
- Kaspi’s obsession around product, customer service, and Net Promoter Score
- Mikhail’s background from humble beginnings in Georgia to Harvard Business School, to CEO of Kaspi
- The amazing story of Kazakhstan’s digital transformation and how digital payments replaced cash from 15% to 85% market-share in just eight years… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza interviews Blake Hall is the CEO & Co-Founder of ID.me, one of the leading US companies in identity verification with over 130 million users. Founded in 2011, ID.me has raised around $300 million in equity from BoxGroup, Blu Venture, Moonshots Capital, Capital G, Morgan Stanley, Softbank, and a long list of impressive funds and angels.
Blake is also a decorated war veteran and he was awarded 2 Bronze Star medals from the US President for his service in Iraq.
We discuss:
- Leadership lessons from his days of combat in Iraq with the US Army
- Transition from military service to entrepreneurship
- What he's learned from building a friendship with Elon Musk
- Importance of feedback, learning, and decision-making in the entrepreneurial journey
- Early challenges, the growing threat of identity theft and fraud… lots more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Vishal Garg, CEO & Founder of Better.com (NASDAQ: BETR), a publicly traded online mortgage lender that has funded more than $100 billion in mortgage volume in the last decade. Prior to going public in 2023, they raised capital from a long list of VCs, including Activant, Softbank, AmEx, Citi, and Goldman among others.
We discuss:
- How Better’s business volume exploded in 2020 & 2021, but later dropped 99% in a matter of months
- Going from 1,500 to 10,000 employees within almost a year and then having to layoff most of them
- An inside look into Vishal’s controversial decision to let go 900 people over zoom
- Better’s latest product innovations, the state of the residential real estate market… lots more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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Miguel Armaza interviews Charles Moldow, General Partner at Foundation Capital, a 30-year old venture capital firm with $3+ billion in AUM. Charles joined Foundation in 2005 and over the last two decades has led early-stage investments for many companies, 14 out of which either went public or were successfully acquired. Some of his investments include Lending Club, DOMA, Rappi, Rover, and OnDeck Financial.
I learn a lot every time I talk to Charles and I hope you’ll enjoy this conversation as much as I did.
We discuss:
- Why data is the new gold and a framework on how to invest in the sector.
- The reason why different market dynamics require different types of founders to succeed.
- Thinking selectively about credit-driven fintechs.
- Valuable portfolio and liquidity management lessons… and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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Miguel Armaza interviews Oliver Hughes, Head of International Business at TBC Bank, a Central Asian leading bank that’s publicly traded on the LSE with a $2B market cap. Oliver is also a true fintech leader - in the past, he was the CEO of Russia’s Tinkoff bank, where he built the operations from scratch to become the most profitable digital bank in the world, eventually reaching a market cap of more than $20B. He’s been leading in fintech well before anyone was talking about it.
We discuss:
- Leading Tinkoff Bank for 15 years and becoming the most profitable digital bank worldwide
- Why global fintech investors should be paying attention to Central Asia and Uzbekistan
- A preview of what the future of personal banking might look like
- Leaving Russia, why most debit-first neobanks have struggled… lots more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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Miguel Armaza interviews Rodger Desai, CEO & Founder of Prove, one of the leading global companies in identity verification and fraud reduction.
Founded in 2008, Prove serves over one thousand corporations, including 9 of the top 10 US banks, and has raised around $200 million from Wellington, Oak HC/FT, Apax Digital, Mass Mutual, AmEx, Capital One, Verizon, and a long list of funds and impressive angels.
We discuss:
- Why KYC processes will become nearly free in the near future
- Using cell phone and telecom data to reduce scams and improve identity verification
- Implications of AI-powered fraud
- How Rodger keeps his own data and digital identity safe and away from bad actors… lots more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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Miguel Armaza interviews Doug Ricket, CEO & Co-Founder of PayJoy, a global fintech with $300+ million in annualized revenue that provides credit to over 10 million customers across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Founded in 2015, PayJoy reached profitability in 2023 and has raised almost $200 million in equity financing from USV, Core Innovation, Greylock, Invus, and DNX.
We discuss:
- How his years at the Peace Corps in Africa shaped him and fueled the ambition to work with emerging markets
- Building your team and the importance of the first 10 hires of a startup
- Strengths and weaknesses on the transition from engineer to company CEO
- Why in startups there are no magic elves and you have to do all the work yourself… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
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Miguel Armaza interviews Rebecca Lynn, Co-Founder & General Partner at Canvas Ventures, an early-stage VC with almost $900 million AUM, focused on Series A & B in fintech, digital health, marketplaces, and logistics.
Rebecca has been operating or investing in fintech for over 25 years and has also been ranked on the Forbes Midas List 5 years in a row.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Marketing and go-to-market strategies from her experience at Next Card
- How companies should think about preparing for M&A opportunities
- The areas of fintech where AI is making an actual difference
- Challenges of building a VC fund from scratch … and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
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Miguel Armaza interviews Asaf Horesh, Managing Partner of Vintage Investment Partners, a $4B global fund investing in VC funds, growth companies and secondary investments. Founded in 2003, Vintage has invested in several of the world's leading venture funds and has exposure to over 2000 technology companies.
We discuss:
- Going from Apache helicopter pilot to tech investor
- Why self-awareness and critical reflection are especially important to succeed in VC
- How Vintage leverages data to make better investment decisions
- Why it makes sense to invest in first-time funds
- Succession planning for investment firms… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza interviews Mike Seckler, CEO of Justworks, one of the largest platforms for SMBs providing HR, Tax, and payroll services in the US and Internationally.
Founded in 2012 in NYC, Justworks recently crossed $300 million in annual revenue and is backed by some of the best NY-based VCs, including Bain Capital Ventures, FirstMark, Thrive Capital, Union Square Ventures, Index, and Redpoint.
We recorded this conversation live in the heart of NYC at Barclays Rise, as part of New York Fintech Week. Mike was outstanding and he delighted a room full of 100 fintech entrepreneurs and builders. I’m sure you’ll be delighted as well.
We discuss:
- The secret to success of great entrepreneurs
- How to run a functional board of directors
- The power of focusing on one product for a long time
- Successfully managing a pre and post-merger integration
- Why doing something great requires tons of pressure… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza interviews Jack Zhang, CEO & Co-Founder of Airwallex, a global payments and treasury giant that moves $7 billion in monthly transaction volume and serves 100,000+ clients, including Brex, Rippling, and SHEIN.
Founded in Melbourne in 2015, Airwallex was last valued at $5.5 billion and has raised 900 million dollars from Sequoia, DST, Square Peg, Greenoaks, Mastercard, Tencent, Salesforce, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How investing in a coffee shop led him to co-found a global payments network
- Why Airwallex prioritizes people with great leadership skills who are also technical
- The impact of AI in financial services
- New risks of AI-powered financial fraud
- Partnering with almost 100 banks around the world… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza interviews Alberto Dalmasso, CEO & Co-Founder of Satispay, the largest fintech in Italy and one largest fintechs in Europe. Founded in 2013, Satispay has 4 million consumers and 330,000 merchants active on the platform. Started as a payments network, they’ve now evolved to a wider financial services ecosystem and super-app. Satispay has raised $500 million from Block, Greyhound, Addition, Coatue, Banca Sella, Endeavor, and many more.
We discuss:
- Strategies and key metrics on building one of the largest payment networks in Europe, bypassing Visa and Mastercard
- Balancing aggressive growth and a culture of efficiency
- Learning through small mistakes
- Evolving into a wider super-app for consumers
- Leadership lessons on handling pressure
- Spreading confidence instead of fear… lots more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza interviews Nick Peddy, CTO of Clear (YOU:NYSE), a publicly traded company with over 20 million members that’s built one of the largest identity platforms in the world. If you’ve ever travelled through an airport in the US, you’ve definitely seen them. Most recently, Clear expanded into financial services by launching its first reusable KYC solution.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The future of digital identity and why re-usability is crucial
- Lessons and secrets to great management
- What it takes to run a great technology organization
- Why AI will not take our jobs anytime soon… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 65,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza interviews Lauren Kolodny, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Acrew Capital, a multi-stage venture capital fund with over a billion dollars in assets under management. Some of their fintech investments include Chime, Gusto, Coinbase, Bilt, Vanta, and Klar.
We discussed:
- Lessons from over a decade of investing in technology and fintech
- A bullish case for consumer fintech
- Lauren’s philosophy on developing talent from within
- How Acrew covers multiple industries and keeps their ear to the ground… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 65,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with I sit down with Eric Poirier, CEO of Addepar, a global tech and data company with over $5 trillion in client assets managed on the platform and clients in more than 45 countries. Founded in 2009 by Joe Lonsdale and Jason Mirra, Addepar has raised half a billion dollars from a long list of great investors.
Eric has been CEO of Addepar since 2013 and prior to that, he was amongst the first 20 employees at Palantir.
We discuss:
- Lessons for entrepreneurs on the importance of making bold technology bets early on, despite its risks
- How AI and machine learning are helping solve problems in the investment management world
- Transitioning from software engineer to company CEO, and overcoming a big mindset shift
- Addepar's go-to-market strategy
- Lessons learned from working with Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 65,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
In this special episode, Miguel Armaza brings you a compilation of the best insights and actionable learnings on what it takes to be a great VC investor from 10 amazing interviews recorded over the last two years with early and late-stage investors.
The Partners and leaders featured in this podcast, represent firms with a combined $160 billion AUM from funds including General Atlantic, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, Bain Capital, and more.
If you want to dig deeper and listen to any of the complete episodes, you can find the links in our Substack newsletter.
You’ll hear from 10 investors:
- David Haber, General Partner at a16z
- Rana Yared, General Partner at Balderton Capital
- Howard Morgan, Chair and General Partner at B Capital & Co-Founder of First Round Capital
- Matt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures
- Mercedes Bent, Partner at Lightspeed Ventures
- Latif Peracha, General Partner at M13
- Dan Rosen, Founder of Commerce Ventures
- Martin Escobari, Co-President of General Atlantic
- Emmalyn Shaw, Managing Partner at Flourish Ventures
- Tidjane Deme, General Partner at Partech
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Michael Blaugrund, CEO of DriveWealth, a fintech platform and broker-dealer enabling investing products for businesses and consumers worldwide.
Founded in 2012, DriveWealth works with over 100 corporations in almost all continents, including Revolut, BTG Pactual, GBM Mexico, MoneyLion and many more. They have raised over $550 million from Accel, Point72, Insight, Greyhound, and many more.
Prior to DriveWealth, Michael held leadership roles at Nasdaq and NYSE, most recently serving as COO of the NYSE.
We discuss:
- The evolving needs and expectations of modern retail investors
- Crisis as a catalyst for evolution. Three critical events that shaped the capital markets technology industry over the last 15 years, including the Flash-Crash
- Why digital assets will not flourish in the institutional world without clear regulatory frameworks
- Michael has been in the CEO role for less than a year. What does it take to succeed as CEO?… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
[Original air date, Nov 8, 2022] Miguel Armaza sits down with Matt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital Venturesand one of the Fintech OG legends who started his investing career back in 1995 and has been working with fintech entrepreneurs throughout several cycles. Some of his investments include GoCardless, Orum, Finix, Acorns, and many more.
In this episode, Miguel stops by the Bain Capital Ventures office in New York City, where they discuss:
- Investing through economic cycles. Matt was a fintech VC during the Dot-com bubble - what did he learn once the bubble burst and what should young VCs keep in mind today?
- B2B vs B2C Fintech. Matt overwhelmingly prefers backing B2B companies with little to no credit risk. Why is that?
- The Future of fintech and why Bain is excited about the potential of embedded finance
- What makes a great investor, how founders should think about their board, why NYC is the capital of fintech… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Sohail Prasad, CEO and Co-Founder of Destiny and Co-founder of Forge (NYSE: FRGE). Destiny is creating a family of exchange-traded products that will enable anyone with a brokerage account to invest in publicly traded portfolios of private technology companies.
Their first and flagship product, the Destiny Tech100 (NYSE: DXYZ), will be listed on the NYSE in March 2024 – it will consist of a portfolio of some of the top venture-backed private tech companies, including SpaceX, Stripe, OpenAI, Chime, Klarna, Brex, and more.
We discuss:
- The importance of democratizing private company investing
- Building the Destiny Tech100 and defining its rules and company inclusion criteria
- Lessons from building Forge and going public on the NYSE… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with David Magerman, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Differential Ventures, an early-stage fund that invests in data-focused entrepreneurs building enterprise technology.
In a past life, he spent 22 years in leadership roles at Renaissance Technologies (RenTech), a hedge fund with over $100 billion in AUM and probably the most successful fund in history.
David is also a contrarian thinker and a non-conformist, which made our conversation even more interesting.
We discuss:
- How David and a small group of engineers helped introduce quantitative data science to trading and public capital markets investing
- Why he is highly skeptical of the new wave of GenAI
- A very convincing argument to introduce friction in online communication processes to restore balance and reduce its negative effects on society… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Shamir Karkal, Co-Founder of Sila, a fintech company that’s raised over $20m to modernize payments. Shamir is also a true OG in fintech. He previously co-founded Simple, the first US neobank built for the smartphone era, and sold it to BBVA in 2014 for $117 million.
We discuss:
- Selling Simple to BBVA and the post-acquisition challenges of integrating to a big bank
- Company building lessons and the importance of good timing
- The real reason why banks do not buy fintech companies too often
- Why Shamir is bullish on consumer fintech making a comeback… and a lot more!!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Bill Capuzzi, CEO of Apex, a company that’s built capital markets infrastructure to enable investing. Their customers include major global banks, Webull, eToro, SoFi, and a long list of financial institutions with $115B+ in AUM and 21 million brokerage accounts.
In 2023 the company reportedly had over $400 million in operating revenue and they confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO in December 2023. They are widely expected to go public this year in 2024.
We discuss:
- The rise of retail investing and democratizing access to public markets
- What you should keep in mind when building and selling enterprise-grade software
- Bringing capital markets infrastructure to the 21st century
- What he’s learned since joining the board of DTCC, Bill’s take on the movie dumb money… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Wayne Slavin, CEO & Founder of Sure, a leading insurtech SaaS and infrastructure company powering embedded products for some of the world’s most recognized brands and carriers. They’ve raised over $120m from Menlo Ventures, IA Capital, David Rubenstein’s Declaration Partners, Plug and Play, and many more.
We discuss:
- How Sure pivoted from a direct-to-consumer model to a B2B embedded insurance provider
- Why embedded insurance has the potential to revolutionize the industry
- Seeking mentors strategically and learning from both good and bad managers
- Why you cannot outcompete the immigrant drive and hustle mindset in business… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Dan Rosen, Founder of Commerce Ventures, a fintech and retail-focused fund that’s been building an impressive portfolio since 2013. Some of their investments include Bill.com, Marqeta, Socure, Moov, MX, and many more.
We discuss:
- Building a Venture fund and how their thematic strategy has evolved in the last decade
- Qualities of great tech and fintech investors
- The real advantage of second-time founders
- Why we are starting to see signs of a comeback in the growth market… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
In this special episode, we explore valuable company-building lessons and mistakes shared by 18 of our guests from over last 2 years. So if you’re building a business, I hope you find it helpful.
This show is divided into four categories of insights:
- Organizational Culture
- Product Strategy
- Leadership Tactics
- Sales and Marketing
Each chapter explores critical aspects of building a tech company, featuring the CEOs, Founders, and leaders of companies like Ramp, SoFi, Gusto, Lending Club, Figure, Upgrade, Melio, and Carta, amongst others.
This episode is a treasure trove of lessons learned and strategic advice for current and aspiring fintech builders. We are also including the links to each individual episode on Substack so that you can dive-in to each one of them.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
This episode was the most popular one of 2023 - it first aired Apr 18, 2023. Enjoy and have a happy new year!
Miguel Armaza sits down with Nilan Peiris, Chief Product Officer at Wise (WISE.L), a global fintech that helps clients move money around the world. Founded in 2011 by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus, Wise went public on the London Stock Exchange in 2021 and has a current market cap of £6 billion, has served 16 million people and businesses, and processes £9 billion in monthly cross-border transactions across 170 countries in 50 currencies.
We discuss:
- Building through a mission-driven approach and why it’s crucial for companies to have very clear missions
- How Wise turned a consumer product into a B2B offering and an infrastructure business, essentially building three companies inside a single firm.
- Building customer trust through transparency and how this can lead to high customer satisfaction and strong referrals
- Turning regulatory challenges into opportunities… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Maëlle Gavet, CEO of Techstars, a premier global accelerator and one of the world's most active pre-seed investors. Techstars was founded in 2006 and has backed almost 4000 companies with a combined portfolio market cap of $105B. Some of their invested companies include Remitly, Chainalysis, DataRobot, and Alloy.
We discuss:
- Trends and lessons learned at Techstars after 16 years, countless programs, and backing 9000 founders
- Maelle’s criticism of the venture industry and how it could improve to better serve founders
- How Techstars has been able to scale internationally and across programs with a partially decentralized approach
- A deep dive into Maelle’s impressive background as a former founder and operator… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Luis Silva, CEO & Founder of Cloudwalk, where they are building an interplanetary payment network. Headquartered in Brazil, Cloudwalk has now expanded internationally, is profitable, and recently crossed annual revenue of $400 million. They are backed by Valor Capital, Coatue, DST, FIS, Plug and Play, The Hive, and many more.
We discuss:
- Benefits of extreme long-term planning – why you should think in thousands of years, not just in quarters or decades.
- An optimistic take on AI – why Luis is convinced this technology will help humans become better humans and improve society
- How treating GenAI as an ally can help you massively accelerate and improve productivity
- From humble beginnings in a small town in Brazil to building a global fintech giant… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Sarah Hammer, Executive Director and Professor at the Wharton School. Sarah has a long history of leading multiple fintech and financial institutions at Wharton, in the private sector, and also in the public sector.
Additionally, Sarah leads the Cypher accelerator, Wharton’s fully-remote and non-dilutive accelerator program built to launch the world’s leading technology startups. So, if you’re starting to build a fintech company anywhere in the world, be sure to apply by December 17th. Some of the program mentors include Mark Cuban, Tim Draper, and Charles Birnbaum.
- Wharton’s Cypher accelerator and the types of companies they are looking to support
- Lessons from leading the PA Department of Banking and Securities throughout the Silicon Valley banking crisis
- Potential applications, uses, and impact of GenAI in the financial world … and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Ohad Samet, CEO & Co-Founder of TrueML, a leading platform of fintech products to enable intelligent, digital customer communication, which in clues TrueAccord, a leading debt recovery and collections platform with a consumer-friendly digital experience. They are backed by AmEx, Arbor Ventures, BoxGroup, Felicis, Homebrew, Nyca, Max Levchin, and many more.
Ohad is also an industry veteran and previously held leadership roles at PayPal and Klarna.
We discuss:
- Lessons learned at PayPal and Klarna. What drives the success of these organizations?
- How TrueAccord has pioneered a humane, consumer-friendly approach to debt collection
- The state of BNPL and why Ohad thinks the category is here to stay and he hopes it displaces payday loans
- Advice on managing your relationship with VCs… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Jason Guss, CEO & Co-Founder of Octane Lending, the leading software and credit provider for purchases of powersports vehicles, RVs, and outdoor power equipment. Founded in New York City in 2014, Octane now funds over a billion dollars in annual loans and is backed by Valar Ventures, Contour, IA Ventures, Barenson, Third Prime, Fintech Collective, Upper90, and many more.
We discussed:
- De-risking your business with early hires and the difference between missionary and mercenary talent
- Why they were forced to build a profitable business from day one
- Reflections on building a credit-driven business and dealing with capital markets
- Fundraising lessons and advice on how to deal with venture capitalists… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Emmalyn Shaw, Managing Partner at Flourish Ventures, a global fintech-focused fund with over $850 million in assets under management. Flourish Ventures is also a permanent capital vehicle that aims to back companies that can create systemic change and help build a more fair financial system. Some of their investments include Chime, Neon, Alloy, Flutterwave, Paga, and Kamino.
We discussed:
- Lessons learned after almost 25 years in venture capital
- Building a venture team
- Why specialized funds can deliver big wins and returns
- What it means to be a mission-driven entrepreneur and why they love investing in them
- The strategy that has allowed Flourish Ventures to invest around the world… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
In this episode (originally published Jan 3, 2023), Miguel Armaza brings you a curated selection from the best lessons, reflections, and secrets on how to build and manage an amazing board of directors. Whether you’re a CEO managing a board, an investor who sits on several, an independent board director, or you just want to learn, we hope you find it helpful.
Over the last of last 12 months, one of the common themes across many episodes, has been to learn about the best practices of corporate board management. Several of our guests have sat or currently sit on the board of some of the most incredible firms in the world and they had a lot to say about it.
In this episode, you will hear from:
- Martin Escobari, Co-President of General Atlantic
- Renaud Laplanche, Co-Founder & CEO of Upgrade
- Paulo Passoni, Head of Growth Investing at Valor
- Jackie Reses, CEO of Lead Bank
- Matt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures
- Dave Nangle, Managing Partner of VEF
Collectively, they sit or have sat on the boards of Nubank, Alibaba, Lending Club, dLocal, XP, Upgrade, Incode, VTEX, Affirm, Quinto Andar, Billtrust, Justworks, Creditas, Finix, Acorns, Konfio, and many more.
They discuss three main topics:
- Importance of Diversity in The Board Room
- Most of the Work is Done Outside the Board Meeting
- Build Your Board Early and Make Sure It Feels Like Any Other Great Team at the Company
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Stuart Sopp, CEO and Co-Founder at Current, one of the largest New York fintech platforms offering financial services to US consumers.
Launched in 2015, Current serves almost four million customers and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, TQ Ventures, Avenir, Sapphire Ventures, Foundation Capital, Wellington Management, QED, and many more.
We recorded this conversation live in the heart of NYC at Barclays Rise, as part of a series of events during New York Tech Week.
We discussed:
- Launching Current and why it took many iterations and two pivots to eventually land on Current present state
- The importance of balancing growth and tech development in periods of hypergrowth
- Why Stuart believes we’ve entered the “era of value” for fintech and what this means for founders launching companies these days
- What he’s learned working with Mr. Beast and many other influencers
- Why NYC is the best place to start a fintech company… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Today we bring you a living legend. Miguel Armaza sits down with Howard Morgan, Chair and General Partner at B Capital, a global investment firm with $6.3 billion in AUM and 160+ portfolio companies.
Howard is also a true technology pioneer. He was one of the first people in history to experience the web, and had computer #50 on the ARPANET. His research also contributed to the development of the modern internet.
Howard is also a trailblazer of tech investing, having co-founded firms like Renaissance technologies with Jim Simons, and First Round Capital with Josh Kopelman.
We discuss:
- Bringing the internet to Wharton and sending his first email in the early 70s
- Building Renaissance Technologies, the best-performing fund of all-time
- Lessons for founders and investors after 50 years of investing in tech companies, including the seed rounds of Uber, Square, and Roblox
- Building a truly global investment firm at B Capital
- The impact of GenAI and why every company should be leveraging enterprise AI tools today… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Ben Miller, CEO & Co-Founder of Fundrise, the largest direct-to-investor alternative asset manager in the US, that has grown from an idea to a platform with over 2 million active users and $3.3 billion in real estate private equity, private credit, and growth-stage venture capital.
We discuss:
- How a product pivot cost Fundrise half their customers, but set them up for future success
- Why he’s not optimistic about many tech companies worth billions and believes they will continue to struggle to turn a profit
- How rapid growth impacts your culture
- Why the best innovation happens at the intersection of multiple specialties
- The importance of staying true to your mission… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
In this 100th Fintech Leaders episode, we bring you someone extra special. Miguel Armaza sits down with Josh Reeves, CEO & Co-Founder of Gusto, one of the largest HR & Payroll companies in the US, focused on serving small and medium-sized businesses. In addition to HR, payroll, and benefits, Gusto is a strong player of embedded fintech solutions and recently announced a very large partnership with JPM Chase.
Founded in 2011, Gusto now serves over 300,000 businesses in the US and in 2022 Gusto had revenues of more than $500 million dollars. They are backed by General Catalyst, YC, Kleiner Perkins, Obvious Ventures, Felicis, Ribbit, CapitalG, Altimeter, and a very long list of fintech investors.
We discuss:
- Finding Product-market fit in the highly complex SMB sector
- Becoming a strategic partner and building the people platform for small businesses
- Lessons from building and launching Gusto’s embedded fintech strategy
- How Gusto built a structured and scalable hiring process
- Insights and learnings from the evolving role of CEO… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Tom Callahan, CEO of Nasdaq Private Market, a secondary marketplace and liquidity provider for private company trading and transactions. NPM recently spun out of Nasdaq is now backed by a consortium of banks and financial institutions, including Nasdaq, Citi, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and others.
We discuss:
- An update on the state of both primary and secondary activity in private markets
- A deep dive on how private markets work and why the system is so archaic
- Unintended consequences created by regulation like the US JOBS Act… and a lot more!
Live Recording Alert! Join us for a live Fintech Leaders recording and Happy Hour with Stuart Sopp, CEO & Co-Founder of Current, a multibillion-dollar fintech built in New York City. See youat Barclays Rise New York on Monday, October 16 to kick off New York Tech Week. Register here --> https://bit.ly/3sMaIBj
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
NASDAQ PRIVATE MARKET, LLC IS NOT A REGISTERED EXCHANGE UNDER THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934. NASDAQ PRIVATE MARKET IS OPERATIONALLY INDEPENDENT AND DISTINCT FROM THE NASDAQ STOCK MARKET LLC. SECURITIES-RELATED SERVICES ARE OFFERED THROUGH NPM SECURITIES, LLC, A MEMBER OF FINRA AND SIPC. NONE OF THE INFORMATION PROVIDED REPRESENTS AN OFFER TO BUY OR SELL, OR THE SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY OR SELL, ANY SECURITY, NOR DOES IT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO PROVIDE INVESTMENT ADVICE OR SERVICE. INVESTING IN PRIVATE COMPANY SECURITIES IS NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL INVESTORS. IT IS HIGHLY SPECULATIVE AND INVOLVES A HIGH DEGREE OF RISK.
Miguel Armaza sits down with Jean-Denis Greze, CTO at Plaid, a data network and one of the foundational fintech companies that works with thousands of firms, including several Fortune 500s and some of largest banks in the world.
Founded in 2013 by Zach Perret and William Hockey, Plaid’s network covers 12,000+ financial institutions across the US, Canada, UK and Europe. They’ve raised over $700 million from Felicis, Homebrew, NEA, Spark Capital, Citi, Goldman, AmEx, Ribbit, and a long list of great investors.
We discuss:
- How Plaid stays at the forefront of security and privacy
- Thriving in a competitive market and how the only way to win is to play a different game than your competitors
- The future of Open Finance in the US and some regulatory predictions
- How AI LLMs are revolutionizing user interfaces… and a lot more!
Live Recording Alert! Join us for a live Fintech Leaders recording and Happy Hour with Stuart Sopp, CEO & Co-Founder of Current, a multibillion-dollar fintech built in New York City. See youat Barclays Rise New York on Monday, October 16 to kick off New York Tech Week. Register here --> https://bit.ly/3sMaIBj
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Colin Walsh, CEO & Co-Founder of Varo Bank, a neobank and the first consumer fintech to be granted a bank charter in the US. In a past life, Colin held leadership positions at American Express, Lloyds Banking Group, and Visa. Varo has raised close to a billion dollars and is back by Blackrock, David Rubenstein’s Declaration Partners, Warburg Pincus, and a long list of investors.
You can also learn more about Colin and Varo in his own podcast, the Varo Prosperity Podcast.
We discuss:
- Finding Product Market Fit and why this process can often take years
- Advantages and disadvantages of being a regulated institution and why Colin is proud that Varo secured a banking charter
- Making tough decisions and how Varo redefined itself over the last couple of years
- Colin’s take on the big re-bundling of fintech… and a lot more!
Live Recording Alert! Join us for a live Fintech Leaders recording and Happy Hour with Stuart Sopp, CEO & Co-Founder of Current, a multibillion-dollar fintech built in New York City. See youat Barclays Rise New York on Monday, October 16 to kick off New York Tech Week. Register here --> https://bit.ly/3sMaIBj
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Ricardo Josua, CEO/Co-Founder ofPismo, a global tech company that builds banking and cards solutions for digital banks and large financial institutions. Headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the company has operations in Latin America, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the US and processes $210 billion dollars in annual transaction volume. Pismo’s investors include Redpoint Brazil, Softbank, Amazon and Accel.
Importantly, back in June 2023, Visa announced a definitive agreement to acquire Pismo for $1 billion in cash. Making it one of the largest fintech acquisitions announced this year worldwide, and certainly the largest one outside of the US. The transaction is still subject to regulatory approvals so we couldn’t talk that much about it.
In this episode, we discuss:
- From Brazil to the world – the importance of having a global mindset from day one
- Partnering with fintechs and large banks – how Pismo went from mostly fintech clients to selling to some of the largest banks in the world
- Building a modern system while still connecting to legacy technologies
- Advice for company builders and leaders to navigate both great times and choppy weathers… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Michael Tannenbaum, COO at Brex,a $12 billion global spend platform for finance teams and founders to manage every aspect of global spend.
Launched in 2017 Brex was last valued at $12B in January 2022 and has raised over a billion dollars from YC, Ribbit, Human Capital, GFC, DST, Dragoneer, TCV, and a very long list of fintech investors.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The implications of a high-interest rate environment for tech and fintech
- Michael’s time at SoFi and what he learned about promoting talent from within
- Reflections from the early days at Brex and what he describes as his favorite role at the company
- The future of Brex, bidding for SVB’s credit card portfolio… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Pedro Conrade, CEO/Founder of Neon, one of the largest digital banks in Brazil and Latin America. We sat down on stage in Sao Paulo at the Gilgamesh Ventures Summit, an annual meeting where we gather Limited Partners, Founders, Co-Investors, and friends for a series of events and discussions about the future of financial services.
Serving almost 20 million clients, Neon is one of the largest fintech companies in the Americas and, without a doubt, Pedro is amongst the most inspiring figures I know. Every time I talk to him, I come out with a shot of motivation and positivity.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How an overdraft fee infuriated Pedro and inspired him to launch Neon
- Why major crises and tough moments helped build a more resilient company
- Neon’s M&A strategy – insights from five company acquisitions
- And many more company building lessons
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Gary Hoberman, CEO & Founder of Unqork, a revolutionary technology company that has pioneered a Codeless as a Service (CaaS) platform to help eliminate legacy code for enterprises.
Launched in 2017, Unqork’s clients include some of the world's largest banks and insurance companies. The company was last valued at $2 billion and has raised over $350 million from Google, Goldman Sachs, Aquiline, Fin Capital, Blackrock, and many more.
Prior to founding Unqork, Gary was Global CIO for MetLife, where he oversaw technology across 47 countries, and before that, he was one of the youngest Managing Directors in Citi’s history. He holds seven patents, six of which are still in use in the finance industry today.
We discuss:
- The crisis in the world of enterprise software and why most of the dollars being spent are making companies worse, not better.
- Why Unqork believes that launching software isn't the final goal, but instead we should focus on ensuring software improves businesses and doesn't become a legacy burden.
- Challenges with the conventional approach towards cybersecurity and why most companies are not equipped to manage truly secure operations.
- Persevering in the face of adversity, turning 300 no’s from Investors into a $2B company… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Stephany Kirkpatrick, Founder/CEO of Orum, a fintech company that’s built a single API to enable US real-time and fast payments across RTP, FedNow, Same Day ACH, Wires, and more.
Launched in 2020, Orum has raised over $80 million from great fintech investors including Inspired Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Clocktower, Acrew, Primary, and Accel.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The future of real-time payments in the US and how Orum is helping increase adoption for small and mid-sized banks
- Why the risks posed by new technologies should not deter technological innovation
- Lessons learned from building an enterprise sales organization
- Asking for help and why founders should create a personal 9-1-1 call list… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Alexis PantazisCo-Founder of Hellas Direct, a full-stack InsurTech with operations in Greece, Cyprus and Romania. Launched in Athens a decade ago, Hellas Direct now generates over $150 million in annual revenue.
The company has raised $56 million of equity and debt from Portag3, Third Point, the World Bank, Endeavor Catalyst, amongst other great investors.
We discuss:
- A masterclass of what they’ve learned from launching new products and countries over the last decade
- Their strategy of going after ‘Blindspot Markets’ to increase market dominance and reduce competition
- Dealing with fraud with data and underwriting
- Why it’s so important to modernize the insurance industry… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Billy Libby, CEO/Co-Founder at Upper90and Conor Witt, Vice President at Upper90. Upper90 is a hybrid fund that invests credit and equity in early-stage businesses.
Launched in 2018, Upper90 has over $1.5B in AUM and has backed fintech companies like Thras.io, Octane Lending, Mundi, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Combining equity and debt underwriting and how Upper90 has built a team with two different skillsets under the same roof
- What they’ve learned from working with the best credit-driven companies in the market and what great founders have in common
- Venturing outside the US and why Upper90 sees a ton of opportunity in places like Latin America
- How electronic and quantitative trading in Wall Street led Billy to fintech and venture capital… lots more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 57,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Chris Pento, CEO/Co-Founder of Clear Street, a $2 billion modern financial infrastructure business focused on providing capital markets services including clearing, custody, execution, and prime brokerage service.
Launched just five years ago in 2018, Clear Street was recently valued at $2 billion and has raised close to $600 million in equity and debt from Prysm Capital, NextGen Venture Partners, IMC Investments, and many more.
We discuss:
- A brief history of the US Securities and Capital Markets infrastructure and how Clear Street is modernizing 50-year-old technology
- How Chris thinks about strategic-decision making and why they’ve been able to execute and launch so many products in just a few years
- Why he believes in the concept of a value-add investor, especially in niche and regulated spaces like theirs
- Transitioning from a Wall Street corner office to scrappy startup founder, competitive ping pong matches at Clear Street… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 57,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Salman Syed, CEO of Fidel API, a global financial infrastructure platform that helps build programmable experiences at the moment a transaction occurs on any payment card. They are backed by Bain Capital Ventures, Nyca Partners, QED, Citi Ventures, and Commerce Ventures. Prior to Fidel API, Salman spent over a decade in leadership roles at Mastercard and Marqeta.
We discuss:
- How Fidel API is unlocking new products and technologies by accessing and leveraging real-time transaction data
- Key trends that are shaping the future of financial services
- Challenges and advantages of building a global firm with employees and customers around the world… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 57,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Adena Hefets, CEO/Co-Founder of Divvy Homes, one of the most innovative PropTech companies in the US that helps renters transition into homeowners with a rent-to-own model.
They are backed by great investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, GGV Capital, GIC, Tiger Global, Caffeinated Capital, and Max Levchin.
We discuss:
- What’s going on in the US commercial and residential real estate markets? Adena gives a deep dive of the tough state of the market.
- How Divvy’s rent-to-own model is a win-win for consumers, giving them the flexibility to be homeowners without necessarily having a mortgage.
- Leadership and productivity lessons after six years in the CEO role.
- Struggles from their early fundraising journey, building company culture… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 56,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
In this special episode, Miguel Armaza brings you a curated selection of the best lessons, stories, and candid reflections about raising venture capital. You’ll hear directly from some of the strongest fintech entrepreneurs around the world spanning four continents. From the skyscrapers of New York, through the vibrant landscapes of Cape Town, up to the lively streets of Mexico City, over to the cafes of Paris, and all the way to the heart of Bogota.
The founders featured in this episode have built and continue building revolutionary companies. Many of them multi-billion-dollar enterprises. To get there, they’ve successfully raised venture capital from some of the most respected investors in the world.
In this episode, they reveal lessons they’ve learned and pass on valuable insights from their experiences. You’ll hear from nine founders, including:
- Alex Prot, CEO/Co-Founder of Qonto
- Laura Spiekerman and Tommy Nicholas, Co-Founders of Alloy
- Itai Damti, CEO/Co-Founder of Unit
- Brynne McNulty Rojas, Co-Founder of Habi
- Katlego Maphai, CEO/Co-Founder of Yoco
- Jorge Combe, CEO/Co-Founder of DD360
- Kurt Lin, CEO/Co-Founder of Pinwheel
- Rob Petrozzo, CPO/Co-Founder of Rally
Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur just starting your journey, or a seasoned founder facing new challenges, we hope you find valuable takeaways in this episode.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 56,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Soups Ranjan, CEO/Co-Founder of Sardine, a fraud-prevention company that’s on a mission to make payments instant and risk-free. Sardine enables companies to improve risk management through a single API for fraud detection and compliance within financial services.
Founded in 2020, Sardine has raised around $75 million from a16z, NYCA, Activant, FJ Labs, Visa, and a long list of impressive folks.
We discuss:
- What he learned about fraud in his role as Head of Risk at Coinbase, where they had to prevent attacks against the most sophisticated fraudsters and nation-state attackers
- Examples the most creative fraud attacks they are seeing these days and how Sardine helps fight and prevent them
- The urgent need for real-time transaction monitoring in the financial industry
- Why fraud and growth are two sides of the same coin … and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Tommy Nicholas, CEO/Co-Founder at Alloy, a company that gives fintechs and banks a command center to control their fraud-fighting, credit, compliance, risk, and identity-decisioning needs. Founded in 2015, Alloy has raised around $200M from Bessemer, Avenir, Clocktower, Flourish, Lightspeed, Primary, Techstars, and a long list of great fintech investors.
We discuss:
- Early days of Alloy and how they overcame several tough years and finally hit their stride
- A deep-dive into the complex world of fraud and how Alloy aggregates multiple anti-fraud solutions into their platform
- Several company-building lessons in the context of a tough raising environment
- And... a reminder from Tommy to tech founders that it’s OK to raise a down round or give the money back
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Trisha Kothari, CEO/Co-Founder of Unit21, a company at the forefront of the fight against financial crimes. Founded in 2018, Unit21 has raised close to $100M from Google, ICONIQ Capital, Tiger Global, Core Innovation, and a number of great angel investors.
We discuss:
- Finding Unit21’s initial design partners and how they eventually landed Coinbase and Intuit as their first and second customers
- Founder-led sales and common mistakes on building an enterprise sales team
- What she learned about fraud and company building as a young engineer and product manager at Max Levchin’s Affirm
- How financial fraudsters are creative, coordinated, and quick… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Tidjane Deme, General Partner of Partech Africa, one of the largest Africa-focused venture capital funds with close to $500 million in assets under management. Some of their investments include TradeDepot, Wave, Yoco, Reliance, and Nomba.
We discuss:
- A deep dive into the African Fintech landscape and what he’s learned from the most innovative companies and markets in the continent
- Fundraising lessons from building one of the first and largest dedicated African VC funds
- Important differences between VC investing in Africa vs US/Euope
- Launching Partech’s annual Africa Tech Venture Capital Report… lots more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Luvleen Sidhu, CEO & Founder of BM Technologies (NYSE American: BMTX) a US Banking-as-a-Service platform that provides access to multiple financial services. The company currently serves over two million account-holders and provides disbursement services at approximately 725 colleges and universities.
We discuss:
- How they successfully pivoted BM Technologies from a consumer to a B2B model
- Building a Banking as a Service company and navigating a highly regulated environment
- Pros and cons of going public through a SPAC in 2021 as a profitable company
- Putting yourself in the client’s shoes, Leadership lessons… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza heads to Mexico City for a conversation with Jorge Combe, CEO & Co-Founder of DD360 and DD3 Capital Partners, one of the leading PropTech and real estate financing groups in Latin America.
Prior to launching the firm, Jorge and his Co-Founder, Martin Werner, were co-heads of Goldman Sachs Mexico and Latin America. They left Goldman six years ago and bootstrapped DD360 into a $91 million Series A in 2022.
We discuss:
- Bootstrapping lessons and benefits, and why they set out to build a profitable company from day one
- Biggest mistakes since his transition from Goldman to building a scrappy startup
- How they built a B2B business and then expanded it into a B2C division
- The incredible potential and opportunities Latin America… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Daniel Cohen, Co-Founder of Cohen Circle, an investment firm; Cohen & Company, an asset manager with $2.2+ billion AUM; and The Bancorp, a bank specialized in fintech as a service and payments. Notably, Daniel has had a successful career in banking, along with his co-founder and Mother, Betsy Cohen.
We discuss:
- Turmoil of US regional banks in 2023 and what it means for the industry
- Impact of some of the biggest changes in banking and financial services over the last decades
- Why bankers should never overestimate the loyalty of their customers
- Opportunities for banks to work closely with fintechs … and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with David Haber, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of the largest Venture Capital funds in the world, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.
Based in NYC, David focuses exclusively on investing in global fintech. Before a16z, he founded Bond Street, a NY fintech that aimed to transform small business lending in the US. Bond Street was eventually acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2017.
We discuss:
- Company building lessons from his experience at Bond Street and why he always looks for people with “humble confidence”
- The power of storytelling and why David believes effective storytelling is crucial for entrepreneurs and investors
- The future of fintech
- Key qualities of a good venture capital investor
- A look inside a16z and the vision of Mark and Ben for the firm… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Itai Damti, CEO & Co-Founder of Unit, one of the leading banking-as-a-service and embedded finance providers in the US. Launched in 2019, Unit is backed by Accel, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Insight, Flourish Ventures, and many more.
Itai is also a serial entrepreneur, having previously co-founded two companies in the financial industry back in Tel Aviv and Hong Kong.
We discuss:
- Learning from successes and failures of building companies around the world
- Embracing "atomic" problem-solving and why this is incredibly important in product and company management
- What fintech founders should keep in mind when partnering with banks and financial institutions
- Fundraising lessons and why you should not ignore investor feedback… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Jane Alexander, Chief Marketing Officer at Carta, a platform that helps people and companies manage equity, build businesses, and invest in private companies.
Launched in 2012 by Henry Ward, Carta is used by nearly 30,000 companies and over half a million employees to manage cap tables, compensation, and valuations. Carta also works with over 4,500 funds representing over $92B in assets under administration.
They have raised over a billion dollars from a very long list of investors, including Union Square Ventures, Tribe Capital, Spark Capital, Silver Lake, Lightspeed, a16z, Insight, and many more.
We discuss:
- The power of content creation and why it’s been an incredible source for organic growth at Carta
- The role of a CMO at companies and how generative AI tools are transforming the job
- Navigating the pressures of a more competitive and challenging business environment
- Time management and productivity hacks
- Importance of customer feedback… lots more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Nilan Peiris, Chief Product Officer at Wise (WISE.L), a global fintech that helps clients move money around the world. Founded in 2011 by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus, Wise went public on the London Stock Exchange in 2021 and has a current market cap of £6 billion, has served 16 million people and businesses, and processes £9 billion in monthly cross-border transactions across 170 countries in 50 currencies.
We discuss:
- Building through a mission-driven approach and why it’s crucial for companies to have very clear missions
- How Wise turned a consumer product into a B2B offering and an infrastructure business, essentially building three companies inside a single firm.
- Building customer trust through transparency and how this can lead to high customer satisfaction and strong referrals
- Turning regulatory challenges into opportunities… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza stops by Public.com’s TriBeCa headquarters for a conversation with Leif Abraham, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Public.com, an investing platform for equities, fixed income, and alternative assets.
Founded in 2019, Public now serves 3+ million customers and has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from Greycroft, Accel, Lake, Star, Tiger Global, and many more.
They discuss:
- How Leif launched his first internet company as a teenager from his room in Hamburg, Germany
- Importance of building a customer fan base and the concept of emotional retention
- International expansion and why bonds are definitely back
- Building Public’s app as a mainstream window to the markets
- Startup founder advice… lots more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Alex Prot, CEO & Co-Founder of Qonto, one of the largest fintechs in Europe that helps SMBs simplify their everyday banking and offers a wide range of digital financial services.
Founded in 2017, Qonto serves 350,000 clients across France, Italy, Spain and Germany, and has over 1,000 employees. The company has also raised close to $700 million from Valar, DST, Hedosophia, Insight, KKR, and angels like Taavet Hinrikus, Co-Founder of Wise and Guillaume Pousaz, CEO & Founder of Checkout.com.
We discuss:
- Three key focus areas that unlocked Qonto’s success
- Challenges of scaling Qonto to over 1,000 employees and 350k customers
- How they plan to reach a million clients
- Growing through product-led growth
- The power of having a strong Co-Founder
- Fundraising lessons for entrepreneurs
- Europe’s fascinating fintech opportunity… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Mercedes Bent, Partner at Lightspeed, a global venture capital firm founded in the year 2000. Over the last 23 years, they have secured over $18 billion in committed capital and backed over 500 companies, including Snap, Affirm, Faire, Grubhub, Carta, Blend, and a long list of great firms.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Investing in marketplaces or credit-driven businesses and what founders and investors should keep in mind when looking at these verticals.
- Benefits of having a global investment team how Lightspeed often invests in similar trends and businesses around the world
- The Latin American fintech opportunity. Mercedes leads the LatAm practice at Lightspeed – what are some of the biggest ideas taking place in Brazil, Mexico, and beyond?
- Potential AI applications in Fintech
- Lessons for emerging VCs
- Lightspeed’s portfolio construction strategy… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with the great Adam Nash, Co-Founder and CEO of Daffy, a not-for-profit fintech community built around a new, modern platform to teach, help, and encourage charitable giving. In fact, visit Fintech Leaders and sign-up today to get an extra $25 for charity when you join Daffy. Thanks Adam.
In this episode, I sit down with Adam Nash, Co-Founder and CEO of Daffy, a not-for-profit fintech community built around a new, modern platform to teach, help, and encourage charitable giving. Sign-up today to get an extra $25 for charity when you join Daffy. Claim your $25 here! http://bit.ly/42rB5d2 (Thanks Adam)
Adam also sits on the board of Acorns, and in the past was CEO of Wealthfront and held leadership roles at Dropbox, LinkedIn, eBay, and Apple.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Adam’s journey at Silicon Valley and what it was like to work with Steve Jobs at Next & Apple
- Building the first fully functioning donor-advised fund in the app store and how Daffy is helping people give more to charity
- Lessons from the role of the CEO and why it’s the only role that truly understands how a company’s pieces are going to fit together
- Why Adam remains excited and bullish on consumer-focused fintech businesses, the importance of building a great team… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 52,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Zach Noorani, Partner at Foundation Capital, a 28-year venture capital firm with $3 billion in assets under management, currently investing out of its 10th flagship fund. Foundation has previously backed great companies like Stripe, Solana, Lending Club, Envestnet, Alto, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- What Zach learned after spending almost a decade at Capital One and why there’s such a strong fintech alumni network coming out of the bank
- Differences and similarities between US-based founders and Latin American entrepreneurs
- The importance of specializing in financial services and fintech and how it’s allowed Zach to distinguish fairytales from reality
- Transitioning from operator to investor, best practices for board management… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Suni Lobo, Chief HR/People Officer at Marqeta (NASDAQ: MQ), a publicly-traded fintech that helps companies issue cards with flexibility, control, and scale with an open API platform.
Founded in 2010, Marqeta has now issued hundreds of millions of cards across 36 countries and works with customers like Square, Klarna, Uber, Coinbase, and JP Morgan.
We discuss:
- Company Culture in a remote world. Has remote work made it easier or harder to build community, increase productivity, and level the playing field?
- How to build a culture of innovation and purpose, and why compensation is almost never the main reason people leave companies.
- Why is it that at startups the role is called Head of People, but at large companies, we call it Head of Human Resources?
- Reflections and lessons for leaders building culture in fast-growing companies… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 51,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with the legendary Bruno Balduccini, Partner at Pinheiro Neto, the leading law firm in Brazil where he spearheads the Financial Institutions group and advises domestic and international clients.
If you’ve ever worked in the Brazilian financial and fintech ecosystem, you’ve probably crossed paths with Bruno, since he has worked on the majority of major transactions involving financial incumbents, startups and payment institutions. He’s also actively participated in the drafting and improvement of the rules for the Brazilian financial industry.
We discuss:
- A brief history of Brazilian fintech and why Brazil’s Central Bank has been an extraordinary partner to fintech startups
- Interesting trends entrepreneurs and investors should be paying attention to, and what Central Banks around the world can learn from Brazil
- Why the fintech opportunity in Brazil is so large and special, but why it’s also not a market for beginners
- Working with multibillion-dollar companies like Nubank, Stone & PagSeguro from day one
- Common traits of successful entrepreneurs… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 51,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Denise Thomas, CEO & Co-Founder of ApplePie Capital, a company that offers franchise financing, enabling franchisees to efficiently obtain financing to start or expand their franchise business, while also enabling investors to earn fixed-income returns.
Launched in 2015, ApplePie partners with 60 franchise brands and has facilitated the funding of billions in franchise loans. They’ve also raised capital from QED, Fifth Third Capital, Story Ventures, and more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- History of franchising and the main differences between running and financing an independent business vs running a franchise
- Why your company strategy should always match your possibilities
- How ApplePie has learned to partner with strong franchise brands and their franchisees and leverage their relationship to reduce Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC)
- Learnings from some of the most significant challenges ApplePie has faced over the last several years… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 51,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Prajit Nanu, CEO & Co-Founder of Nium, a billion-dollar fintech building global payments infrastructure supporting 100 currencies across 190+ countries.
Founded almost seven years ago in Singapore, Nium has raised ~$300 million from top fintech investors including Riverwood, GFC, Temasek, and Visa amongst others.
We discuss:
- Advantages of outsiders. Prior to Nium, Prajit was not a payments guy, so how did his non-payments background actually become a source of strength?
- Lessons from hiring 100s of people. What have they learned about startup recruiting over the last several years?
- Why it’s crucial to narrow your focus and double down on your strengths as a company.
- Building and scaling a B2B Sales organization, board management lessons… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 51,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Peter Hazlehurst, CEO & Co-Founder of Synctera, a Banking as a Service platform powering accounts, cards, payments, lending, and more.
Launched back in 2020, Synctera has raised ~$50 million from FinVC, Lightspeed, Portage, Mastercard, Max Levchin, Alexa von Tobel, and a long list of great fintech minds.
Peter has also built and sold several fintech companies over the past 30 years and also held leadership roles at Uber, Google, and Yodlee.
We discuss:
- Banking as a Service: past, present, and future. Where the industry is going and why close attention to compliance is more important than ever.
- Lessons for fintech builders. Peter launched his first fintech company in the early 90s and has seen it all.
- What company leaders should know when building a client onboarding and sales process for fast-growing companies.
- Fraud management, fundraising reflections… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 50,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Bar Geron, CEO & Co-Founder of Balance, a B2B eCommerce payments company offering an online checkout experience built for businesses.
Launched just two years ago in February 2021, Balance now supports hundreds of B2B merchants and marketplaces, and has partnered with large platforms like Shopify, Salesforce, Magento, and BigCommerce. They raised almost $90 million from Forerunner, Ribbit, Lightspeed, Salesforce, and many more.
We discuss:
- Learnings from his days at PayPal and why some of the best payments companies and fintech founders have a strong background in fraud management
- How Balance aims to transform the Trade Finance space for US and Canadian businesses
- The future of B2B marketplaces and what the industry has learned from the B2C World
- Founder Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 50,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with the very genuine Rob Petrozzo, Co-Founder and CPO of Rally, an alternative investing platform for blue-chip and digital collectibles, including classic cars, sports memorabilia, watches, and NFTs, totaling over 400 assets in 19+ different categories.
Founded back in 2016, Rally has grown to half a million users, actively finds, manages, and fractionalizes some of the most important collectibles and museum-grade items in the world, including vintage wine and dinosaur fossils. Although I recorded the interview from Rally’s offices, unfortunately, I could NOT taste some of those top wines! They’re backed by Alexis Ohanian, Anthemis, Porche Ventures, Social Leverage, Upfront and many more.
We discuss:
- The fascinating world of collectibles. How does Rally find and secure some of the most incredible items in the world?
- Power of community and how Rally actively incorporates client feedback into product design and company strategy
- The intersection between collectibles and digital assets like NFTs
- Funder mistakes from the early days of Rally… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 50,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza heads down to sunny Miami for the Fintech Nexus LatAm Conference, to sit down with Aron Schwarzkopf, CEO & Co-Founder of Kushki, one of the largest digital payments companies in Latin America that’s helping businesses across the region digitize their payments under a single integration.
Founded in 2017, Kushki now operates across most of Spanish-speaking Latin America, was last valued at $1.5 billion, and has raised almost $200 million in equity capital from Kaszek, Softbank, Clocktower, DILA, and more.
We discuss:
- Societal benefits of a digitized economy, and how digital payments can reduce corruption and increase the velocity of a market
- Working with financial regulators across the region and why he sees evidence that regulators understand the benefits of fintech and is optimistic for the future of the industry
- Growing Kushki from zero to 1,000 people and some of the biggest lessons learned along the way
- What it means to be the first Ecuadorian unicorn and why he hopes to inspire more entrepreneurs to follow his path… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 50,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Latif Peracha, General Partner at M13, a venture capital firm with over $900M of Assets Under Management, focused on enabling technologies that power the future of consumer behavior.
Latif is in charge of the investing strategy for M13 and leads the Web3 and fintech verticals, with investments in companies like Rho, Lightning Labs, Solana, Nori, Delphia and many more.
He was previously a Managing Director at Virgin Group where he led investing in the Americas and worked directly with Richard Branson.
We discuss:
- Investing in the future of money and how companies at the intersection of financial services and web3 are modernizing established markets, while building industries of the future
- How M13 analyzes the long-term potential of a business and looks for visionary leaders in industries with significant tailwinds when making investment decisions
- M13 remains bullish on crypto, but it’s gonna take courage for investors to continue backing companies in the category through uncertainty and volatility
- What Latif learned working with Richard Branson and whether every entrepreneur should aspire to be like Richard… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 50,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
In this episode, Miguel Armaza brings you a curated selection from the best lessons, reflections, and secrets on how to build and manage an amazing board of directors. Whether you’re a CEO managing a board, an investor who sits on several, an independent board director, or you just want to learn, we hope you find it helpful.
Over the last of last 12 months, one of the common themes across many episodes, has been to learn about the best practices of corporate board management. Several of our guests have sat or currently sit on the board of some of the most incredible firms in the world and they had a lot to say about it.
In this episode, you will hear from:
- Martin Escobari, Co-President of General Atlantic
- Renaud Laplanche, Co-Founder & CEO of Upgrade
- Paulo Passoni, Investor & former Head of Softbank Latin America
- Jackie Reses, CEO of Lead Bank and former Head of Square Financial Services
- Matt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures
- Dave Nangle, CEO of VEF
Collectively, they sit or have sat on the boards of Nubank, Alibaba, Lending Club, dLocal, XP, Upgrade, Incode, VTEX, Affirm, Quinto Andar, Billtrust, Justworks, Creditas, Finix, Acorns, Konfio, and many more.
They discuss three main topics:
- Importance of Diversity in The Board Room
- Most of the Work is Done Outside the Board Meeting
- Build Your Board Early and Make Sure It Feels Like Any Other Great Team at the Company
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 49,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
In this episode, Miguel Armaza heads to sunny Miami for a conversation with Steve McLaughlin, Founder of FT Partners, an investment bank focused exclusively on the financial technology sector, launched from Steve’s San Francisco apartment back in 2001.
If you’re in fintech, you definitely know FT Partners and, chances are, you’ve worked with them or have been to one of their amazing Money2020 events over the years.
We discuss:
- Making sense of the current fintech market – what was it that led us here?
- Steve’s expectations for 2023. Will it be an active year for financing rounds, M&A, and IPO activity?
- What the next decade of fintech might look like and some of the trends that could power the future of our industry around the world… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 49,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
My guest today is Medha Agarwal, Partner at Redpoint Ventures, a VC with a strong track record in fintech, including portfolio companies like Stripe, Nubank, Ramp, and many more.
In addition, Medha is not only a thoughtful fintech investor, but she’s also a content creator consistently putting out great original content through her newsletter, Make Cents, or Redpoint’s website.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The CFO tech stack. How fintech companies are helping the office of the CFO with modern tools and whether a true ‘self-driving’ corporate wallet is possible.
- Bundling and Unbundling. The last decade has been about unbundling bank services, but we’ve started to see a shift in the opposite direction – what does this mean for the industry?
- What the crypto winter means for Web3 founders and why Redpoint will continue to invest in the category.
- Redpoint’s original content strategy, how they became the most popular VC on TikTok (shout out Rashad Assir)… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 48,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down live at Money2020 Las Vegas, with Amit Parikh, EVP of BaaS at Green Dot, and Ginger Baker, Head of Financial Access at Plaid.
They discuss:
- The evolution of consumer data tech in fintech
- Importance of providing transparency to customers around privacy and data-sharing practices
- Key technologies that will be absolutely critical to support the growth of fintech into 2023 and beyond
- How fintech companies can actually help consumers navigate challenging economic times with expanded access to information and novel financial services
- The future of partnerships between fintechs, incumbent banks, and big tech… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 48,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza interviews Ben Gleason, Co-Founder of Kamino, a financial hub that powers the operations and growth of Brazilian startups and scale-ups with integrated finance products, services and software. Kamino is backed by Inspired Capital, GFC, Picus, Flourish, QED, and Gilgamesh Ventures among others.
We discuss:
- The remarkable positive impact that FinTech in Brazil has had in terms of financial inclusion and customer service, and why there's still a massive opportunity in the region
- Ben started building his first startup, GuiaBolso, back in 2012. The Brazilian ecosystem was nascent, and he encountered some crazy challenges, including a lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court. How did they persevere?
- The inspiration for Kamino and how they're helping entrepreneurs hit the ground running and start building much faster than ever before
- Advice for entrepreneurs navigating a down market
- Why he is so passionate to help female and underrepresented founders... and a lot more.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 48,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza interviews Katlego Maphai, CEO & Co-Founder of Yoco, a South African payments company that processes billions of dollars annually, and serves hundreds of thousands of small businesses every day. Founded in 2013, the company has raised $100+ million from great investors, including Quona, Dragoneer, Partech, HOF Capital, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The evolution of fintech in South Africa
- Overcoming massive challenges since 2013
- Drawing inspiration from companies like Square, but adapting your product to the local market
- Yoco’s unique relationship with their customers
- Empowering hundreds of thousands of SMBs and helping most of them digitize for the very first time
- Advice for international investors backing African startups
- Lessons for company founders
- Building company culture… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 48,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Patricia Kemp, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Oak HC/FT, a VC firm investing in companies driving transformation in healthcare and fintech around the world. Founded in 2014, the firm has over $5 billion in AUM and has back fintech companies like Blend, Ocrolus, ClearCo, Rapyd, Pagaya, Aplazo and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Spotting and identifying fintech trends
- How to think about the future of the industry
- State of crypto and why Tricia believes stronger regulatory frameworks would be beneficial and help foster innovation in the crypto industry
- Buy vs Build. 2023 might bring a big wave of Fintech M&A activity for three important reasons.
- Building a team of investors – when bringing on new talent, Oak looks at three core requirements.
- Importance of over-communicating… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 47,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Matt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital Venturesand one of the Fintech OG legends who started his investing career back in 1995 and has been working with fintech entrepreneurs throughout several cycles. Some of his investments include GoCardless, Orum, Finix, Acorns, and many more.
In this episode, Miguel stops by the Bain Capital Ventures office in New York City, where they discuss:
- Investing through economic cycles. Matt was a fintech VC during the Dot-com bubble - what did he learn once the bubble burst and what should young VCs keep in mind today?
- B2B vs B2C Fintech. Matt overwhelmingly prefers backing B2B companies with little to no credit risk. Why is that?
- The Future of fintech and why Bain is excited about the potential of embedded finance
- What makes a great investor, how founders should think about their board, why NYC is the capital of fintech… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 47,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Matan Bar, CEO & Co-Founder of Melio, a B2B payments platform for small businesses. The company has raised over $500 million from a who’s who of fintech investors, including Accel, Coatue, Bessemer, General Catalyst, Thrive, Tiger Global, and more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Understanding your customer. Prior to writing a single line of code, the Melio team setup an old-school bookkeeping business in Manhattan to truly understand the challenges of their future clients. What did they learn?
- Importance of velocity to launch products and being comfortable with making mistakes (but correcting them very quickly!).
- Matan used to lead peer-to-peer payments at Paypal, but then built a business-to-business payments company. What led him down this path?
- Why his biggest mistake was optimizing new hires for skills and not for culture… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 47,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Hristo Borisov, CEO and Co-Founder of Payhawk, the first-ever Bulgarian unicorn where they’ve built an all-in-one finance platform serving businesses across 32+ countries in Europe and the US.
Founded just four years ago, Payhawk now enjoys unicorn status and has raised equity from Greenoaks, QED, Lightspeed, Endevor, Hubstpot, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Scaling to unicorn status – Hristo shares hacks and techniques that helped them scale from zero to one
- The growing Bulgarian startup ecosystem and why it pushed them to build a global company from day one
- Payhawk’s unique model for building and shipping products extremely fast, while keeping everyone at the company laser-focused
- Early mistakes and challenges as a fintech founder and why you should always overinvest in talent… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 46,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Stephanie Choo, Partner at Portage Ventures, a global fintech-focused VC that traces its roots back to Canada. The firm focuses on fintech companies and currently manages over $3 billion in AUM.
We discuss:
- The fintech opportunity in Canada and why most fintech verticals in the country are winner-take-all
- In light of a looming recession, what are some of the counter-cyclical fintech themes Steph is investing in these days?
- Portage’s take on crypto and why they remain very bullish on the category
- The future of fintech partnerships and why a lot of the growth from the industry will be driven through collaboration between fintechs, big tech, and incumbent banks… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 46,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Today we have a special episode, as we bring you the recording from the Vamos Latam Summit organized by Latitud in Sao Paolo, Brazil, where Miguel Armaza sat down in front of a packed audience of 1,000+ people for a conversation with Sergio Fogel, Co-Founder of dLocal and Sergio Furio, Founder/CEO of Creditas – two of Latin America’s largest companies.
They discussed:
- Providing new and innovative products and services to consumers vs corporate clients
- Wartime or a peacetime CEO – is there such a thing as a peacetime CEO in Latin America?
- How to deal with challenges like international expansion, currency fluctuations, and even going public
- And what makes fintech in Latin America unique compared to the rest of the world.
Special thanks to Brian and the entire Latitud team for the invitation.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 45,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Immad Akhund, CEO and Founder of Mercury, a US-based neobank built for the next generation of startups. Founded almost five years ago, Mercury now enjoys unicorn status and has raised equity from great investors including CRV, Coatue, a16z, and Clocktower.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why he’s short term pessimistic and how startups should prepare for winter and some tough times
- Founders: focus on your customers and stop wasting time thinking about your competitors
- The power of cold outreach and how entrepreneurs should perfect and embrace networking
- Company formation and interesting startup trends he’s seeing from Mercury’s clients… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 45,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with the talented Mary Ann Azevedo, Senior Reporter at TechCrunch, where she’s responsible for covering all things Fintech, co-hosts the Friday episode of the Equity Podcast, and recently launched the newsletter The Interchange.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why she loves covering the startup world and some tips on how to pitch your story to tech reporters
- The summer slowdown and fall bounce back. Deal activity during the summer was definitely slower, but according to Mary Ann she’s now as busy as ever, yet some things have changed.
- 2022 has been a hard year for fintech and Mary Ann has found herself writing some tough stories. What has she learned in the process?
- The future of tech media, what good journalism really means… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 45,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Julio Vasconcellos, Managing Partner and Founder of Atlantico, one of the largest Venture Capital firms in Latin America that looks to invest in a better future for the region and beyond.
Julio is also a seasoned tech entrepreneur and investor, having been Facebook’s first country lead for Brazil, co-founded Peixe Urbano which scaled to 1,200 people and raised hundreds of millions of dollars, and then joining Benchmark as an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR).
In this episode, we discuss:
- Scaling his company, Peixe Urbano, to 1,200 people and then having to cut 2/3 of the company's workforce
- Why Brazil is one of the most attractive Fintech markets, not just in Latin America, but around the world and how the Central Bank played a key role in developing this thriving ecosystem
- Parallels with today’s Latin American tech scene and Silicon Valley 15 years ago, back when Julio was in the middle of Silicon Valley’s heart
- Atlantico’s Latin America Digital Transformation Report. This episode is being published the same day as Atlantico’s annual report on the tech trends of LatAm. What were the highlights of 2022?
- The incredible fintech and tech opportunity to empower SMBs and unlock a lot of value for small enterprises and build massive tech companies in the process… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 44,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Alfonso (Poncho) De los Rios, CEO/Co-Founder of Nowports, the biggest digital freight forwarder in LatAm, that combines logistics with financial and technological tools to ship cargo around the world. Founded in 2018, Nowports is not only a Latin American company but is quickly becoming a global powerhouse. Nowports has also raised almost $250 million in equity from SoftBank, Tiger Global, Foundation Capital, Monashees, Soma Capital, Broadhaven Ventures, Mouro Capital, Tencent, YC, and more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Poncho’s background, why he’s an entrepreneur at heart, and how his family played a big role in shaping and encouraging his adventurous nature
- How the decision to drop out of university during his first semester led him to Silicon Valley and to eventually cross paths with Max Casal, now his Nowports Co-Founder
- Building company culture and the importance of surrounding yourself with people who are smarter and more experienced than you are to actually execute your vision
- Why bold, unpopular, and fast decisions are what drives startup growth and some examples that have been consequential at Nowports
- Poncho’s vision to build a global company, instead of a local or regional firm… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 44,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Nelson Chu, CEO/Co-Founder of Percent, a global leader in financial infrastructure solutions that brings transparency and efficiency to lenders and credit transactions. Founded in 2018, Percent has powered almost $1 billion in transaction volume and has raised equity capital from B Capital, Coinbase, 10x Capital, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How Percent aims to transform private credit markets and we explore their strategy to gain market share by expanding through adjacencies.
- The strength of private credit in the face of a market downturn and why the asset class is very recession-resilient.
- Nelson is a repeat founder and he shares lessons on how to build a culture of accountability and transparency that drives employee retention.
- Steps Percent is taking to bridge DeFi and traditional finance, why New York City is the best city in the world to build a fintech company… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 43,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Laura Merling, Chief Transformation and Operations Officer at Arvest Bank, a community-based bank with $26 billion in assets, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. Arvest traces its roots back to 1961, when its predecessor bank was acquired by Sam Walton, also the founder of Walmart.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The digitization of small and medium-sized banks. There are almost 5,000 banks in the US – how are they modernizing and riding the fintech wave?
- Bank-Fintech Partnerships. What should fintech companies partnering with community banks keep in mind? Laura shares some best practices and common mistakes.
- Pros and cons of building in-house vs partnering with technology providers. What path should your firm take? ... and a whole lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 43,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with fintech legend, Mike Cagney, Founder & CEO of Figure, one of the fastest growing fintech companies in the US, where they are on a mission to transform financial services through blockchain, bringing speed, efficiency and savings to both consumers and institutions.
Founded in 2018, Figure has raised almost $500M in equity from top investors, including DST Global, Ribbit, Fin Capital, RPM Ventures, Thomvest, JP Morgan, Apollo, and many more.
Prior to Figure, Mike also co-founded SoFi and built the company into a multi-billion-dollar business under his leadership as CEO.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Reflections from his experience launching and building SoFi, why their original idea failed, and how they quickly iterated and found a winning formula
- Importance of company culture and why the founding team at Figure spent a couple of months establishing a genuine culture that could scale before doing anything else
- How Figure is already using blockchain technology to disintermediate the financial market to displace trust with truth and go after a $100 billion opportunity
- Their strategy to quickly launch an impressive number of products in an empathetic way to the consumer… and a whole lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 41,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Amanda Abrams, CEO of Fintech Masala, a fintech-focused investment platform and one of the pioneers and most active firms behind several fintech SPACs since 2015. Some of their SPAC transactions, include CardConnect, Payoneer, Paya, and Perella Weinberg Partners.
If filing 12 SPACs gets you the title of SPAC King, then Amanda and Fintech Masala Co-Founder, Betsy Cohen, are definitely the SPAC Queens with a total of 11 SPACs filed.
- The SPAC process and why Amanda suggests CEOs should still consider this route.
- The SPAC Boom of 2020/2021. What drove the mania some of the mistakes?
- Key differences between a good SPAC process vs a bad one.
- How do we know if a company is ready to go public?
- Lessons from working with dozens of CEOs and boards, the future of fintech… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 37,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Anthony Scaramucci, Founder & Managing Partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment fund with several billion dollars in assets under management. Anthony also founded SALT, one of the premier thought leadership conferences in the world of finance, technology and geopolitics.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Navigating a market downturn. This is Anthony’s ninth bear market – what is different this time and how should fund managers approach their relationship with investors?
- Inflation, inflation, inflation. How to deal with it and what to expect, particularly when it comes to alternative assets.
- Anthony’s strong conviction in crypto and why he’s doubling down on the sector and even launching a fintech-focused venture capital fund.
- The origins of the SALT Conference, main drivers fueling his energy and ambition, family… and a whole lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 37,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down withOded Zehavi, Co-founder & CEO at Mesh Payments, a corporate spend platform that aims to empower finance teams at every company. Founded in 2018 out of New York City and Tel Aviv, Mesh now serves almost 1,000 corporations and has raised more than $60 million dollars in venture funding.
In this episode, we discuss:
- His time at PayPal and what he learned working with great people and many other future global fintech entrepreneurs
- Walking the fine balance of fintech innovation, where you have to build and ship fast in a highly regulated environment
- A birds-eye view of the fascinating Israeli fintech ecosystem and some factors driving its tremendous success
- Oded’s vision for Mesh, where they are building a self-driving wallet for corporate CFOs… and a whole lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 37,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with two great Uruguayan entrepreneurs, Sergio Fogel and Gonzalo Strauss. Sergio is a fintech legend, having co-founded and bootstrapped multiple fintechs, including dLocal (NASDAQ: DLO), a company that IPOd on the Nasdaq in 2021 and is currently valued at ~$8 Billion and showing great results.
Most recently, Sergio and Gonzalo teamed up to build Datanomik, a B2B open finance enabler that aims to simplify financial data processes for companies and fintechs around the world. They are backed by a16z, Canary, Nazca, Latitud, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The story of dLocal and how Sergio and team built a global, multibillion-dollar giant with minimal funding. What culture did they create and what was some of their secret sauce?
- The IPO process. How do you know if a company is ready? Sergio takes us through their decision-making framework and why they listed on the Nasdaq.
- Working with younger Co-founders. Sergio explains the value of building a multi-generational founding team.
- Launching Datanomik. Gonzalo built an internal tool at his previous employer and then realized this could be an independent company. How did he end up partnering with Sergio?
- Is Uruguay the next global tech hub? We explore some of the reasons behind the tremendous success of the country’s tech scene… and a whole lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 37,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Ankur Sinha, Chief Technology Officer at Remitly, a financial services provider for immigrants and their families in 135 countries and one of the leading fintech companies in the remittance space, with offices in Seattle, London, Krakow, Manila, and Managua. Founded in 2011, Remitly went public on the Nasdaq in 2021.
We discuss:
- The long and complex history of remittances and his take on whether crypto will revolutionize and transform the international payments industry
- Joining Remitly after a long career at Google and Microsoft. What did Ankur learn in big tech and what are some of the key differences between these two companies?
- The CTO role. What are the most important responsibilities of CTOs and what companies and business leaders should consider when hiring a Chief Technology Officer
- Exciting trends in the world of Remittances and how his team plans to ride an upcoming wave of growth and innovation… and a whole lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 36,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Peter Lord, CEO & Co-Founder of Codat, where they are building a universal API for small business data. Founded in 2017, Codat now has more than 200 corporate clients and has raised over $160 million from JP Morgan, Canapi Ventures, Shopify, Plaid, Tiger Global, PayPal Ventures, Index Ventures, AmEx Ventures, and more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Leaving his past employer to build Codat and solve some of the technical challenges he was encountering at his old job.
- His ambitious vision for Codat to become the go-to infrastructure for the small business economy to share data and how Peter plans to get there.
- International Expansion vs Industry Vertical Expansion. Since launching in 2017, Codat has expanded to several countries and is now serving many industries. Find out which one is harder and why.
- The future of fraud-fighting and why real-time data can help small businesses get access to credit, especially during a challenging economy… and a whole lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 36,000+ readers and listeners around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Dan Westgarth, COO of Deel, a global payroll platform that helps businesses hire anyone, anywhere. Founded less than four years ago, Deel now serves 8,000 corporate customers in 150+ countries and has raised almost $700 million from a16z, Altimeter Capital, Y Combinator, Coatue, and a long list of great investors.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Joining Revolut in London back when the company had only 10 employees and what Dan learned over the following five years.
- Leaving the Revolut rocketship to join Deel, yet another 10-person startup, to power the global remote work revolution right at the start of COVID.
- What it means to be COO at a fast-growing company and why it’s crucial to adapt to change and master hiring strategies.
- How Deel scaled from $1M to $100M in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in less than 20 months and why it was crucial to move fast and promote proactivity instead of reactivity to get there… and a whole lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 34,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Sophia Goldberg, entrepreneur and author of the recently published The Field Guide to Global Payments, a great book about the complex and multifaceted payments industry where Sophia gives a great overview of the different payments systems around the world, the players who make this space go round, as well as some of the exciting innovations driving the future of payments.
I highly recommend you pick up a copy, especially if you’re a fintech and finance operator, investor, or have aspirations of joining the industry. Every page will make you smarter and you’ll gain a deeper appreciation of the complexity of one of the most important technologies of our economy.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Understanding why there’s only six dominant payment networks (Visa, Mastercard, etc) worldwide and why Square and PayPal might become the next major networks.
- Real-Time Payments (RTP). Understanding the downsides and opportunities of this technology and why we probably won’t move to a world of full RTP.
- The world of crypto payments and why Sophia is not ready to endorse it just yet… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 34,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Arjun Sethi, Co-Founder and Partner of Tribe Capital, a firm with over $1.6B in assets under management, focused on using product and data science to engineer N-of-1 companies and investments. They’ve backed some incredible and interesting fintech companies, including Kraken, FTX, Bolt, Carta, Nium, Pipe, and the list goes on.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Tribe Capital’s quantitative diligence process for investing in great companies and the rationale behind their Magic 8-Ball framework.
- What are N-of-1 startups and why Tribe looks for this kind of company and founder.
- Arjun’s take on the state of crypto markets, and why he is paying special attention to DeFi innovations and companies that are building rails and infrastructure to make this technology accessible for all consumers.
- Working with Chamath at Social Capital. What he learned during his years there and why he’s a frequent listener of the All-In Podcast… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 34,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Jeff Tijssen, Partner and Head of the Global Fintech Practice at Bain & Company, where he advises incumbent players, large fintechs, and some of the top venture capital funds in the world on helping them build products, strategy, and figuring out what’s next in fintech.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Opportunites and challenges of neobanks and how some of the largest players are adapting to a world where capital is a lot more expensive, profitability is imperative to build a sustainable business, but their opportunities for disruption are as big as ever.
- Tech strategy for incumbents and how some of the largest banks in the world are modernizing by partnering with modern fintechs, while also transforming their organizations from within.
- Why embedded finance is one of the topics Jeff is most excited about how this will bring a fundamental shift to the industry… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 34,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Abby Levy, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Primetime Partners, an early-stage venture capital fund with $50+ million in AUM that backs companies and entrepreneurs transforming the quality of living for older adults. Abby co-founded Primetime in 2020 along with legendary investor, Alan Patricof.
Prior to Primetime, Abby was the Founding President of Thrive Global, alongside Arianna Huffington, and spent time at McKinsey, Tech for America, and Soulcycle.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The incredible opportunity to build and invest in businesses focused on people’s second chapter of life and why means a lot more than just servicing seniors.
- Why Primetime’s portfolio sits at the intersection of fintech and healthcare and how some of their portfolio companies are addressing a national retirement planning crisis.
- Lessons and tactics she’s learned over the years, working closely with business legends like Arianna Huffington and Alan Patricof… and a lot more!
Hope you enjoy this great conversation with Abby Levy from Primetime. Special thank you to Alan Patricof for making this a reality!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 32,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Jimmy Soni, writer and best-selling author of The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.
If you’ve talked to me over the last month, chances are I’ve recommended you read Jimmy’s book. In fact, I think every early-stage fintech founder, operator, and investor should pick up a copy of The Founders, where Jimmy does a brilliant job at detailing some of the most interesting years of PayPal. From day zero in 1998, down to the 2002 eBay acquisition.
This book will transport you to the days when Elon Musk, Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Roelof Botha, Reid Hoffman, and a long list of PayPal Mafia characters fought day in and day out to build one of the most influential fintech companies in the world.
Some of my favorite highlights include finding product-market fit, pioneering fraud-fighting techniques that are still widely used in the industry to this day, fiercely competing against eBay, and – especially relevant these days - fundraising in the midst of the dot-com bubble.
Enjoy!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 33,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with David Nangle, Managing Partner at VEF (STO: VEFAB), one of the few publicly listed venture capital firms that exclusively invests in fintech across emerging markets, with a portfolio of $750 million of Net Asset Value covering Brazil, Mexico, India, Pakistan, Zambia, and many more interesting countries. Some of the companies they’ve backed include Creditas, Konfio, Tinkoff, Jumo, and Minu.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Benefits and challenges of a permanent capital structure and why being a publicly listed firm, better prepares VEF to invest in emerging markets with a very long-term lens.
- The opportunity of fintech in emerging markets and why Dave considers Brazil to be one of the most attractive fintech markets around the world.
- Navigating this bear market. How growth and pre-IPO companies should be adapting to this reality and why it could help all entrepreneurs to adopt an ‘emerging market mindset’.
- Dave’s advice for new incoming emerging market investors… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 32,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Shmulik Fishman, Co-Founder and CEO at Argyle, a company building a user-consent-based platform for employment data, helping people avoid situations where their personal information is sold or used without their consent or knowledge.
Founded in 2018 as a remote-first company, Argyle’s product now covers over half a million US employers, almost 100% of gig workers, and 170+ million US workers. They’ve also raised a total of $80 million from SignalFire, Bain Capital Ventures, Bedrock, Checkr, amongst others.
In this episode, we discuss:
- What does it mean to be CEO? Shmulik is a second time founder, but a first-time CEO. What changed and what has he learned in the process?
- Importance of user-permissioned services. Why it’s good for business to ask users for data-sharing consent and how the world is moving in this direction across every single vertical.
- Building a remote company. Why they decided to build Argyle remotely since inception in 2018, what they’ve learned in the process, and why they would not be able to replicate their success with an in-office culture.
- Why it’s crucial to ‘Lead with Laughter’ and the only way to get through challenging jobs is by building a culture where you can smile, laugh, joke, and make fun of each other.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 32,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Alexa von Tobel, Co-Founder / Managing Partner at Inspired Capital, an early-stage VC based in New York City, with over $500M in Assets Under Management. The firm was founded by Alexa and Penny Pritzker, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and has backed some outstanding fintech companies, including Finix, Rho, Habi, Orum, Public, and Kamino.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Alexa’s background & entrepreneurial adventures and why she dropped out of Harvard Business School to build LearnVest, which she then sold for $375 million.
- Lessons learned in the last three years since launching Inspired and their process to look for an find exceptional founders with relentless determination.
- The reasons why Alexa is excited about the impact of fintech internationally, especially in places like Latin America.
- And why she loves hosting her own podcast, Inc. Founders Project, where she’s interviewed 150+ incredible founders and what she’s learned from them.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 32,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
We bring you a recording of Miguel Armaza's live panel discussion at the MIT Fintech Conference, a Sloan student-run event, where Miguel sat down with an eclectic group of fintech leaders, including:
- Paulo Passoni, Managing Partner SoftBank Latin America Fund
- David Green, CEO, Earnest
- Alex Kostecki, Founder and COO, Clair
- Alejandro Correa, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at Rappi
We discuss:
- The promise of fintech. How is the industry doing on democratizing credit access for the underbanked?
- Avoiding biases. Challenges of building biased AI/ML (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) algorithms and how companies are fixing this problem.
- The future of credit scoring. Interesting approaches and experimentation being done on this front and some ideas about the future of consumer credit scoring.
- Virtues and flaws of Buy Now Pay Later… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 32,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Kurt Lin, Co-Founder & CEO of Pinwheel, a cutting-edge payroll data connectivity platform helping fintechs and financial institutions access data from 1,400+ payroll providers in the US.
Founded just a few years ago, Pinwheel now executes 4.6M+ processes per month and has raised $80 million from GGV, First Round, Coatue, Primary, AmEx, Jackie Reses, and many more top industry investors.
We discuss:
- Kurt’s serial entrepreneurship and why he considers himself constitutionally unemployable
- The power of consumer payroll data and why Kurt is convinced payroll systems are one of the major frontiers of innovation in the fintech industry today.
- Scaling a remote team. Pinwheel went from four employees pre-pandemic to almost 90 today. What did he learn in the process?
- Lessons from years of fundraising and how a challenging equity raising environment could look like for entrepreneurs… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 32,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with two iconic fintech leaders: Jackie Reses and Lauren Weinberg. Jackie is a fintech entrepreneur, former Head of Square Capital, and serves on the boards of Nubank, Endeavor, NYDIG, and Affirm. Lauren is the Chief Marketing Officer of Square, where she leads global Marketing and Communications, and has earned several distinctions and accolades for her work. In short, they are some of the most impressive executives in the industry.
Lauren and Jackie are also the Co-Authors of SELF-MADE BOSS: Advice, Hacks, And Lessons from Small Business Owners, a fascinating book that provides first-hand accounts of small business owners who have built their companies from the ground up.
The book is the result of their many years working together at Square, where they realized and experienced the struggles and needs of micro-entrepreneurs. Despite small businesses being the backbone of the economy, Jackie and Lauren learned that this community is completely underserved for information and SELF-MADE BOSS aims to provide much-needed support in building small businesses, including obtaining start-up capital, hiring staff, planning for growth, and coping with the daily stresses of being your own boss.
Packed with incredible stories of grit and perseverance, SELF-MADE BOSS is not only an excellent guide for current and aspiring small business owners, but it’s also a must-read for any professional or fintech operator, focused on serving small businesses. It will help you empathize with your customers and understand their daily problems. I certainly recommend it!
Hope you enjoy this great conversation with Jackie Reses and Lauren Weinberg.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 31,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Renaud Laplanche, Co-Founder & CEO of Upgrade, one of the leading neobanks in the US that was ranked by the Financial Times as the fastest-growing US company in 2021.
Founded in 2016, Upgrade has issued over $10 billion in credit to consumers and has raised more than $600 million in equity from DST, Union Square Ventures, Ribbit, Coatue, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Leadership lessons – Renaud is a serial entrepreneur and fintech OG, who previously founded Lending Club, one of the first fintech companies that went public in 2014 on the NYSE. He shares what he learned from that experience, including the impact of recurring revenue, people management reflections, fundraising strategies, and a lot more.
- Stakeholder capitalism – why optimizing the bottom line isn't enough for companies and CEOs need to pay attention to multiple stakeholders and demonstrate a positive impact on society.
- Renaud’s take on current investor sentiment for publicly traded fintech companies and why despite the latest downturn, he’s seeing high enthusiasm from investors for the fintech sector.
- Launching crypto-driven products and how Upgrade is helping mainstream consumers dip their toe into crypto… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 31,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Soraya Darabi, Co-Founder & General Partner at TMV, a Venture Capital fund with over $100 million in Assets Under Management that aims to back early-stage founders building businesses beyond the bottom line.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Breaking into Tech – How Soraya found herself at the very center of the digital media and startup land almost two decades ago and how it led her down the path of entrepreneurship and investing.
- Purpose-driven investing – TMV’s mission to find extraordinary returns in businesses that deeply care about the triple bottom line and the importance of backing entrepreneurs with diverse lived experiences.
- Fintech startups as a driving force for financial inclusion and some examples of amazing companies building a more inclusive economy.
- Fundraising lessons. Learning to love the process, reflections after raising over $75 million, and how Soraya found herself raising most of TMV’s second fund while pregnant… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 31,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with the outstanding Paulo Passoni, Managing Partner at SoftBank Latin America, the largest venture capital fund in LatAm that’s invested almost eight billion dollars in 80 companies like Nubank, Kavak, Creditas, Bitso, Rappi, Uala, Clip, Addi, and many many more.
In this masterclass episode, we discuss:
- Navigating a bear market – Paulo shares lessons for entrepreneurs in a tough equity raising environment, where unit economics and execution are now more important than ever and why venture backed companies can’t afford not to tackle big problems.
- Shared traits of the strongest founders and why being holistic and talented in multiple different areas is critical for entrepreneurs
- Valuable advice for new international investors coming into Latin America, or any emerging market for that matter, and why it’s important to build a robust team and empower them with access to the global institutional knowledge of the firm.
- Reflections of the best company boards and key characteristics necessary for boards to succeed and add value to the company... and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 31,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
In this Fintech Leaders edition, I sit down with the great Greg Krasnov, Founder & CEO at Tonik, the first and largest neobank in the Philippines, which officially started operating in 2021 and has since reached almost $150M in consumer deposits and is backed by Mizuho, Sequoia, Point72, Insignia, and many more.
It’s worth mentioning Greg is a Ukrainian serial entrepreneur and about a decade ago he built Platinum bank in Ukraine and sold it once it became the third-largest consumer bank in the nation.
We recorded this episode on Tuesday, Feb 22, 2022 – roughly 24 hours before Russia invaded Ukraine. Today Ukraine is under attack and during these horrific and difficult times for Greg’s country, my heart goes out to him, Tonik’s Ukrainian team, and their families. They are a resilient nation with incredibly talented people, and Greg and Tonik represent these values.
If you are looking for ways to provide any type of support to the Ukrainian people, I’ve included a couple of vetted links below.
1. Ukraine: Relief for Children & Vulnerable in Kyiv - https://bit.ly/3MaNlql
2. Donate to the Ukrainian Red Cross - https://bit.ly/3tbey3i
3. Real ways you can help Ukraine as a foreigner - https://bit.ly/3HuOCF2
In this episode, we discuss:
- What Greg learned in over two decades of building banks and fintech businesses
- Tonik’s approach to credit risk and how they are using their customer’s digital footprint and predictive analytics to expand access to the financial system
- Staying innovative in a remote environment and how companies can balance internal cooperation and conflict to stay innovative
- Why it’s crucial for fintech founders to pick the right investors who actually understand their industry… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 31,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Eric Satz, Founder/CEO of Alto Solutions, a Nashville-based company offering a self-directed IRA platform that gives people in the US access to invest in alternative assets using their retirement funds in assets like crypto, private funds, and collectibles.
Founded in 2015, Alto now administers over $1B and has raised over $60M from Advance Venture Partners, Unusual Ventures, Acrew Capital, Foundation Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The importance of diversifying your retirement portfolio with alternative assets and why crypto and digital assets are an increasingly meaningful part of Alto’s product.
- Lessons from other countries around the world and what could be done to help people in the US strengthen their retirement savings.
- Hypergrowth during the pandemic and how Eric has managed to expand his team from 20 to 140 since the start of COVID
- And just like we’ve heard from other leaders from around the world, Eric reminds us that the only way to beat your competition is to surround yourself with great people!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 30,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
In this Fintech Leaders edition, I sit down with Adalberto Flores, Founder and CEO of Kueski, a Guadalajara-based “buy now, pay later” and online consumer lender, and one of LatAm’s Fintech OGs.
Since inception in 2012, Kueski has issued more than 5 million loans online and has raised over $300 million from Altos Ventures, Core Ventures Group, Angel Ventures, Cathay Innovation, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Challenges and lessons for founders in tough raising environments and emerging markets, and how Adal managed to raise Seed capital back in 2012.
- Importance of culture-building and how you can use your company culture to attract high quality talent
- State of BNPL in Mexico and how Kueski is using this product to enable the 60% unbanked population of the country to access the financial system and start building credit
- Why Guadalajara is known for Tequila, Mariachis, and Technology and how it became the Silicon Valley of Mexico… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 30,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
In this Fintech Leaders edition, Miguel Armaza sits down with Jason Wilk, serial entrepreneur and Co-Founder/CEO of Dave, a US challenger bank that was able to reach 10 million clients in just four years.
Founded in 2017, Dave went public in January 2022 via SPAC and currently has a market cap of close to $4 billion. As a private company, Dave raised almost $200 million and attracted top investors like Mark Cuban, Norwest Venture Partners, Financial Solutions Lab, and even Diplo.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How losing a round of golf sparked his curiosity for international business, tech, and entrepreneurship.
- Fundraising lessons. What has Jason learned from multiple roadshows of equity fundraising as a private company and then as public company?
- Going public. Lessons learned from the SPAC process and why they chose this route instead of an IPO.
- Launching Dave as a non-bank and why listening to customer feedback led them to expand their product set and become a challenger bank… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 30,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
In this Fintech Leaders edition, Miguel Armaza sits down with the amazing Rana Yared, General Partner at Balderton Capital, one of Europe's leading venture capital funds that has raised ~$4.5B across ten funds over the past 21 years, and has backed companies like Revolut, GoCardless, ComplyAdvantage and many more global fintech leaders.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The State of Fintech and entrepreneurship in Europe and why the continent’s startup scene is booming like never before
- Differences between European and US founders and investors and some of the advantages found in the old continent
- Balderton’s Sustainable Future Goals. Their impact on the firm’s investing strategy and why being a great investor entails producing returns, while also improving the world around you.
- Risks of selling a company too soon or too late for your portfolio’s IRR and some lessons and reflections every VC should consider… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 30,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
In this Fintech Leadersedition, Miguel Armaza sits down with Gaston Irigoyen, CEO & Co-Founder of Pomelo, a company building and modernizing the fintech infrastructure of Latin America.
Since inception, Pomelo has raised over $45 million from an impressive roster of backers including Tiger Global, Monashees, Sequoia, Insight Partners, Index Ventures, QED, and Gilgamesh Ventures. As well Jackie Reses, Max Levchin, Biz Stone, Angela Strange, Eric Glyman, and other impressive angels.
We discuss:
- Modernizing LatAm’s financial infrastructure and how Pomelo is refreshing legacy tech that was built decades ago.
- Fundraising lessons – is it an art or a science? Gaston shares frameworks and best practices that have worked for him throughout his entrepreneurial journey and why it’s critical to also bring strategic angels and industry operators onboard.
- Gaston’s optimism for the next decade of entrepreneurship in the region and why the next wave of fintech will probably be led by B2B companies.
- Reflections for emerging markets entrepreneurs and what he learned from living in Dublin, Ireland… plus a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 30,000+ readers around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
In this Fintech Leadersedition, Miguel Armaza chats with Brad Levy, CEO of Symphony, a global communications platform that securely connects markets, organizations and individuals in the financial sector.
Founded in 2014 by David Gurle, the company now powers over 170 million monthly messages and has raised over half a billion dollars from top industry investors, including Goldman, Google, Blackrock, Citi, and most of the major global banks in the world.
We discuss:
- Symphony’s ambitious roadmap for the coming year and how Brad plans to pursue and find value at a very granular industry level
- Growth by M&A. Why this will be a foundational part of their strategy, plus lessons on how to successfully execute an acquisition and integration. Hint: make sure the people and cultures can fit together.
- Returning to the office and why he’s a big believer of a hybrid approach that brings people together often.
- Corporate Leadership Lessons:
- What are the three elements necessary to succeed at any stage of your career? curiosity, teamwork, and hard work.
- Why generalists thrive in a world of specialists and the best managers have a breadth of skills, experience, and relationships.
- ... and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead of the audio form? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 30,000+ around the world!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
For the first episode of 2022, we bring you a live recording of Miguel's keynote conversation with Maya Dadoo, on stage at LendIt Fintech Latam in Miami.
Maya is the Co-Founder and CEO of Worky, a groundbreaking all-in-one HR software and payroll platform for Latin American SMBs. Founded in 2017, Worky is backed by top investors including QED & LEAP Global Partners.
They discuss:
- The incredible opportunity at the intersection of Fintech and HR Tech and some of the steps Worky is taking to launch fintech products
- Worky’s roll out a 4-day work week and how the company has adapted to this new reality
- Significant Importance of the HR function and why startup founders should look to hire a Head of People as early as possible
- State of talent management in Latin America and why this is a massive opportunity for companies like Worky… a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Do you prefer a written summary, instead of the audio form? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 30,000+ around the world!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with the very genuine Eric Glyman, Co-Founder & CEO of Ramp, a finance automation platform providing an all-in-one banking solution for businesses.
Founded less than three years ago, Ramp has scaled incredibly fast and is now the fastest growing corporate card in the US, having raised almost half a billion dollars from investors like Founders Fund, Coatue, Stripe, Goldman, and more.
Eric is a second-time fintech entrepreneur, which made this conversation especially interesting. We discussed:
- Ramp’s internal process and secret sauce that has allowed them to scale extremely fast, while maintaining product quality and client satisfaction.
- Leadership lessons. Why startup founders with product market fit should prioritize hiring the highest quality of people and building internal processes.
- Strength of the Capital One school. Lessons learned from his time at Capital One and why most fintechs want to hire Capital One alums.
- A window into Eric’s vision of the future of business banking, where most tasks will be automated and companies will spend less money and time managing their banks… and a whole lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with an absolute legend from the investing world - Martin Escobari, General Atlantic’s Co-President, Chairman of the firm’s Investment Committee, and Head of Latin America.
Founded back in 1980, General Atlantic has become one of the premier global growth equity funds and grown to ~$80 billion AUM, with a team of almost 400 employees and 169 active portfolio companies.
Over the past 41 years, the GA team has seen it all and, fortunately for all of us, Martin shared an incredible amount of knowledge and lessons, including:
- Martin’s transition from entrepreneur to investor.
- Importance of collaboration for young rapidly evolving industries, and what GA looks for in their co-investing partners.
- Common traits of the best entrepreneurs. Martin shares the top three traits those founders have in common.
- Ingredients for a successful board. Martin has been a board member of dozens of companies and has learned what a great board looks like.
- The incredible performance of Latin America tech, despite its macro challenges.
- And a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Brian Barnes, Founder & CEO of M1 Finance, one of the fastest growing financial super-apps offering automated investing, borrowing, and banking products in the US.
Founded in Chicago just five years ago, M1 currently manages over $6 billion for its clients and has raised over $300 million from top names including Softbank, Coatue, Clocktower, and Left Lane.
We cover:
- M1’s meteoric rise over the past couple of years and why these are the early days for the company.
- The power of compounding. It took M1 18+ months to reach $100M AUM, but now they’re adding that number weekly!
- The fascinating and unique story of how Brian, personally bought First National Bank of Buhl, one of the smallest banks in the US. The thought process that drove this transaction and his plans for the future of the bank.
- Advice and reflections for aspiring entrepreneurs and why he enjoys mentoring up and coming founder
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Today, we bring you a special episode featuring Miguel Armaza's live conversation at Money2020 with Kristy Kim, Co-Founder & CEO of Tomo Credit, and Justin Howell, Co-Founder & CEO of Rize.
To get us started, Miguel sits down with Kristy Kim, where they explore:
- Building a FICO-free underwriting model and how the challenges of her US immigrant journey drove Kristy to launch Tomo Credit, a next-generation credit card catered to young adults, students, and immigrants.
- Bridging the gap between crypto lovers and the traditional credit card industry, and why Tomo Credit is launching crypto features using customer crypto wallet data to improve their underwriting decisions and enable clients to build credit.
- And what Kristy considers to be the hardest part and the most rewarding part of being an entrepreneur.
Next up, you’ll hear Miguel's conversation with Justin Howell, where they cover:
- How building a B2C customer-centric and intuitive financial services solution, eventually led them to pivot to a B2B FinTech infrastructure platform.
- The importance of providing the modern consumer with seamless interoperability across banking, brokerage, and crypto capabilities in a single platform.
- Thoughts from their fundraising experience and the importance of finding investors who support, not just the vision of the company, but especially the team.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
We bring you the second special episode featuring Miguel Armaza's live conversations at Money2020 Las Vegas with Dan Henry, Green Dot CEO, and Jeanniey Walden, DailyPay Chief Innovation and Marketing Officer.
First up, Dan Henry and Miguel explore:
- Going remote-first and what this has meant for a publicly-traded company like Green Dot
- Launching Go2Bank to serve 100+ million Americans living paycheck to paycheck
- Three pieces of advice for aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs
- Make sure you’re solving a real problem - don’t create a solution to try finding a problem.
- Be incredibly passionate about the problem, because whatever you start off doing is going to be 10 times more difficult than you thought. If you're doing it just to get rich, that's not going to get you to the finish line.
- Build a great team. Surround yourself with the best people and individuals you can trust.
... and a lot more!
Next, Jeanniey Walden and Miguel discuss:
- How DailyPay provides its earned wage access to 80% of the Fortune 200 companies, seven out of 10 of the largest fast food companies, and one out of six grocery store workers.
- The launch of their latest product - DailyPay Marketplace, which will give banks, credit unions, or even retailers,the ability to integrate DailyPay’s product through API's or white labeling.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
In this Fintech Leaders episode, we bring you a special set of interviews from Money20/20 Las Vegas, one of the largest Fintech Conferences in the world.
First, Miguel sits down with Tracey Davies, Money20/20 CEO, and Scarlett Sieber, Money20/20 Chief Strategy & Growth Officer.
We discuss:
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Their excitement to bring the event back in person
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Some of the key fintech trends from this year, including Crypto, DeFi, Financial Infrastructure.
Next, you will hear a conversation with Immad Akhund, CEO/Founder of Mercury, a US-based challenger bank built for startups and e-commerce companies.
Founded less than four years ago, Mercury Bank recently became a unicorn valued at $1.6 billion and has raised $180 million from a long list of investors including Coatue, a16z, and Clocktower.
Immad and Miguel explored:
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The story and incredible growth of Mercury
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Immad’s vision on the future of business banking
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Valuable Entrepreneurial advice:
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Make something people really want
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Have a retentive product
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Focus on good unit economics
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Build a great distribution strategy
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And, most importantly, have a good story that you're genuinely passionate about!
Finally, Immad reminded Miguel why his favorite type of people are entrepreneurs. They spent a long time looking for a quiet space to record our episode, and when the only available area was an empty corner with no chairs or tables, Immad didn’t hesitate for a second to just record the episode while sitting on the floor. It was yet another reminder that you don’t need a fancy recording studio or office to get shit done!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Brynne McNulty Rojas, Co-Founder and CEO of Habi, a PropTech company that is streamlining the traditionally opaque home buying process in Latin America revolutionizing the real estate market in the region.
Founded in 2019, Habi has raised over $100 million from investors, including SoftBank, Inspired Capital, Tiger Global, Homebrew, Clocktower, 8VC, and many more.
Brynne and Miguel explore:
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Building Habi and a deep dive of the exciting PropTech revolution taking place in Latin America.
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Their recruiting approach to attract those crucial first employees, developing Habi’s culture, and a rundown of the company’s four key values and why they were written in English, rather than Spanish.
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Habi’s secret data analytics machine and how they’ve been able to scale to over 30k real estate pricings per month.
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Fundraising lessons for entrepreneurs… and a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Austin Woodward, CEO & Co-Founder of TaxBit, the leading US tax software provider for crypto and digital assets.
Founded in 2017, TaxBit has now issued tens of millions of tax forms and recently became a unicorn with over $230 million in equity from top investors like IVP, Insight Partners, Tiger Global, Paradigm, and Anthony Pompliano.
In this conversation, Austin and Miguel discuss:
- How his passion for crypto and digital assets led him to launch a billion-dollar business
- Challenges and opportunities of working with family and why it made perfect sense to co-found TaxBit with his brother, Justin
- Working with US regulators and Austin’s optimistic vision for the US to become a global hub for crypto
- Lessons and reflections from raising over $200M in less than a year… And a lot more!
Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Oliver Hughes, CEO of Russia’s Tinkoff Bank (LSE: TCS), one of the best fintech companies around the world. Tinkoff went public in the London Stock Exchange in 2013 and has since grown to a $22B market cap with close to 20 million clients. It has also inspired a generation of fintech founders, including David Velez from Nubank.
In this episode, we explore:
- Story behind Tinkoff, challenges that led them to pivot, and how they’ve managed to thrive despite three financial crises since inception
- Tinkoff’s internal innovation machine and a deep dive of Oliver’s thought process to making big decisions and rolling out new products
- Exciting recent developments and what drove them to expand internationally to Southeast Asia
- Oliver’s take on the future of fintech... And a lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow 21 Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Miguel Armaza is Host of the 21 Leaders Podcast, Author of the Fintech Leaders Newsletter, and Co-Founder of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Today’s episode comes from FINNOSUMMIT Connect, a conference organized by Finnovista on the future of Fintech in Latin America.
In this special edition, we bring you a recording from Miguel Armaza's conversation with Angela Strange, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz and Dileep Thazhmon, Co-Founder & CEO at Jeeves, where they discuss:
- Angela’s take on the fantastic evolution of fintech in Latin America and why these are still the early days
- Jeeves history and why although they are building a global company, they actually decided to launch their first product in Mexico
- Challenges and opportunities for the ecosystem in the region… and a whole lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join Miguel and follow 21 Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Miguel Armaza is Host of the 21 Leaders Podcast, Author of the Fintech Leaders Newsletter, and Co-Founder of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
Miguel Armaza sits down with Laura Spiekerman, COO & Co-Founder of Alloy, an identity decisioning platform that has built the command center for identity that covers the compliance and fraud fighting needs for banks and fintechs.
Founded in 2015, Alloy now serves over 200 clients, has raised over $150M in equity, and recently became a unicorn valued at $1.35B. Top investors include Lightspeed, Bessemer, Felicis, Flourish, Clocktower, Eniac, Primary.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Challenges and opportunities of working with sensitive client data and why their approach has become Alloy’s competitive advantage
- Why her role as a Co-Founder and company leader changes every 3-6 months and how Laura manages to adapt to this reality.
- Collecting customer feedback and how Alloy stays close to the client
- Reflections from tough company moments and dealing with rejection back at the beginning of Alloy and how she managed to keep going and maintain a relentless optimism along the way
- Lessons and reflections for aspiring entrepreneurs… A lot more!
About AlloyAlloy is the command center for identity that covers your compliance and fraud-fighting needs. Our dynamic platform connects you to more than 120 data source products to help you verify identities and monitor transactions - giving you a holistic view of each customer from the day they onboard and throughout their time with your organization. From automatic decisions and fewer manual reviews to smooth onboarding, Alloy is how smart banks and fintech companies take a closer look at the whole picture. Learn more at Alloy.com and on Twitter @UseAlloy.
Want more podcast episodes? Join Miguel and follow 21 Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Miguel Armaza is Host of the 21 Leaders Podcast, Author of the Fintech Leaders Newsletter, and Co-Founder of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp
In this very first episode of the 21 Leaders podcast, Miguel Armaza sits down with Assaf Wand, Co-Founder and CEO of Hippo Insurance (NYSE: HIPO), a revolutionary home insurance company focused on making homes safer and better protected, harnessing the power of data and technology. Founded in 2015, Hippo recently went public on the New York Stock Exchange and has a current market cap ~$3B.
In this great conversation, Assaf and Miguel discuss:
- Why he’s “the worst employee ever” and entrepreneurship was the only career path that made sense for him
- Disrupting the home insurance industry, a sector with a net promoter score of -49, and why over the last century incumbents forgot who is their actual customer
- The importance of listening to your client, collecting feedback, and always doing the right thing by the customers
- Lessons from his evolving leadership approach and the hardest decisions Assaf has ever made at Hippo
- Key questions they ask themselves before making any important decision at Hippo
- Taking the company public via SPAC and some hard lessons he’s learned as a public company CEO
- Reasons behind Tel-Aviv’s success as a hub for entrepreneurship and innovation… A lot more!
Want more podcast episodes? Join Miguel and follow 21 Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Miguel Armaza is Host of the 21 Leaders Podcast, Author of the Fintech Leaders Newsletter, and Co-Founder of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas.
Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z
Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc
Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp