Send us a textMiguel 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 thei...

Send us a textMiguel 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 com...

Send us a textMiguel 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 incumbentsChallenges of going through a company pivot from local to cross-border paymentsThe important rol...

Send us a textMiguel 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 ...

Send us a textMiguel 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 ten...

Send us a textMiguel 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 ...

Send us a textMiguel 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,...

Send us a textMiguel 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 ...

Send us a textMiguel 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 w...

Send us a textMiguel 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 extreme...

Send us a textMiguel 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 ...

Send us a textMiguel 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 inter...

Send us a textIn 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 i...

Send us a textMiguel 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:1. Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me2. Nick Peddy, CTO of Clear3. Soups Ranjan,...

Send us a text[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 min...

Send us a Text Message.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 itThe Impact and adoption of AI in the financi...

Send us a Text Message.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 ABuilding Arbor Ventures and pioneering fintec...

Send us a Text Message.[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 d...

Send us a Text Message.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 ...

Send us a Text Message.[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 t...

Send us a Text Message.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 floorHow technology, client demands, and regulation transformed the trading industry in the last two decadesWhy Webull decided to expand beyond the US, making a big push in places like Latin America and AsiaWebull’s plan to go ...

Send us a Text Message.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...

Send us a Text Message.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, Viking Global, 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 Army for his service in ...

Send us a Text Message.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 monthsGoing from 1,5...