Wharton Fintech Podcast

In today's episode, Ally McCloskey sits down with two-time guest Dan Westgarth, COO at Deel. Deel makes growing remote and international teams effortless by simplifying international hiring, compliance, and payments all on one platform. This means businesses can hire anyone, anywhere as independent contractors or full time employees compliantly, in minutes, and with the ability to pay them in over 120 currencies and cryptos starting with USDC. The company has raised over $631mm from the likes of a16z, Spark Capital, Y Combinator, Coatue, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, Alexis Ohanian, Daniel Gross, and others, most recently closing their $425mm Series D this past October. Dan joined Deel in 2020, after spending what he calls his "postgraduate education" at Revolut. For more on that chapter of his life, check out the link below to his 2019 WFT Podcast debut. In this conversation, Ally and Dan discuss: • Dan's time at Revolut and his lessons learned leading the early U.S. expansion • Meeting the founders of Deel

Gabriela Ariana Campoverde sits down with Ram Palaniappan, Founder and CEO of Earnin, which gives people access to their pay directly from their smartphones. No hidden fees, no penalties, no waiting—just access to your hard-earned cash right when you need it. With each transaction users are given the opportunity to pay what they believe is fair. In this episode, you will learn all about how: - Ram started Earnin by lending his own money to his colleagues - Earnin addresses the Earned Wage Access gap - 66% of users see an increase in their ability to pay bills with Earnin’ - The lending landscape is changing - And so much more! About Ram Palaniappan Ram Palaniappan, is the Founder and CEO of Earnin. He is passionate about building a financial system for the people, by the people. He is a graduate of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, where he earned his MMS, and Purdue University Krannert School of Management, where he earned his MBA. About Earnin Earnin gives people access to their pay

In today's episode, Olamide Williams catches up with Professor Chris Brummer of Georgetown Law to discuss fintech regulation, balancing that with innovation, the unique connection between fintech and rap, as well as his top five rap artists of all time. Professor Brummer is the host of the Fintech Beat Podcast, which features the latest trends, movers and shakers, ideas, and policies in fintech. He sits on the boards of Fannie Mae, K2 Integrity, public.com and is the Scholar in Residence at Paradigm, the $2 billion crypto fund. He is also the host and organizer of DC Fintech Week. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/ WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech

Anirudh Singh sits down with Arvind Purushotham, Global Head of Venture Investing at Citi Ventures. The two discuss Arvind's early career at Menlo Ventures, developing partnerships between portfolio companies and Citibank, investments in Doconomy, DriveWealth, and TRM labs, Citi impact fund, and much more. Arvind Purushotham: As Global Head of Venture Investing, Arvind leads Citi’s efforts to identify, invest in, and partner with leading startups as a way to bring cutting-edge technologies and capabilities to Citi’s businesses and functions. Additionally, he serves as a partner to Citi’s business leaders and helps identify market trends based on the 1000+ startups the Venture Investing team meets every year. Under his leadership the group has partnered with category-defining startups such as Square, Plaid, DocuSign, Honey, Betterment, Braze, Netskope, and Tanium. In his capacity as head of venture investing for the company, he also co-leads the Citi Impact Fund. Prior to Citi, Arvind spent nearly a decade as

Gabriela Ariana Campoverde sits down with Mike de Vere, CEO of Zest AI. Zest helps lenders make better credit decisions -- increasing revenue, reducing risk, and automating compliance. The company serves its customers by providing them with custom credit models leveraging more data, better math, and smarter software. Today Mike is leading Zest to fulfill a mission of making fair credit available to everyone. In this episode, you will learn all about: - How it builds more inclusive underwriting models for its clients - The loan decision and funding journey - Zest’s company culture - Insights on how the lending landscape is changing - And so much more! About Mike de Vere Mike is passionate about expanding access to fair credit. He has a rich career in leveraging customer insights given his time at Nielsen, Harris Interactive and JD Power & Associates. He earned his MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and studied Business Administration at the California State Un

Anirudh Singh sits down with Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital, a leading digital asset platform for institutions. Previously, Nathan worked as an early employee at Square and at Docker. They discuss the lessons Nathan learned from helping scale Square, getting a banking charter at Anchorage Digital, Nathan’s thoughts on key crypto trends moving forward, and much more. Nathan McCauley: Nathan McCauley is the Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage, the leading digital asset platform for institutions. He started his career at Arxan Technologies, where he worked on anti-reverse engineering and key management for commercial and military applications. As an early employee at Square, he worked on the infrastructure security platform now used to move over $80B in annualized GPV. Later, at Docker, together with Anchorage Co-Founder Diogo Mónica, he built and led the security team, developing code that helps secure containers, one of the core underpinnings of modern infrastructure. For more FinTech i

In today's episode, Anirudh Singh sits down with Christina Melas-Kyriazi, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures. Previously, Christina served as Head of Product for Consumer Foundations at Affirm and Senior Product Manager at GoFundMe. They discuss being at Affirm as the company IPOed, launching her whirlwind career at Bain Capital Ventures, and helping founders go from 0 to 1. Christina Melas-Kyriazi: Christina joined Bain Capital Ventures in 2021, where she focuses on early-stage investments in fintech and commerce. Christina was previously Head of Product for Consumer Foundations at Affirm, where she led a team of product managers to enable a delightful, frictionless customer experience from account creation to loan servicing. Before Affirm, Christina was a Senior Product Manager at GoFundMe, where she worked on growth and new product areas. Earlier in her career, Christina also spent time in business operations at LinkedIn and as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. Christina is an active angel investor a

In today's episode, Anirudh Singh sits down with Liran Zelkha, Co-Founder and CTO of Lili, an all-in-one banking app designed for freelance workers. In this episode, they discuss the thriving startup ecosystem in Israel, why it's so hard to manage your money as a freelance worker, and how Lili hopes to make freelancers' lives easier. Liran Zelkha: Liran Zelkha is Co-Founder and CTO of Lili, the all-in-one banking app designed for over 500K freelance workers. He has over 20 years of tech industry experience, including as a freelancer, which inspired him to create a solution for independent workers’ unique pain points. From strategic management to hands-on coding, Liran specializes in turning lofty ideas into functioning businesses. Prior to founding Lili, Liran served as CTO and VP, Research and Development for Pepper, the first and only challenger bank in Israel. Liran was also CEO and CTO at tech consulting firm Tona and owner / co-CEO of Aluna, Israel’s leading Java and service-oriented architecture (SOA)

In today's episode, Ally McCloskey sits down with Jason Wenk, Founder & CEO of Altruist. Altruist is an all-in-one digital platform for Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) and their clients that helps make financial advice more efficient, more affordable, and accessible to more people. Using Altruist, advisors have cutting edge tools on an investment platform that significantly streamlines and reduces their costs, enabling them to serve more people, better. The upstart most recently raised its $50mm Series B led by Insight Partners, with follow-on participation from Series A investors Venrock and Vanguard. Ally and Jason discuss: - How the space has evolved over the decades he's been a founder in financial advice and wealth management, and how he was able to get "more efficient" with each new company - Where he stands on the human advice vs. roboadvisory trade-off and why Altruist only works with RIA firms - How he cold solicited the Top 10 Financial Advisors To Watch on Linkedin as part of customer discov

In today’s episode, Anirudh Singh sits down with Eddie Serrill, Business Lead for Stripe Capital and the site lead for Stripe’s New York office. In the episode, they discuss what makes Stripe so good at offering products to online businesses, how Stripe leverages banking relationships to bring the best products to the table, the impact that Stripe Capital has had on the small businesses it partners with, and much more. Eddie Serrill: Eddie is the Business Lead for Stripe Capital and the site lead for Stripe’s New York office. Stripe is a technology company that's building economic infrastructure for the internet. Businesses of every size—from new startups to public companies—use Stripe's software to accept payments and manage their businesses online. Stripe Capital provides Stripe users with access to financing, and enables platform partners to offer financing to their customers with an end-to-end lending API. Prior to Stripe, Eddie served as the COO of Bond Street and the VP of Revenue & Operations at Tri

Gabriela Ariana Campoverde sits down with Ronen Assia, Managing Partner at Team8 Fintech Foundry, a venture fund within Team8 that partners with entrepreneurs to build companies in the fintech space. For over twenty years, Ronen has successfully merged technology and design together into useful and accessible products, and defined user experience across various devices and platforms. Most recently Ronen served as eToro’s Chief Product Officer, managing product and engineering, and helped grow the company into a Fintech unicorn serving 13 million users in over 140 countries. eToro pioneered Social Investing, enabling every investor to see, follow and automatically copy the portfolios of other investors in the network. In this episode you will learn all about: - How Team8 works with fintech talent - Ronen’s insights into the Isreali fintech ecosystem and global investment outlook - Blockchain innovation, NFTs and art curation - How start-up’s can marry the old and new worlds of fintech - And so much more! A

In today’s episode, Anirudh Singh sits down with Basil Darwish, Managing Director and Fintech & Enterprise Tech lead at Wells Fargo Strategic Capital. Basil joined as the team’s first hire in March 2016, coming over from Citi Ventures. In this episode, they discuss a range of topics, including Basil’s winding path towards venture investing, the pros and cons of different corporate venture capital models, a deep dive into three of Wells Fargo’s investments: Trovata, H20.ai, and Arkose Labs, and much more! Basil Darwish: Basil Darwish is a Managing Director at Wells Fargo Strategic Capital and leads the group’s focus on Fintech and Enterprise Software. His investments range from early-stage to growth capital investments in companies that are strategically aligned with Wells Fargo. One of his goals is to bring technology-based innovation into the Bank. Basil’s investment focus areas include B2B/B2C Fintech, RegTech, AI & Machine Learning, Big Data Analytics, and Cyber Security. Basil has been in the domain of

Gabriela Ariana Campoverde sits down with Raghu Yarlagadda, CEO and Co-Founder of FalconX. The company is a digital assets brokerage that provides a single account connected to global crypto liquidity pools. Asset managers can execute trades at prices routed across liquidity sources, and settle with a single counterparty. Raghu and Prabhakar Reddy launched the company just four years ago, and today it is valued at $3.75 Billion dollars. In this episode you will hear about: - How FalconX works with institutional clients - What it’s like to run a start-up which is live 24/7 - Innovation for cryptocurrency retail investors - Raghu’s career and his commitment to education - And much more! About Raghu Yarlagadda Raghu Yarlagadda co-founded FalconX in 2018. Prior to FalconX, Raghu worked at Google and Motorola Mobility and in 2014 launched Sarada Educational Institution which leverages edtech to improve education for its students across India. He is also a graduate of Harvard Business School and the University

Anirudh Singh sits down with the one and only Daniel Vogel, Co-Founder and CEO of Bitso, the leading crypto-services provider in Latin America. Bitso is committed to the development of efficient, competitive, accessible and inclusive financial services in Latin America, and Daniel is among the youngest entrepreneurs and leaders in the region. In this episode, they discuss Dan’s introduction to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, how an unsuccessful remittance startup helped with the genesis of Bitso, Bitso’s growth and international expansion, and much more! Daniel Vogel: Daniel is co-founder and CEO of Bitso, the leading crypto-services provider in Latin America. Bitso is committed to the development of efficient, competitive, accessible and inclusive financial services in Latin America, and Daniel is among the youngest entrepreneurs and leaders in the region. Daniel holds two degrees from Stanford University (BA in Economics, BS in Computer Systems Engineering) and a Master's degree in Business Administration (M

In his final episode, Ryan Zauk sits down with none other than Justin Overdorff, former Stripe exec and now Lightspeed's newest Fintech partner, based in New York City. Justin joined Lightspeed after an incredible career spanning Wall Street, growth equity, Techstars, Yelp!, Stripe, a whole lot of angel investing (Lithic, Alloy, Orum, Moov, Stir, Puzzle), and of course…a 2-year stop at Wharton for his MBA. At Lightspeed, Justin is helping lead the team's Fintech practice and build on its portfolio investments in iconic companies like Affirm and Carta. As a Fintech junkie with a product-focused passion for tech, Justin understands the true value of innovation and how it can serve as a major impetus for change. Justin's previous experience at Stripe (which they cover in-depth) stoked his passion for Fintech and the constraints of creative problem-solving in a regulated industry. In today's episode, they discuss: - His long, winding journey from mortgage trading at Bank of America to building world-changing

Anirudh Singh sits down with Douglas Landy, Partner at White & Case, a leading law firm serving companies, governments, and financial institutions worldwide. They discuss the neobank decision making process when applying for a banking charter, regulations surrounding bank engagement in crypto activities, the evolution of central bank digital currencies, and much more. Douglas Landy: Douglas Landy serves as co-head of White & Case's Financial Institutions Industry Group and head of the US Financial Services Regulatory practice. He is one of the most preeminent US lawyers advising financial institutions on blockchain and crypto matters. He represents global banks on the creation of blockchain and crypto trading platforms, custody, payment systems, stablecoins, and related financial products. Doug has also been advising non-bank Fintech companies on potential bank charters, including the OCC's Payment Charter, and similar charters and licenses.

Anirudh Singh sits down with Nitin Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO of Uni, one of the fastest growing pay-later card providers in India. They discuss Nitin's past work at PayU and Ola Financial Services, the overall credit card landscape in India, and launching the Pay 1/3rd product with Uni. Shortly after this episode was recorded, Uni went on to raise a $70M series A round at a $350M valuation. Nitin Gupta: Uni's Founder and CEO, Nitin Gupta is an alumni of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad. He started his career as a Founder and CEO of Khojguru and then led the PayU India team as Co-Founder and CEO. He built Pay U into one of the largest payment gateways in India under his able leadership. At Ola, during his stint of 2.5 years, he headed the Ola Financial Services as CEO and launched Ola Money Postpaid which was valued at $250 million last year. It's now one of the largest financial services businesses in the country. Currently, at Uni, he has raised $18.5M, while in stealth mode and launched the BNPL product Pay 1/3

Anirudh Singh sits down with Matan Bar, Co-Founder and CEO of Melio. They discuss the thriving startup ecosystem in Israel, building a streamlined B2B payments product for SMBs, Matan's personal guiding principles when building a company, and much more! Matan Bar: Matan is the Co-founder and CEO of Melio. Before founding Melio in 2018, he was the GM of the PayPal Consumer R&D center in Tel Aviv and led PayPal's Consumer Peer to Peer Payments Group globally, responsible for over $50B in payment volume annually. Matan joined PayPal through the acquisition of his first company (The Gifts Project) by eBay Inc in 2012.

On today’s episode, ’21 host Ryan Zauk comes back to the show to host Andrei Cherny, Co-Founder & CEO of Aspiration, a budding financial services platform for people who want to save the planet by trying to neutralize their carbon footprint. Their mission is massive, with around 5 million members trying to help make a difference in the fight against climate change. Aspiration provides numerous products, including deposit balances completely divested from fossil fuels, a round-up feature like Acorns to plant trees with your purchases, 2-day early access to wages, carbon offsets for car mileage of its users, cashback on mission-focused retailers, and more. They also are a burgeoning b2b platform for carbon offsets, helping people like Drake calculate the planetary impact of their businesses and offset it. Andre and Ryan cover a great deal in today’s episode, and special shoutout to Ami Naik of Radicle Impact for setting up this episode! They cover: - How Andrei’s op-eds in Harvard’s student newspaper landed

Anirudh Singh sits down with Rohit Mittal, co-founder and CEO of Stilt. They discuss the difficulties Rohit faced when looking to rent an apartment in New York City, why United States immigrants are an underserved but creditworthy population, and how Stilt has approached solving this problem. Rohit Mittal: Rohit Mittal is the co-founder and CEO of Stilt. Rohit has extensive experience in credit risk analytics and data science. He spent years building credit risk and fraud models for top U.S. banks. In his current role, he defines the overall business strategy, leads debt and capital fundraising efforts, leads product development, and leads other customer-related aspects for the company. Stilt is backed by Y Combinator and has raised a total of $275M in debt and equity funding to date. Prior to founding Stilt, Rohit started his career at Verisk Analytics using big data to optimize credit risk. He went on to become the founding member of the data science team at Popsugar, helping the company build its analyt