One of the fintech investing pioneers is Arjan Schütte, the founder and managing partner of Core Innovation Capital. He has been around fintech for more than two decades and has been an active investor for most of that time. I am way overdue in getting him on the show.

In this conversation, we explore why 50% of Americans still live paycheck to paycheck despite fintech's growth, the dramatic transformation AI will bring to financial services (moving from advice to actionable help), and emerging opportunities in small business enablement, healthcare-finance intersections, and retirement solutions. Arjan also reflects on early investment wins like NerdWallet and Ripple, lessons learned from setbacks like Synapse, and how his recent year-long family journey around the world opened his eyes to innovative financial models like Australia's superannuation system that could revolutionize wealth creation for America's middle class.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How Core is different from other VC firms.
• How fintech has improved the underbanked population in this country.
• Why fintech hasn’t made a bigger difference for financially fragile people.
• Some of the business models that work for serving this population.
• A look at some of his successful early investments.
• What he missed when he decided to invest in Synapse.
• What is different in the fintech space today than a decade ago.
• How he views AI when looking at early stage companies today.
• The different verticals within fintech where there is most interest today.
• Arjan’s perspective on the fintech IPO window.
• What he would do if he had a magic wand to help lower and middle income consumers.
• What he learned traveling around the world with his family for a year.

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

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• Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes