Miguel Armaza sits down with the fascinating David Nangle is CEO of Vostok Emerging Finance, an investment company listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market in Sweden that invests in growth stage private fintech companies across the emerging world.

Born and raised in Ireland, Dave has spent his career focused on emerging markets having worked in places like Moscow and London, and has backed some of the top fintech names across Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, India, Kenya, and beyond. Some of VEF’s current and past portfolio companies include Creditas, Konfio, JUMO, and Tinkoff.

In this fun episode, we discuss:

- David’s story and why he quit his London job and moved to Moscow in the early 2000s without speaking a word of Russian

- Advantages of being a publicly listed firm with a permanent capital structure

- The incredible investment opportunities within fintech in emerging markets

- Why VEF actually invests harder and doubles down during volatile periods and how he even closed a deal in Turkey in the middle of an attempted coup with tanks on the streets

- Investment lessons and why you should always invest along with local VCs

- The exciting future of fintech in frontier markets like Pakistan, Egypt, and Nigeria… and a lot more!

David Nangle

David Nangle has spent his career focusing on emerging markets and within that the financial services sector. He was part of ING Baring’s Emerging Markets Research team between 2000 and 2006, after which he spent nearly 10 years with Renaissance Capital in both Moscow and London, as head of financials and research overall. He helped the firm develop and grow their financials and broader research footprint from a strong Russia base to a leading EM and frontiers franchise. Having had a front row seat in the evolution of the financial sector across emerging markets since the late 90’s, in 2015, he left the world of investment banking and co-founded VEF to back founders building the next generation of financial services firms across the emerging world.

About VEF

VEF is an investment company listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market in Sweden under the ticker VEFAB. We invest in growth stage private fintech companies across the emerging world. We take minority stakes and are active investors with board representation in each of our portfolio holdings. We respect the macro, but are firm believers that the secular growth trend of EM fintech, outweighs all the macro uncertainty and volatility that we and our portfolio companies will invariably live through. A digital financial world is the end game and the best companies always come out of pockets of macro and market turbulence in a stronger relative position.

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