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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!

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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 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.

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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 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

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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:

1. David Haber, General Partner at a16z
2. Rana Yared, General Partner at Balderton Capital
3. Howard Morgan, Chair and General Partner at B Capital & Co-Founder of First Round Capital
4. Matt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures
5. Mercedes Bent, Partner at Lightspeed Ventures
6. Latif Peracha, General Partner at M13
7. Dan Rosen, Founder of Commerce Ventures
8. Martin Escobari, Co-President of General Atlantic
9. Emmalyn Shaw, Managing Partner at Flourish Ventures
10. 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.

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

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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

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[Original air date, Nov 8, 2022] Miguel Armaza sits down with Matt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures and 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? 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

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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

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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

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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

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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