Scouting for Growth

By Sabine VanderLindenBusiness Entrepreneurship Technology

Scouting for Growth episodes

March 09, 2023Axel Thibon: Wizest... Investing Made Easy
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine talks to Axel Thibon, founder of Wizest, the next generation of investment trading platforms. With his team, Axel aims to make personal investing more accessible, engaging, and aligned with today's digital platforms and changing consumer behavior. Today, people think that investing is complicated and intimidating. What if there were a platform to pair novice investors with financial experts?
Before Wizest, Alex worked in banking for over six years. He led and guided 4 M&A/integration projects for banks ranging from $300M to $15B, and led strategy and transformation initiatives at Renault Nissan Mitsubishi for 9 years and at Sabadell United Bank for 5 years. He has brought all that expertise to Wizest for the last 4 years. Axel has managed and launched a brand new digital bank from scratch.
Sabine and Axel discuss why we need to make investing simple, the challenges with current mass-market wealth management platforms, how Wizest works, and the target market and sources of success.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Wizest democratizes access to the stock market through technology so everyone can invest just like the top 1%. A Wizest client has access to a team of financial experts who invest on their behalf, and the client can choose which expert to add to their team with a single click, instantly copying that expert's portfolio.
Axel had an interesting path before doing Wizest. He was a mechanical engineer for the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi group, in charge of developing components for electric vehicles. When attempting to invest for the future, Axel found the process complicated and unsupportive, which inspired him to enter the banking world, gaining experience launching a digital bank from scratch and eventually dedicating his efforts to making investment simpler with Wizest.
Wizest solves the problems that limited capital investors face, with minimum investment barriers set by banks, the investor’s lack of experience and knowledge of the stock market, and the reluctance to invest due to the lack of inclusion and transparency on earlier platforms.
When you use Wizest for the first time, you see people. It is very welcoming and personal, with the financial investors sharing their personal profiles first, so you can get to know them before you see their recommended portfolios and understand their investment styles.
Wizest is working to form partnerships with corporations to increase their reach by offering Wizest memberships to their employees. This kind of service is to offer a service in between savings and wealth management or private investment. There is global potential for this kind of financial accessibility solution.
Axel recommends approaching investing as a personal experience. Rather than just approaching a bank and taking the standard route to retirement-type investments, take some time to fully consider your current financial situation and your goals. Stick to your plan and avoid reacting to every financial crisis.
BEST MOMENTS
‘This is a journey that is shared by many of us. When we want to start investing with limited capital, we tend to go with cheap or even free solutions. If you don't have any finance background and don't know what to buy and what to sell, it's tough.’
‘It's not about the service itself, which is about being able to invest or trade, but how the investing happens. So that's what we decided to change with Wizest, which is different from the others because it's not only making it more convenient and accessible, but it is also changing how it is happening.'
‘From there, the user can choose one or several investors they like to build a team. They can build a team that will work for them. When I say that when you have $2,000, $5,000, and $10,000 to work with in Wizest, you then work with your team. Your experts help you build your real portfolio. The way you manage your portfolio is not by managing your underlying holdings but by managing your team.’
‘It’s not like setting up a lemonade stand. To be able to launch Wizest, we have to be able to make sure we have a secure solution that is compliant with regulations and that we have the right sort of technical integrations.’
‘When you put the plan in motion, the most important thing most people forget is sticking to the plan. Don't be affected by what is happening today or tomorrow in the market, or overreact and be scared, because when we look historically over the last hundred years, the markets are always up and down.'
ABOUT THE GUEST
With his team, Axel aims to make personal investing more accessible, engaging, and aligned with today's digital platforms and changing consumer behavior. Today, people think that investing is complicated and intimidating. What if there were a platform to pair novice investors with financial experts?
Before Wizest, Alex worked in banking for over six years.
Led and guided4 M&A/integration projects for banks ranging from $300M to $15B
Led strategy/ transformation initiatives
Managed a digital Bank and launched a new bank from scratch
ABOUT WIZEST
Described by Forbes as “far more authentic than Robinhood will ever be," Wizest is the next-generation investment trading platform. Our technology is democratizing access to the stock market so everyone can invest, like the 1%. Build a team of financial experts to invest on your behalf by copying their portfolios in one click. Optimize with performance leaderboards, pick experts you relate to and align with your values, then learn why they make their trades in your news feed. There’s no limit to the expertise at your fingertips!
Wizest aims to democratize the stock market and make investing accessible for everyone. The team believes everyone should be able to invest and achieve their financial goals, regardless of their experience or background.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
39 min
March 02, 2023Dennis Kelly: Digitizing direct mail with Postalytics
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Dennis Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Postalytics, a fast-growing software company that automates direct mail marketing, measures the results from direct mailing activity, and connects such campaigns to CRM and marketing automation systems to accelerate the way online marketing connects with offline marketing.
With expertise in building VC-backed and self-financed businesses, Dennis is a 6-time entrepreneur. He exited 4 of these businesses to larger corporations.
Postalytics has grown rapidly with no VC investment, and today is scaling in the US and Canada, with aspirations to expand into Europe.
During the podcast, the pair cover 1) Dennis’ lessons on building VC-backed and self-financed businesses, 2) what PLG (Product-led growth) means, 3) why every business needs to learn a little bit about PLG, and 4) Postalytics’ proposition and roadmap to success.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I grew up on a farm where my family and I worked very hard and were entrepreneurial in trying to make extra money. I’d reach out to neighbors and community members to offer my services and help with whatever needed to be done. Some of those lessons apply today, such as... not being afraid to knock on someone's door and tell them what you're doing and how you can help them.
Postalytics is a direct mail automation software tool designed to solve three big problems with the direct mail marketing workflow. This legacy marketing channel has been around for many years and remains very useful and successful, but it hasn't received much technological investment. We've taken some of the best practices from digital marketing and combined them into a software tool that enables marketers to deploy direct mail campaigns in minutes rather than weeks.
We connect direct mail – a physical channel where a printed piece of paper is sent through the postal service – to the marketing tech stack (CRM, CDP), which drives and accumulates knowledge of what happens in a direct mail marketing campaign through Postalytics. Similar to how all digital marketing channels are driven from central locations.
We've created a method of assigning a unique QR code to each recipient of a piece of mail. The opportunity is to use that physical piece of paper that offers you something while holding it, and drive them to your website through the QR code, which everybody is comfortable with now.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Each time you participate in the design and launch of a startup, there's always tremendous learning you can take away from that experience.’
‘One of the challenges with any offline marketing channel is measuring what is successful and who is/isn't responding. We've created some proprietary methods of measuring both the delivery of the mail and who’s responding and where they are going on your website.’
‘It's impossible for the QR codes to be manipulated by a third party because each one is unique and fully encrypted.’
‘The cost of creating a highly scalable, high-performance platform in the cloud has plummeted. You can do so without spending a huge amount of money. Our business model allows us to capture customers without a tremendous capital outlay. We didn't need to raise much money to get this business off the ground. Once the business got going, it became self-sustaining.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Denis Kelly is CEO of Postalytics, a fast-growing software company that automates direct mail marketing, measures the results, and connects it to CRM/Marketing Automation.
Postalytics evolved from Boingnet, a software tool used by direct mail service providers and agencies to create landing pages and email campaigns that complement personalized direct mail.
I was a co-owner of Wireless City, a chain of 37 Verizon Wireless stores based in Florida, Massachusetts, and Georgia. The company was acquired by Go Wireless in October 2011. Before Wireless City, I was CEO at Adesso Systems, an enterprise mobility software company. Previously, I was the CEO and Co-Founder of Adjoin Solutions, Inc., an early leader in the Web Services Management market. Adjoin was acquired by Computer Associates in July 2003. Before founding Adjoin, I was VP of Web Services at Palm (PALM), leading the Palm.net wireless business, the MyPalm web and mobile portals, and other Palm web properties. Previously, I was COO & Co-Founder of AnyDay.com (sold to Palm) and headed sales at Achieve Healthcare, the largest provider of enterprise software and services to the post-acute healthcare industry. And COO at Genesis Business Systems (sold to Achieve). Dennis holds a BA in economics from Colgate University.
I build companies, typically in the technology space. My role typically spans product development, sales, marketing, finance, and HR. I started life as a sales guy, spent time building products and running data centers, have been CEO of venture-backed startups, and have built self-financed businesses.
ABOUT POSTALYTICS
With automated direct mail marketing, marketers use Postalytics to stand out from their competitors. Drive new leads and sales with personalized direct mail that complements email and digital marketing. Deep integration with HubSpot, Salesforce, and other CRM/Marketing Automation tools enables direct mail to look, act, and feel like a digital marketing channel that also produces trackable postcards and letters.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
42 min
February 23, 2023James Marshall: Spinning Fox the product-led design agency
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to James Marshall, managing director of Spinning Fox, a product-led design agency focused on helping large and small businesses solve problems more creatively.
James has 11 years of delivery experience and a proven ability to manage super large global accounts, having worked for companies including HSBC, Nike, Unilever, PepsiCo, Adidas, Dyson, Samsung, Barclays, and Ford. He is passionate about creating tech and operational solutions to solve business and consumer problems and drive opportunities much faster than traditional approaches.
On the podcast, the pair discuss: 1) James’ journey into the design thinking and user experience world, 2) why operational efficiency is so hot right now, 3) the power of taking an outside-in perspective, and 4) good problem solving requires us all to take calculated risks.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I wasn't that good at school; it didn't suit me very well, but things clicked when I went to university to study graphic design. I worked in my early career as a designer, but I had ambitions to own my own company and quickly spotted that I needed to develop more business skills. I moved to London to work in digital agencies and took a sideways step into programme leadership, where I worked with incredible clients. That's where I found I was passionate about delivering digital product solutions.
Spinning Fox was created after we witnessed digital product teams trying to deliver digital products and platforms and failing, which was quite common, and through those failures, we learned. We wanted to build a company to create products and use our learnings to solve problems and develop solutions for clients. Underlying that is a love for design and tech and using it to solve problems.
At a high level, the approach we try to take is firstly around discovery, immersing ourselves in our client's world. We can fast-track that process by doing some mini-workshops, meeting with stakeholders, and meeting the user, ideally, to understand the opportunity as quickly as possible and then defining things, identifying the user’s needs, pain points, and starting to work out the solution. Then we move into rapid prototyping and a cycle of testing and iteration, getting user feedback as quickly as possible before moving into implementation. We have full end-to-end delivery capabilities with our team of engineers, and QA is baked into our process.
We've had instances where the best solution for the client is something we can't do, but we'll work with them as a partner and find a third party to help deliver it. We're not afraid to say that. We won’t always engineer things to force them into the areas where we have significant expertise and prior knowledge. It’s about being honest and transparent with a client.
BEST MOMENTS
‘I learned early that if I wanted something, I had to work for it.’
'Spinning Fox is a collective of technologists, innovators, strategists, and designers, all with one shared passion: Solving problems. That's how we deliver value to our clients.’
‘Everything we do puts the customer at the heart of everything throughout the process to validate that we're on the right track.’
‘There's no time to stand still as a digital product agency. If you do, then you’ll become a dinosaur in five minutes. You have to be very aware of what's happening in the future. Being able to adapt your business model quite quickly is key.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
James Marshall is a delivery specialist passionate about creating tech and operational solutions to business and consumer problems or opportunities. He is motivated by working in an environment with like-minded, multidisciplinary teams.
With 11 years of delivery experience, James has a proven ability to manage projects with values over £1m for global accounts, including HSBC, Nike, Unilever, PepsiCo, Adidas, Dyson, Samsung, Barclays, and Ford.
Programme management of projects including product and service design, experiential, interactive retail, digital within visitor attractions, large-scale web/app builds, end-to-end customer experience strategy, and business transformation.
Experience implementing process and operational improvements and training teams to run projects using Agile delivery techniques. Fully certified ScrumMaster and DSDM AgilePM with strong and agile experience.
Strong client servicing skills through working as the main client contact across many projects and accounts.
Strategic thinker and problem solver with the ability to use knowledge and experience to generate new business opportunities and deliver against client goals for programmes of work.
Email: [email protected]
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
45 min
February 16, 2023Guillaume Bonnissent: Achieving digital underwriting excellence
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Guillaume Bonnissent, CEO and co-founder of Quotech, a data provider and technology platform that aims to give access to the very best data to insurance practitioners - from executive decision-makers, brokers, underwriters, actuaries, and even data scientists.
Guillaume has 20 years of insurance experience as both an underwriter and a senior executive. Throughout his career, Guillaume encountered one constant issue: the poor quality of data available to decision-makers at all levels, mainly due to legacy constraints.
During the podcast, Sabine and Guillaume cover: 1) leveraging 13 years of underwriting expertise to build Quotech, 2) delivering underwriting excellence in the 21st century, 3) growing and scaling Quotech, and finally 4) Guillaume’s roadmap to success.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Insurance companies must become better underwriters to remain competitive in the marketplace. Underwriting excellence is essential for an insurer to understand, price, and manage a customer's risk to minimise losses from potential insurance claims. Achieving this balance between insurer profitability and adequate protection for the insured is becoming increasingly difficult due to the complexity of engagements spreading across the insurance market.
Our brokers provide clients with quick, insightful risk management advice while helping them complete their application forms. Our underwriters have access to better, richer, and more consistent data and analysis to apply their underwriting judgment. Our actuaries and underwriting managers analyse and review the underwriting judgement, along with all the data and analyses reviewed by the underwriter.
Our process includes automated collection and analysis of each business class's most relevant data points, a complete audit trail of the data and decisions made against it, and management of the different authority levels, risk appetites, and rating models.
Underwriting excellence in insurance is the process of assessing, pricing, and managing a customer's risk to achieve an optimal balance between the insurer's profitability and the insured's adequate level of protection. The goal is to deliver a product that meets the expectations and needs of both parties while mitigating any potential losses from an insurance claim.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global market for Digital Insurance Platform, estimated at $102.2 billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of $169.2bn by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 9% over the analysis period.’
‘Insurance companies must become better underwriters to remain competitive.’
‘Achieving the balance between profitability for the insurer and adequate protection for the insured is becoming increasingly difficult due to the complexity of the insurance market.’
‘Underwriting excellence involves multiple steps, such as analysing customer data and risk factors, assessing potential losses, and deciding on a fair price for coverage. Experienced underwriters must be able to review relevant information efficiently and accurately make sound decisions about each risk. Building strong relationships with customers is also important.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Guillaume has 20 years of insurance experience as both an underwriter and senior executive.
Throughout his career, Guillaume encountered one constant issue: the poor quality of data available to decision-makers at all levels, mainly due to legacy systems.
I've held various positions in Underwriting and Operations, both in the Lloyd's and Company markets, and have underwritten other lines of business, including Credit Risk Insurance and Property Reinsurance.
I am very interested in Data Science with proficiency in R and Artificial Intelligence.
ABOUT QUOTECH
Quotech is a data provider and technology platform that aims to give access to the best data to all insurance industry practitioners - from brokers, underwriters, actuaries, and data scientists to claims adjusters and business developers, all the way up to the Board of Directors. Quotech wants to help everyone in the insurance distribution chain to make better decisions based on accurate, material, and relevant information.
Quotech creates beneficial insurance technology applications, making data-fuelled processes dramatically more efficient for commercial underwriters and brokers. Our founder, Guillaume, is our difference. We're also led by an experienced syndicate builder and MGA underwriter who's also a programmer. His first-hand understanding of re/insurance processes allows Quotech to deliver practical, efficient solutions that enhance and streamline workflows.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
55 min
February 09, 2023Sara Simeone: 101 on NFTs With Niftyz
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Sara Simeone, CEO and Co-Founder of Niftyz (formerly Digital Oracles), as well as of her recent initiative, the NoCodeLab, and Co-Chair of Start-up Working Group, Crypto Valley. Sara is a strategist with a commercial mind. She was one of the first to publish a paper in 2018 on how machine learning and blockchain will impact the future of digital marketing.
Sara worked with a portfolio of leading global accelerators, incubators, and VC professionals to tackle company maturity and co-develop programmes that both nurture potential and offer innovative capabilities to early-stage ventures.
During the course of their discussions, both ladies discussed 1) the Metaverse, NFTs, and Web 3.0, 3) why Sara launched and developed NFTs, 3) where the market for NFTs is going, and 4) what the investment challenges and opportunities are to deliver for the immersive internet in the right way.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I’ve been at the forefront of new technologies and developments on the web since the beginning of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. That’s what brought me to where we are today. I researched how machine learning and blockchain will impact the future of data, and in 2017, I got in touch with the Crypto Valley Environment and began building a network in Italy and the UK.
Web 2.0, the world we live in now, is dominated by platforms we use to share content and information online. Sometimes, unbeknownst to us, our information is sold online. It’s a business model that Facebook (Meta), Twitter, and many other publishers use to generate revenue. Web 3.0 is a container of new terminology. We’re looking at it as a decentralized web where we decide how our information is used and who we share it with, though there are still significant technical limitations and a significant knowledge gap.
Metaverse and NFTs are closely connected. Niftyz sees NFTs as keys that unlock specific content stored either on-chain or off-chain, revealing a wealth of information, data, tools, features, badges, and exciting new things in the metaverse. If we don’t understand NFTs and how to use these new tools, it will be challenging to access the metaverse.
We’ve been trained by the web and society to monetize the outputs we create. With Web 3.0 I see another angle, what I call ‘the input economy’ where I can start monetizing at every single step that goes into creating that output. From this perspective, we can see NFTs as empowering the monetization of this value-creation process. For instance, if my brand creates mock-ups of my fashion items, I could create an NFT version of each mock-up and ask my community to vote by purchasing the one they like best. This market research can be used in the future to create a physical item that people want. From here, AMAs with the designer, virtual fashion events for users only, etc.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Niftyz is basically a platform that wants to enable businesses and brands of all sizes and industries that want to get into this new world of NFTs.’
‘Everybody’s trying to get into the Metaverse, and brands are building teams with competencies around this, but it’s more of a PR/marketing play at the moment, whereas in the future, it will give some returns.’
‘NFTs have a bad reputation. In every phase of the internet, cowboys are trying to get rich quickly. Now, NFTs have begun to be adopted by artists because they’ve found a way to get in touch with a different type of audience.’
‘Web 3.0 is creating a new value for our know-how. That’s the ethos behind Niftyz, empowering people, businesses, and brands to monetize their know-how in a brand new way.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Sara Simeone is CEO and Co-Founder of Niftyz (formerly Digital Oracles), the NoCodeLab, and Co-Chair of Start-up Working Group of the Crypto Valley.
She is also a technology industry mentor, strategist, and growth management specialist with particular strengths in the optimization and commercial development of early-stage, rapid-development tech businesses.
Her ability to predict commercial and technical challenges far ahead of critical milestones is proven. As a respected strategist, she works with a portfolio of leading global Accelerators, Incubators, and VC professionals, tracking companies’ progress and maturity and co-developing programs that both nurture potential and offer 360-degree support to innovative early-stage ventures.
With an ability to decipher complex business concepts and technologies, she creates data and KPI-based go-to-market strategies that really work. Practical experience includes managing and mentoring senior teams, negotiating multi-million-pound contracts, and guiding companies to achieve maximum results without compromising team morale and P&L management.
In 2018, Sara Simeone published her master's thesis on how machine learning and blockchain will impact the future of digital marketing. She was one of the first marketers in the world to publish a piece on the topic. This piece of research gave her access to several professional opportunities: mentoring startups at CV Labs in Crypto Valley (Switzerland); consulting for emerging technology companies in the UK and abroad, and lecturing at Manchester Metropolitan University as an Associate Lecturer of Digital Marketing Strategy.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
48 min
February 02, 2023Previsico’s CEO + co-founder on predicting and preventing flood risk
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Dr. Avi Baruch, co-founder and COO of Previsico, and Jonathan Jackson, co-founder and CEO of Previsico. Previsico is a specialist in surface water flood forecasting, enabling people and organisations to minimise the impact of flooding.
Flooding cost the global economy more than $82 billion in 2021, accounting for nearly a third of all losses from natural catastrophes, according to a 2022 study by the Swiss Re Institute. Estimates from Statista show that 29 million people were affected by Flooding in 2021. Flooding is the second-largest weather-related peril after droughts.
During the course of the podcast, Avi, Jonathan, and Sabine discuss: 1) Flooding and the difference between natural hazards and man-made disasters, 2) Previsico’s four step-method to reduce flood risk, 3) build back better and why we ought to protect the small and medium-sized business from flooding, 4) protect, predict, prevent and 5) top tips to reduce the risk of flood.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
During my PhD, I realized academia wasn’t for me, but I saw so much potential in the technology we were building to monitor floodwater in real time and issue early warnings. I felt the only way to really get it to be used effectively on the ground was to spin out the company. We explored quite a few markets to find which would be best served by it, and that’s where I met Johnathan.
To reduce flood risk, we recommend four main steps: Step 1 – Understand your risk. There are a lot of really good risk-monitoring products already out there on the market. Step 2 – Invest in the right risk measures, such as flood defences or non-return valves. Step 3 – Have a flood action plan: know what to do when you’re expecting a flood, move stock, turn off electricity, and identify who’s responsible for the response. Step 4 – Use an early warning system. This is the final part of the jigsaw when building flood resistance. If you take all those steps, you can substantially reduce the risk and hopefully prevent a disaster from ever occurring.
Resilience measures are often really simple things, like turning off the gas, electricity, and water. That alone can save a huge amount. Moving your car to a safer place is really simple stuff that makes a huge difference. People in communities like Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, for example, where back in 2015 they were closed down for months after a flood, are not reopening after three days; it’s a massive change because they understand what to do. Other communities that are not used to floods are more challenging because you’ve got to know what to do with the warning you’ve been given.
COP26 made a big play around the fact that the UK government cannot defend the country against floods, the country has to learn to adapt to floods, and adaptation means starting to take responsibility for flood plans and resilience measures. That’s being backed up by the insurance industry making really important moves in terms of ‘build back better’, where a property has been hit by flood, that homeowner will be given up to £10,000 additional funding by a number of insurers to help them put in flood resilience measures to protect against flood going forward.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Flood risk is rising, there’s more extreme weather, the weather is more volatile, climate change is causing heavier downpours – particularly in the summer – and longer, wetter winters.’
‘There’s no such thing as a natural disaster. There are natural hazards and human disasters. If you know where the hazard is going to be and you are able to prepare for it effectively, it doesn’t need to be a disaster.’
‘If people are used to having to cope with floods, they tend to know what to do. Our solution is a great value-add that we can bring to that situation.’
‘We shouldn’t be building new developments on floodplains, especially when we haven’t fully addressed the impact that flooding will have on those properties.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Avi Baruch
Jonathan Jackson
ABOUT PREVISICO
Previsico is a surface water flood forecasting specialist enabling people and organisations to minimise the impact of flooding. Backed by Foresight Group and underpinned by two decades of research at Loughborough University, Previsico’s world-leading solution is used by insurers, businesses, and the government to reduce losses. Our mission is to be the leading global provider of cutting-edge flood prediction that saves lives and livelihoods while significantly reducing the cost of flooding. Having launched in January 2019, we have a growing team of ~25 people with offices in Loughborough and London.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
40 min
January 26, 2023Jeff Williams: Discovering Kayrros’ geospatial data
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Jeff Williams, former Managing Director for Kayrros USA, a technology-focused earth observation analytics company using unconventional geospatial data to bring new insights to the world’s biggest industries, including energy, commodity, and insurance.
Jeff has an incredible background in top-5 consultancy and M&A, acquired in the energy sector. He uses these skills every day as he deep dives into the challenge posed by methane's impact on environmental change.
During the course of our conversation, the pair discussed: 1) Kayrros as a series C scaleup focused on delivering solutions using unconventional geospatial data, 2) Kayrros - Off the shelf platform… with white box data analytics and scoring mechanisms to meet the need of today’s underwriters and regulators, and 3) Kayrros, the long-term geospatial partner for the insurance sector looking at solving wildfire and other connected catastrophic events.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I got my start, like many Texans who want to get into technology, I started working for a large consulting company at the tip of the spear of energy tech. There, I started working with large energy companies on data and realized that all their data is spatially related. They have assets all over the country, a sensor network that they weren’t leveraging, but more importantly, we were solving problems that were facing challenges of where to go and where not to go. I then started working with geospatial startups and realized there’s a lot of data out there that companies aren’t leveraging effectively. Six months ago, I started working at Kayrros, where they’ve generated real profits in the commodities and energy markets. I fundamentally believe I can leverage the foundation they built to work with the insurance industry and expand it from the commodities and energy industry into insurance.
We’ve built our insights to include asset monitoring for energy companies to track climate data and detect emissions. We’ve evolved from just an insights company to a climate data company. We see the cause of methane emissions, and now we want to start tracking the effects, which include wildfires and floods, and the industries that are really going to be affected by those issues are insurance and banking, which is why we’re really starting to focus on those as the following industries to work with.
We track pre-risk, we have a risk score, and we’re using several different geospatial datasets – weather and landslide risk. We also provide live monitoring, using satellite data to detect fires with rapid updates we can share with our clients. Also, post-fire, we provide a damage assessment. What we’re focussing on is not one specific thing. We’re affecting several parts of the insurance company, including underwriting, customer communication, and claims.
A challenge we see with geospatial data is insufficient refreshes, poor granularity, and a lack of transparency. The lack of transparency has really hurt the geospatial industry over the past couple of years. We don’t view ourselves as a black-box solution. Many of our potential customers just get handed a solution by other companies. What we want to do is work with our customers and provide a white-box solution where they know exactly what all the data inputs are, and we do that together.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Companies like Kayrros really want to provide the right insights, and geospatial data really provides those insights for them.’
‘Kayrros got its name using satellite data to detect global crude tank levels. We used radar to detect how much crude oil was in tanks.’
‘Track climate data using satellites, drones, AI, and cell phone data.’
‘We’re fighting the geospatial fatigue in industries. We’re doing that by positioning Kayrros as a true geospatial partner, not a vendor.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Jeff Williams is the Managing Director of Sales & Business Development for Kayrros, where he is responsible for driving the Kayrros North American growth strategy.
Jeff's roots run deep in Houston, as demonstrated by his love for the Astros. Last but not least, his greatest accomplishment is his family, which includes his wife, Lucy, and their two kids, Jake and Lucy Williams.
ABOUT KAYRROS:
Kayrros is a technology-focused earth observation analytics firm using unconventional data to bring new insights to the world’s biggest industries. By harnessing the power of satellite imagery, natural language processing, machine learning, and advanced mathematics, the team at Kayrros delivers actionable intelligence on virtually any asset worldwide, in near real-time, to support better decision-making.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
29 min
January 19, 2023Federico Spagnoli: Prudential and Embedded Health
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Federico Spagnoli, at the time President and Head of Emerging Markets Ecosystems for Prudential Financial LATAM, now Vice President of International Total Wellness Solutions.
Federico is well known for his work launching Vitality in South America and providing health services to over 1.5 million South Americans, who can today download an App from their mobile device to get access to a multitude of health services.
During this podcast, Sabine and Federico evaluate 1) Federico’s vision about enhancing people’s physical, mental, and financial wellness, 2) where the world of health insurance is going regarding protection and prevention, 3) relevant strategic distribution approaches by augmenting the broker channel, and 3) tips for those interested in monetization models.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
I joined Prudential 6 years ago doing an executive program with SAID within Oxford University focusing on disruption and innovation. Part of the theme of my paper was related to disruption in the insurance industry because we haven’t seen this in the industry in many years. When I started focusing on the critical driver affecting our customers. I realized there were a lot of opportunities there for us to start thinking very differently about how we approach business today.
These past six years have been the first time I’ve worked in the life insurance industry. I was asked why life and health insurance companies aren’t doing more to prevent conditions and situations that eventually will become a claim, like high cholesterol, which – in some instances – include a pill that can reduce mortality rates by 50%. That led me to look at the aging population, which, along with global warming, is one of the biggest challenges we’re facing as a society. We need to look at the ability to retire comfortably and the ability to afford rising healthcare costs. This made me think about a lot of new technologies and data capabilities that are coming to market that life insurers could use to start preventing, anticipating, and mitigating bad conditions.
Mortality risk is not top of mind for customers because today, we live longer. The problem we face today concerns aging populations and how to reduce the risk of being unhealthy through behavior change. Physical, mental, and financial wellness is the ability to understand your emotions around money and develop healthy feelings and a personal literacy around money and wellness. Physical, mental, and financial wellness topics also encompass the tools and strategies that help you feel secure and in control of your personal life.
The insurer can engage directly with the customer through the SuperApp, where behavioral economics and gamification allow for the insurer to influence the customer’s behavior by providing annual physical checks and rewards through coins, integrated into a marketplace with choices for rewards, and continuously bringing fresh and exciting content to the viewer.

BEST MOMENTS
‘If you follow a customer-centric approach, you can't view customers with one lens. Not being able to afford healthcare services could result in mental health issues because one has anxieties, which also affect one's physical health -- all generated by limited financial means. We have to look at them all together and provide a single integrated solution.’
‘We’re now shifting from life insurance protection to lifetime protection.’
‘New generations are thinking more about global warming, social impact, financial inclusion, and a more balanced lifestyle. In insurance, we are already connecting with these customer groups over a long period of time because of the nature of the insurance that we sell. We can start introducing several solutions as part of a platform that can address and be much more relevant to our customer’s needs and behaviors and influence them.’
‘Customers that are using the Prudential platform provide a Net Promoter score that is twice higher than those customers that don’t use the platform. The highest level of satisfaction has a direct impact on renewal rates, and platinum customers show higher life expectancy and lower claims ratios.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Federico Spagnoli is passionate about Ecosystem/Strategy and Innovation. General and Life Insurance professional with international experience. Expertise in re-underwriting insurance portfolios, strategic planning, M&A, and business development.
Over six years in Prudential Financial. PII Regional President of Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Peru (through the JV with ILC/Habitat AFP). Direct responsibility for Prudential Seguros Argentina and Prudential Seguros México.
Responsible for managing the PII's relationship with AFP Habitat and acting as Europe - Latin America head of strategic business development.
Member of the Board of Directors of Prudential Seguros Mexico and AFP Habitat
About Prudential Financial:
Prudential Financial (NYSE:PRU) was founded on the belief that financial security should be within reach for everyone. For over 140 years, Prudential has helped our customers reach their potential and tackle life's challenges for now and future generations to come. Today, the group is one of the world’s largest financial services institutions, offering individual and institutional clients a wide array of financial products and services. With operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, Prudential Financial is known for delivering on its promises to its customers and is recognized as a trusted brand and one of the world’s most admired companies.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
45 min
January 12, 2023Alexis Cierra Vaughn: Preventing cyber crime with Cowbell
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Alexis Cierra Vaughn, the Senior Director of Agency Marketing at Cowbell and the producer and host of the Cowbell Factor, a podcast ranked at the top of its category across several key international markets.
Alexis is an outstanding professional and mum, with a passion for business and for enabling the success of others.
Alexis has been in the insurance sector for 13 years and has built a strong expertise in explaining, in simple terms, what Cyber security means AND why one needs to protect oneself against cyber risk.
During the course of the podcast, they discuss three main topics: 1) Alexis has been in insurance for 13 years. SO Let’s discover a millennial’s path into insurance, 2) Cowbell's journey to becoming a cyber security risk prevention leader, 3) How the product works and why it is essential to educate the user and... 4) the Cowbell Factor!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I started my 13-year career in insurance as an agent, and within my first three years, I made a significant impact by being great at relationship-building. My background was in retail sales. I was asked to get into the insurance industry several times, but I thought it would be boring. I took a leap of faith and studied for a license to see if it interested me… I immediately fell in love with it. It was perfect for me.
I then thought: “How do I help other single moms do this?” I didn’t want to keep all the diamonds and jewels to myself. I wanted to ensure I shared the wealth. So, I went independent and started my own agency with 26 single moms, teaching them everything there is to know about success in the insurance industry.
I focus on creative approaches and ways to get the message out about the importance of cyber insurance, specifically to the small-and-medium-sized business market – anyone from $0 to $1 billion in revenue.
Cyber includes phishing emails, phishing text messages, and how people use QR codes and swap them. In a post-pandemic world, we are all connected to the internet in some type of way. We’re literally in an interconnected environment where we’re always on our phones, iPads, laptops and moving so quickly that we’ll miss tiny things like one letter change in the domain – for example, websites with .co instead of .com. That’s so important. Your first line of defense is always your employees. You want to make sure you have multi-factor authentication in place. It might take an extra 5 minutes to log in, but I’m telling you, it’s so much better to spend that extra 5 minutes rather than fork out $5 million because you’re a victim of a ransomware attack.
BEST MOMENTS
‘I took a networking approach, and within the first two years of having my agency, I grew my business from 25 to 1,165 clients off pure networking and building relationships in the community.’
‘I break everything all the way down and make such a complex product topic, like cyber insurance, become digestible for agents, brokers, and policyholders.’
‘I believe that the direction cyber insurance is going in should be the life insurance for a small business. If they don’t have cyber insurance and they are a victim of a cyber attack, it could put them out of business.’
‘As a millennial, our biggest thing is we want to make an impact on our community and globally. We’re constant learners, and the insurance industry really creates a space where there’s always something new on the horizon, every product is ever-changing, and the cyber landscape changes on a daily, if not hourly, basis.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Alexis is a 13-year Award-Winning Insurance Expert and Senior Director of Agency Marketing at leading InsurTech Cowbell, where she oversees all agency engagement efforts for 18,000 producers appointed with Cowbell. Alexis is also the Host & Producer of "The Cowbell Factors" Podcast she created to bridge the gap between the Cybersecurity and Cyber Insurance industries. The show is ranked #28 in the US, #16 in India, #35 in the UK, #20 in Israel, and #100 in Australia on Apple Podcast Business News. The show is now available on iHeartRadio for national distribution after only five months on air and can be found on Spotify and all other streaming platforms. She is also a highly sought-after Cyber Educator in the agency community.
Cowbell is a pioneer of Adaptive Cyber Insurance, a leader in providing coverage for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that adapts to today’s and tomorrow’s threats and provides advanced warning of cyber risk exposures.
Alexis was recently named by "Insurance Business America" as one of the top 85 trailblazing Elite Women in Insurance for 2022 and, in 2022, as a top "Influencer" on the "Top 100 Insurance Innovators" list.
Alexis has over 16 years of experience spearheading sales, fundraising, recruiting, and marketing for companies in the midst of transition uplifts. Alexis has a very diverse background in Insurance, Cloud-based Technology, Benefits & Human Resource Consulting industries. Alexis has also managed Global Business Development Teams in the USA, Canada, and LATAM markets. Alexis has led countless marketing initiatives that increased market awareness, generated leads that have resulted in significant revenue in the Oil, Film & Entertainment, Government, Insurance, Logistics, Human Resources, Retail, Higher Ed, and Technology industries.
ABOUT COWBELL-CYBER
Cowbell is the leading provider of cyber insurance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the pioneer of Adaptive Cyber Insurance. Cowbell delivers standalone cyber coverage tailored to each business's unique needs. Our innovative approach relies on AI for continuous risk assessment and underwriting, while delivering policyholders a closed-loop risk management approach with risk prevention, risk mitigation, incident preparedness, and response services.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
44 min
January 05, 2023Xavier Gomez: FinTech Trends 2023
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Xavier Gomez, a Fintech Thought Leader and specialist in Investment Banking and Wealth Management with solid expertise in Fintech, Digital Assets, and Private Equity.
Xavier writes and speaks about emerging trends in our digital economy, with a sharp lens on what is disrupting finance: financial inclusion and regtech.
Xavier is also the co-chief editor of Invyo Insights, a Global Fintech Intelligence platform powered by Invyo. Xavier and his team partner with the best experts and entrepreneurs in the region to cover the latest trends across Digital Banking, Payments, InsurTech, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Financial Inclusion, and Financial Literacy.
Over the course of their discussion, the pair dives into the Digital Economy, FinTech, and WealthTech trends that affect the world of finance today and in the future.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I started my career as an investment banker in equity capital, moving between top management positions and trading algorithmic and self-derivatives. I then moved into wealth management, so I have a good understanding of the banking and finance sector, particularly in digitalization. Invyo is a data-driven startup that uses machine learning to help private equity firms and VCs to take investment opportunities to compare the data of the different kinds of investments they can do, and also to detect what is wrong in terms of competition. We provide a solution for everyone, from VCs, principals, and partners, to be driven and empowered by the data, so they don’t waste time collecting the data themselves, as they have all the elements possible.
We have had so many opportunities in the last five years with the explosion of startups, business models, etc. It’s a lot of work for investment actors – especially as they’re all a little bit old-fashioned – they invest in technology. Still, they don’t apply the technology to enable it to be augmented by data, as investors and private equity actors do.
Being an influencer, or the term "influencing," doesn’t matter. Why? I started by following others who were all very kind to me, gave me advice, and pushed me to publish more. I just want to share my insights and knowledge to educate people about financial literacy. By chance, a lot of people like what I publish.
AI will be an up trend for the next ten years. With this kind of upward trend, it is clearly a big top trend for the coming years. AI will also augment nearly every job across industries. It will be used to manage and automate the complex inventory management processes that happen behind the scenes. It’s impressive in terms of customer experience because AI/machine learning can improve their experiences, and more or less, with FinTech solutions, you can have a priceless experience.
BEST MOMENTS
‘We use a machine learning element to adapt solutions to the investment cases. Each is a little bit different. The philosophies of the two partners will differ. This is the beauty of machine learning with data.’
‘I spent many years in London, and I know the French accent is very successful with women 😊 !!’
‘Artificial intelligence will become real in organizations and enable any business to leverage its power to create more intelligent products and services. We saw this recently with the birth of OpenAI. This is the start. I didn’t expect it to come so far so early.’
‘The metaverse is a concrete application in the GameFi (gaming finance) industry, where we see a lot of big developments. It's a $300 billion market with a lot of payment activity. I don’t care for the term “metaverse,” but it’s become a shorthand for a more immersive internet. It’s expected to add $5 trillion to the global economy by 2030, and we will see by the end of 2023 an indication of what kind of direction the metaverse will take for the next decade.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Xavier Gomez is a Fintech Thought Leader and specialist in Investment Banking and Wealth Management with solid expertise in Fintech, Digital Assets, and Private Equity.
Xavier writes and speaks about emerging trends in our digital economy, with a sharp lens on what is disrupting finance: financial inclusion and regtech.
Xavier is also the co-chief editor of Invyo Insights, a Global Fintech Intelligence platform powered by Invyo. Xavier and his team partner with the best experts and entrepreneurs in the region to cover the latest trends across Digital Banking, Payments, InsurTech, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Financial Inclusion, and Financial Literacy.
ABOUT INVYO
INVYO is a leading technology solution provider specializing in data processing and analysis. Venture Capital looking for a new data-driven approach? Discover INVYO's newest solution designed for VC
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
44 min