The F in Tech Podcast

Is working in roller coasters not the perfect metaphor - and experience - for running an online trading platform? We think so! Yoni Assia, who leads social trading platform eToro, had his first taste of entrepreneurship when he founded a startup that involved installing video cameras on white-knuckle rides, and then selling DVDs to the riders as they wobbled out of their cars. He eventually sold it to former a high-flying tech stock called Kodak. And while that company's best years may be behind it, a bumper 2020, profits, and a return to the U.S. all suggest that eToro is very much a fintech for the future. 

Is it an insurtech, is it a unicorn, is it a hippo? It's all three! Having raised more than $700m, Hippo - which unlike, Lemonade, is firmly focused on homeowners insurance - is one of the hottest insurtechs on the planet. An IPO may happen this year. But getting to this point wasn't a given: “When we started the company," says Assaf, "the VCs kicked us off the stairs and basically said, that's the dumbest thing ever." 

How working with Jackie Chan, Pierce Brosnan and Netflix inspired Wayne Godfrey to found his film financing fintech, Purely Capital - and how he narrowly avoided becoming a rap star along the way (check out the WaynieG vs Guru video here!).

PS We're taking a break over the holidays. We'll be back on Jan 14. Happy New Year. 

In this episode, how being blocked from Soviet grad school set a maths genius grandmother on the path to founding Straterix, a fintech software startup that uses AI to help companies and financial institutions face the future without fear.  "You cannot predict anything," says Alla Gil, "but you can have a thousand "what if" scenarios, so you are ready for whatever gets realised." And yes, that includes the coronavirus pandemic. 

Brad Jones - our second Ozzie founder in as many weeks - co-founded Wave Money in 2015. Already profitable, the mobile money and payment app for Myanmar, has grown even faster under COVID. Fintech juggernaut, ANT, is now an investor. And it's valued at $250m. Yet it's not all been plain-sailing. Indeed, Brad, a former paratrooper, describes the life of a fintech founder as one of "hardship, difficulty and perseverance". Yet he wouldn't be doing it if he didn't think he could make an impact, or make it a success. "I was never going to fail in this job," he tells us. "Nothing was going to stop me."

"I landed in August 2008, and I looked around me and thought: "Jeez: what I have done?"." That was Christian Faes' first impression when he moved back to London to set up property finance fintech LendInvest, in the midst of the global financial crisis. After a year spent googling and cold-calling investors, raising no funds and doing no business, he'd have been forgiven for packing in the whole thing. But Christian and his cofounder persisted, the company grew, and despite challenges that would prove existential to many, LendInvest continues to thrive. 

He can trace the Chinese side of his family back some 2,000 years. His grandfather helped build Hong Kong into what it is today. And his dad invented HD TV. Disrupting the pension industry with technology is arguably an even tougher challenge, but that's exactly what Andrew Evans is doing. And some of the biggest institutions in the world are putting their money where his mouth is: JPMorgan, L&G, Barclays and Link Group are among those to back Smart Pension. The coronavirus pandemic and the drive to do all things digital has only added to the company's appeal; the recent launch in the U.S. should give it a further boost, and help make this unsung star of the fintech scene the next UK-based unicorn. 

In the world of fintech, one-trick ponies are no longer in vogue. Neobanks are getting into trading; trading apps are moving into wealth management; and payment apps are lending money. This suits Fintonic just fine. Based in Spain, with operations in Chile and Mexico, it's already in everything from insurance to banking to credit scoring - a kind of cross between MoneySupermarket and Experian. Before the pandemic struck, it was due to break even in 2020. Bonus points if you can think of any other companies that have THREE co-CEOs.