In this conversation, we have a special episode where Lex Sokolin - Chief Editor of The Fintech Blueprint - walks us through some strong mental models for how FinTech works, how financial services is evolving, how technology is spreading into and out of financial services, and also how we consumers, people are getting reprogrammed or used to different modes of engagement entirely. Additionally, Lex touches on how the interactions between some of the largest tech, finance, regulatory, and governm...
Oct 28, 2022•54 min•Ep 86•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Shamir Karkal, CEO and Co-Founder of Sila - a banking and payment platform for software teams building the next generation of financial products & services in regulated and unregulated industries. A true FinTech pioneer, Shamir played a crucial part in building the infrastructure that would pave the way for online banking. In 2009, he co-founded Simple, the first bank of its kind in the United States, and later headed the Open Platform at BBVA. Shamir was drawn...
Oct 21, 2022•47 min•Ep 85•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Gwendolyn Regina, Investment Director at BNB Chain. Her main responsibilities include streamlining processes around deal sourcing, investment strategy, portfolio management and growth. As a part of her role she invests in promising projects in the web3 and MetaFi space (GameFi, SocialFi, NFTs etc.), and leads the MVB incubation program, which she set up. Gwen was the head of venture capital partnerships at Meta and built its startup fast-track growth program. B...
Oct 14, 2022•40 min•Ep 84•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Jeff Keltner, the SVP Business Development at AI-powered digital lending fintech, Upstart. Jeff joined Upstart in 2012 after spending 6 years at Google. He launched and built the Google Apps for Education business, growing market share from zero to almost 70% in its first four years. Jeff spearheaded marketing efforts for Google Apps in Global 2000 accounts and led sales, business development, and go-to-market strategy for the launch of Chrome devices in the ed...
Oct 07, 2022•46 min•Ep 83•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Soups Ranjan, the co-founder and CEO of Sardine.AI, a VC funded company with the mission to “confidently load money into a digital wallet”, where Sardine takes care of fraud and compliance issues related to money movement and instantly funds the money in the wallet. Prior to founding Sardine, Soups was head of crypto for Revolut and head of data & risk for Coinbase. He has held roles in cyber security and AI/Machine Learning at many Silicon Valley companies ove...
Sep 30, 2022•33 min•Ep 82•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Carlos Domingo, is a senior executive, entrepreneur, investor, and currently the CEO and Co-Founder of Securitize, Inc. Carlos has 25+ years of experience in innovation and digital transformation. Before becoming the CEO of Securitize, Carlos co-founded and launched SPiCE VC, a fully tokenized VC fund. In order to ensure global compliance for SPiCE VC, Carlos and his team created the security token issuance and lifecycle management platform that would later bec...
Sep 24, 2022•43 min•Ep 81•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Justin Drake, Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. He is also front and center of the biggest upcoming change to happen in Ethereum’s short history by transitioning from proof of work to proof of stake, commonly known as The Merge. A major engineering feat for what is the most active Blockchain in Crypto Justin lives in Cambridge, UK where he studied mathematics. He founded the Cambridge Bitcoin Meetup group in 2013, and in 2014 left his job as a programmer a...
Sep 16, 2022•58 min•Ep 80•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Jason Wilk, Co-Founder and CEO of Dave (NASDAQ:DAVE), a US challenger bank that has prevented $1 billion in overdraft fees, and has reached 10 million clients in just four years. Founded in 2017, Dave went public in January 2022 via SPAC that had a market cap of close to $4 billion. As a private company, Dave raised almost $200 million and attracted top investors and personalities like Mark Cuban, Norwest Venture Partners, Financial Solutions Lab, and even Dipl...
Sep 09, 2022•31 min•Ep 79•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Kareem Saleh, CEO of Fairplay — FairPlay is the first Fairness-as-a-Service™ solution for financial institutions and a fascinating company.– Kareem has been working on financial inclusion and underwriting hard-to-score borrowers his entire career. At ZestFinance (now Zest.ai) he served as Executive Vice President where he led the go-to-market strategy for the company’s AI-powered b2b SaaS underwriting platform and negotiated software licensing, partnership, fin...
Sep 02, 2022•41 min•Ep 78•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Mark Aubrey – CEO of Catheon Gaming. Prior to this, Mark was Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific (“APAC”) at Activision Blizzard, the leading gaming developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed games, including Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Mark has over 19 years of experience in the entertainment and gaming industry in the APAC region. Prior to Activision Blizzard, Mark wo...
Aug 26, 2022•42 min•Ep 77•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Prashant Fuloria – CEO of Fundbox. With decades of experience in payments and monetization, he has served in a wide variety of leadership, operational, and product roles at prominent technology companies. Prior to Fundbox, Prashant served as SVP of Advertising Products at Yahoo, having joined through the acquisition of Flurry, where he was the Chief Product Officer. He also served as Senior Director of Product Management at Facebook, where he led the company’s ...
Aug 19, 2022•41 min•Ep 76•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Chris Brookins – co-founder of RociFi, a new DeFi primitive for under-collateralized lending. Chris is a crypto veteran, having entered the space in 2014, and prior to RociFi, founded Valiendero Digital Assets, a quantitative cryptocurrency investment fund, founded out of Carnegie Mellon University. Valiendero utilized machine learning and data-driven investment strategies over a variety of liquid digital assets. Chris also held the COO position at a 2015 Y-Com...
Aug 12, 2022•46 min•Ep 75•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Matt Kopko – DailyPay's Vice President of Public Policy, where he manages DailyPay's interactions with regulators, legislators, other government officials and stakeholders. Prior to his role at DailyPay, Matt served in a similar role – Director of Public Policy – at Bird, the micromobility company. Matt was also a senior government official and member of the Senior Executive Service, as well as an attorney in private practice. Matt holds a bachelor's degree fro...
Aug 05, 2022•40 min•Ep 74•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Jacobc.eth, the now Head of Product Strategy for BitDAO’s Windranger Labs, and Head of Product for the Game7 DAO. Previously, Jacob worked as Lead of Operations at MetaMask, and before that he led product for the Panvala grant funding DAO, one of the earliest grant DAOs in the Web3 ecosystem. Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD. Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Ma...
Aug 01, 2022•42 min•Ep 73•Transcript available on Metacast Ivan Bakrac - is a Senior DeFi Market Strategist at ConsenSys, as well as Adjunct Professor in Blockchain Technologies & Decentralized Finance at Stevens Institute of Technology, and Adjunct Professor - Global Fintech: AI, Blockchain, Business Data Science at Berkeley College. Ajay Mittal - is a Senior Strategist, Cryptoeconomics at ConsenSys, as well as Co-Lead of Treasury at Friends With Benefits. James Chung - is a Senior DeFi Market Strategist, Cryptoeconomics at ConsenSys, as well as Founde...
Jul 22, 2022•39 min•Ep 72•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Simon Taylor, the head of strategy and content at Sardine.ai, which is a modern compliance infrastructure. Before this, Simon served as the Co-Founder and Blockchain Practice Lead at 11:FS. Simon has been immersed in the technology of financial services for as long as he’s been working and is consistently voted one of the most influential people in Banking, Insurance and Fintech by banks, his peers and a number of industry bodies. Simon Led Blockchain Research ...
Jul 15, 2022•35 min•Ep 71•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Meidad Sharon, the CEO and founder of the award-winning retail finance SaaS network platform ChargeAfter, the first global network to provide a complete solution to Point-of-Sale financing from multiple lenders. Meidad is a long-time high-tech industry veteran, with over 15 years of experience scaling global payments and SaaS businesses with a people and customer-first approach. As well as, demonstrating how simple payment processing and fraud prevention soluti...
Jul 08, 2022•40 min•Ep 70•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Ivan Maryasin, the co-founder and CEO of Monite, an embedded finance startup that is automating back-office accounting for SMEs. Earlier this year Monite raised $5M (€4.4M) in a funding round led by Point72 Ventures. Ivan lived for a time in Boston and San Francisco, working for different startups and going to school before settling in Berlin. A natural entrepreneur, Ivan began his first marketing consultancy at age 16, and he founded Monite after witnessing fi...
Jul 01, 2022•41 min•Ep 69•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Nick Lombardo, co-founder of Arc Technologies. Nick previously worked in private equity in New York where he experienced firsthand the limitations of traditional capital raising. In 2021, Nick and the other co-founders of Arc teamed up with Y Combinator and met with hundreds of software founders in the SF Bay Area and realized that they all shared a common pain point – startup funding is costly and distracting. Arc was founded to give founders an alternative to...
Jun 24, 2022•32 min•Ep 68•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Will Beeson, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer at digital bank BELLA. Previously, Will was a Principal at Rebank, a fintech advisory firm, as well as he co-founded Allica, a digital bank for businesses in the UK. After starting his career at Citigroup in New York, Will spent nearly a decade in Europe working with and managing financial services companies prior to launching Allica. Will holds a BA from Amherst College (USA) and is a Chartered Financial Analyst ...
Jun 10, 2022•34 min•Ep 67•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Kurtis Lin, the co-founder & CEO of Pinwheel, a leading payroll connectivity API. The son of two immigrant parents, Kurt saw how the lack of credit history created a greater struggle for them to access and secure financial products. This experience became a driving force for him and his co-founders to create Pinwheel. Kurt has been involved in multiple startup acquisitions, first Idean and later with Luxe. Following Luxe’s acquisition by Volvo, he received an H...
Jun 03, 2022•40 min•Ep 66•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Sami Start, the Co-founder and CEO of Transak. Transak is one of the fastest and securest way to buy 100+ cryptocurrencies on 75+ blockchains. Users can pay via Apple Pay, UPI, Bank Transfer or use a credit or debit card. The company is trusted by more than 2 million users globally and empowers wallets, gaming, DeFi. NFTs, Exchanges and DAOs in more than 145 countries. Sami is based in London and has worked in high frequency trading and B2C fintech – his passio...
May 27, 2022•34 min•Ep 65•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Steven Goldfeder, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Offchain Labs – the team building Arbitrum. He holds a PhD from Princeton University, where he worked at the intersection of cryptography and cryptocurrencies. Before Offchain, he attended Princeton as a PhD candidate, where his research explored economics, anonymity, and incentive compatibility of cryptocurrencies. More specifically, we geek out on the heydays of early cryptography and the connection ...
May 20, 2022•47 min•Ep 64•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Marieke Flament, CEO of Near Foundation. Marieke is a French-born computer engineer who has worked across the globe in a diverse range of companies that include Boston Consulting Group, LVMH, and Expedia’s Hotels.com. In her previous role, she was Managing Director of Europe and Global CMO for Circle, one of the world’s largest crypto companies. At Circle, she pioneered the consumer application of blockchain, taking several products to market and building a use...
May 13, 2022•47 min•Ep 63•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Mona El Isa, the co-founder of Enzyme, one of the industry’s leading decentralised asset management protocols, and founder and CEO at Avantgarde Finance. She is also President of MAMA (Multichain Asset Managers Association), and was nominated Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and Digital Shaper in Bilanz magazine. Mona is a former star-trader at Goldman Sachs, promoted to Vice President by the age of 26 and made the “Top 30 under 30” list in Trader...
May 06, 2022•40 min•Ep 62•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Gene Hoffman, Chief Operations Officer and President at Chia Network. Formerly CEO & co-founder Vindicia, eMusic, PGP, PrivNet. Recognized by the San Francisco Business Times with the “40 under 40 Emerging Leaders Award” in 2012, Gene has deep experience with building companies that disrupt markets. As head of eMusic, Gene was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine as a member of the July 1999 E-Gang, and named one of the 100 most influential entrepreneurs in...
Apr 29, 2022•46 min•Ep 61•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Dan Heyman, Co-founder and CEO of Palm NFT Studio and Network. Dan is a blockchain industry leader with experience building and leading organisations through the design, development and implementation of enterprise-grade blockchain protocols. Prior to Palm, Dan was the co-founder and Program Director of PegaSys, focusing on the strategy and operations of the team. Prior to joining PegaSys and ConsenSys, he was co-founder and CEO of Stack AI, COO of the Demeter ...
Apr 22, 2022•42 min•Ep 60•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Sergej Kunz, the co-founder of the 1inch Network, a distributed network of decentralized protocols. From 2015 to 2019, Sergej worked for consulting firm Mimacom, running projects for major customers such as Bosch, Siemens and Porsche. After joining Porsche on a full-time basis, he gradually shifted toward cybersecurity. He also co-hosted the YouTube show CryptoManiacs. At a 2019 hackathon, Sergej and the 1inch Network's eventual co-founder, Anton Bukov, develop...
Apr 15, 2022•42 min•Ep 59•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Karn Saroya, the co-founder & CEO of Cover, a YC-backed insurance technology company that simplifies the process of getting property insurance and focuses on underserved communities. Karn is responsible for operations, business development, growth and investor relations. To date, Karn has raised $27M for the company through its seed, Series A and Series B rounds. More specifically, we touch on the inefficiencies of the property insurance industry, introducing t...
Apr 08, 2022•42 min•Ep 58•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation, we chat with Luca Prosperi, is a MakerDAO believer and senior finance professional with 15 years of experience in banking and credit investments. Luca has a wide range of experience ranging from publishing a Substack newsletter on the evolution of banking and DeFi, to working for the likes of Ripplewood Advisors, Partners Capital, Morgan Stanley, Oliver Wyman. Luca holds a Masters in Business Administration from London Business School, and a MSc and BS in Mathematical Econo...
Apr 01, 2022•44 min•Ep 57•Transcript available on Metacast 
