The Insurtech Series: Where to play?

Lausanne
in ,

We talk to Marc Gruber, Vice President Innovation at EPFL and Professor of Entrepreneurship, about innovation, entrepreneurship, implications for FinTech, InsurTech and incumbents. In their book Where to play, Marc Gruber, together with Sharon Tal, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, address the issue of the need of start-ups to get to the target market first vs. the reality that more than 70% of them end up pivoting anyway. How to pick the right arena/domain early on to make pivoting less costly and increase the chances of success? How does entrepreneurship differ in Europe vs. the US or Asia?

Read More

The Financial Markets Series: Open Banking in Switzerland

Zurich
in ,

An interview with Sven Siat, Head Connectivity at SIX about open banking in Switzerland, comparison to the state of open banking in the EU and Switzerland, attempts to standardize connectivity between banks and FinTechs (third-party providers), SIX developed platform b.Link - user benefits, key clients and onboarding. What's in store for the connectivity efforts in Switzerland later this year? Listen in and find out more!

Read More

Investing in enterprise technology and scaling up: a Bay Area VC perspective

San Francisco
in

In this episode, we speak with Shruti Van Dyke Gandhi, partner at Array Ventures in California, focused on Enterprise Tech including FinTech about her transition from an engineer to a VC investor, Array's investment philosophy and approach, comparison between the West Coast and New York start-up scene with respect to FinTech and more.

Read More

Emerging technology due diligence - how?

Yverdon-les-Bains
in

Doing a due diligence is never an easy exercise. Especially when you want to form a view on emerging technology - is it going to work or not? Are there bugs in the code that are so hard to find they will only manifest themselves when the product will be live and overloaded by interest? Is it purely technical diligence? Is it a conversation or a tour? These are some of the topics we covered with Rodney Reis, co-founder and CEO of Avalia Systems, based in Yverdon-les-Bains, close to Lausanne, Switzerland.

Read More

The Insurtech Series: The government & the start-ups with A. Silberschmidt

Zurich
in ,

In this episode, we speak to Andri Silberschmidt, entrepreneur and the youngest member of the Swiss Parliament about his entrepreneurial journey, what drawn him to politics, views on Switzerland as a home for start-ups, Swiss government's measures to help start-ups to deal with the COVID-19 pandemics and the early thoughts on the world after the lockdown.

Read More

Core banking in the cloud with Thought Machine

London
in

In this episode, we talk to Paul Taylor, CEO and founder of Thought Machine, London headquartered cloud-native core banking technology company about benefits of running core banking infrastructure in the cloud, how the banks' thinking about this has shifted over last few years, Thought Machine's recent funding round ahead of the further growth phase and the importance of good coding practices in a growing software company and banks.

Read More

Founder story: In vino veritas - How to invest in wine businesses?

Bordeaux
in

In this episode, we talk to Maxime Debure, INSEAD alumnus, former winemaker and management consultant, about investing in wine vs. investing in wine estates, either through crowdfunding or private equity type of deals. His business called Wine Funding helps winemakers to obtain equity financing to help them grow their businesses in France and around the world.

Read More

Founder story: Pivoting to Scale with Rapyd and guest co-host Adelle Grisaffe from RFi Group's Global Digital Banker podcast

London
in ,

In this bonus episode, together with Adelle Grisaffe as a guest co-host, we interview Sarel Tal, VP EMEA from Rapyd, London based, FinTech-as-a-Service platform. Rapyd provides APIs that help integrate local payments and FinTech capabilities. Adelle is London based Australian, producer and host of RFi Group's (Retail Finance Intelligence) podcast Global Digital Banker. We talk about pivoting from B2C to B2B to accelerate scaling up, Rapyd's unfair advantage vs. competitors and the state of Open Banking in Europe. We also cover short and long term threats and opportunities coming of the current health crisis for start-ups and FinTechs in particular.

Read More

Tomorrow: Founder story - Pivoting to Scale with Rapyd and guest co-host Adelle Grisaffe from RFi Group's Global Digital Banker podcast

London
in

In this bonus episode, together with Adelle Grisaffe as a guest co-host, we interview Sarel Tal, VP EMEA from Rapyd, London based, FinTech-as-a-Service platform. Rapyd provides APIs that help integrate local payments and FinTech capabilities. Adelle is London based Australian, producer and host of RFi (Retail Finance Intelligence) podcast Global Digital Banker. We talk about pivoting from B2V to B2B to accelerate scaling up, Rapyd's unfair advantage vs. competitors and the state of Open Banking in Europe. We also cover short and long term threats and opportunities coming of the current health crisis for start-ups and FinTechs in particular.

Read More

Wealth Management vs. WealthTech

Geneva
in , ,

We talk to Christine (Mar) Ciriani about the Wealth Management challenges and where WealthTech could provide solutions for pain points of client advisors servicing high net worth or ultra-high net worth clients. Christine (Mar) Ciriani is Chief Commercial Officer at Finantix, Board member at Barclays Switzerland and Industry Partner at Motive Partners, well-respected Wealth Management and Wealth Tech expert.

Read More

Founder story: Last mile in data analytics with Luminant Analytics

Basel
in ,

Renu Ann Joseph, founder and CEO of Luminant Analytics, a Swiss-American InsurTech start-up, talks about the "last mile" when it comes to using data science and data analytics in the insurance industry. We also talk about the benefits of open innovation for both insurers and InsurTechs. Renu also shares some early thoughts on the impact of the COVID-19 on the start-ups and the insurance industry.

Read More

Finovate Berlin

Berlin
in ,

In this episode, we speak to Greg Palmer, VP at Finovate, based in San Francisco, a leader in FinTech conferences around the world about the Berlin edition that took place in February. Also, we talk about Finovate's concept that varies across the globe and plans for San Francisco, New York and Asian editions, updated for the current situation around the COVID-19. We then speak to Myles Stephenson, CEO of Modulr, London based, integrated payment service for businesses about Copernican Leap in banking, direct connectivity of FinTechs to Bank of England and Modulr's growth plans.

Read More

Swiss FinTech Awards 2020 - and the winners are...

Zurich
in , ,

In this bonus episode, we are talking to: Oliver Bussmann, CEO and founder of Bussmann Advisory, jury member of the Swiss FinTech Awards, about Digital Transformation in Banking, FinTech start-up community, Blockchain and his views on the finalists this year and the winners of Swiss FinTech Awards 2020: Andy Iten, co-founder and member of the Board, F10, FinTech Influencer of the Year about the F10's expansion to Singapore, online Hackathon this year and co-operation with the corporate members, Daniel Sandmeier, CEO of Instimatch, Growth Stage Start-up of the Year, a platform for cash deposits, who explains their solution and David Bloch, CEO and co-founder of Legartis, Early Stage Start-up of the Year, an AI-powered solution for reviewing contracts, who describes how human lawyers can be freed of repetitive work!

Read More

Financial Markets Technology: VC perspective

London
in

In this episode, we talk to Mark Beeston, founder and Managing Partner of Illuminate Financial, London headquartered VC firm with a global mandate, about their investment approach, success stories and views on the Capital Markets FinTech as well as WealthTech and Asset Management Tech companies scene in Europe and globally.

Read More

Founder story: Who is the best research analyst? Invisage has the answer

Zurich
in

How do you assess the research analyst performance in the MiFID II world? COO of UK based start-up Invisage and the member of the F10 Incubator/Accelerator Zurich current cohort, Harsh Dadhich, explains in this podcast. Are popularity rankings useful at all? Or should the returns on your portfolio, constructed based on the analyst's research drive whose research you should read? How do you find out ex-ante though?

Read More

Terra Ventures: A sneak peek into Israeli VC mindset

Zurich
in

Astorre Modena is General Partner at Terra Venture Partners, based in Israel. We talked on the side of Startup Funding - VC Talks event in Zurich, organized by the FinTech Connector. He explains the Terra Venture Partners investment approach, the Israeli government's support of innovation, his views on the art of startup valuation and fundraising and Israeli-Swiss VC and start-up connectivity.

Read More

MassChallenge Lausanne: A million francs for you?

Lausanne
in

In this episode, we talk to Matt Lashmar, Managing Director of MassChallenge, Switzerland. He explains the origins of MassChallenge, how they differ from other accelerators, how to apply, how start-ups can benefit from the program (access to the corporate sponsors and prize money of a million Swiss Francs!) and their success stories. LISTEN HERE

Read More

Paris FinTech Forum 2020

Paris
in ,

Short interviews from Paris FinTech Forum with - Clara Durodie, Chair of Cognitive Finance Group, London about Artificial Intelligence for Financial Services and her book - Ian O'Sullivan, European Lead of Mastercard Start Path, who explains how Mastercard works with start-ups, helping them to get to market and gain scale, providing services to Mastercard customers and their support of female entrepreneurship - Susanne Chishti CEO of FINTECH Circle & FINTECH Circle Institute, London that explains their business angel, education and digital transformation acceleration programs - Emmalyn Shaw, Managing Partner from Flourish Ventures, San Francisco talks about global scalability and financial inclusiveness.

Read More

The Danube Valley: Vacuumlabs example

Bratislava
in

In this podcast, we talk to Matej Ftacnik, co-founder and CXO of Vacuum Labs based in Bratislava, Slovakia. Vacuumlabs is a FinTech focused software engineering powerhouse with over 200 employees, taking innovations to the market around the world, building neobanks for incumbents in Asia for example.

Read More