Send us a Text Message. Miguel Armaza interviews Melissa Guzy, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Arbor Ventures, a global fintech-focused fund with offices across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the US. Founded in 2012, some of their portfolio companies include Tabby, TrueAccord, Grab, and Fundbox. We discuss: Melissa’s early days as a VC investor at VantagePoint Capital where they navigated the dot com crash and later invested in Tesla’s Series A Building Arbor Ventures and pioneering fintech investing in China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East How Arbor has successfully generated li ..read more

Send us a Text Message. [Original air date, May 9, 2023] Miguel Armaza sits down with David Haber, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of the largest Venture Capital funds in the world, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Based in NYC, David focuses exclusively on investing in global fintech. Before a16z, he founded Bond Street, a NY fintech that aimed to transform small business lending in the US. Bond Street was eventually acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2017. We discuss: Company building lessons from his experience at Bond Street and why he always looks for p ..read more

Send us a Text Message. Miguel Armaza interviews Rakefet Russak-Aminoach, Managing Partner at Team8, a global Venture-Creation and VC Fund with over a 1 billion dollars in AUM, that creates and invests in companies focusing on Fintech, Cybersecurity, Data & AI, and Digital Health. Since launching in 2014, Team8 has built 20 companies and achieved over two billion dollars in exits. Prior to Team8, Rakefet was the CEO of Bank Leumi, which she drove to become the largest company by market cap in all of Israel. We discuss: Team8’s process behind incubating and launching massive companies Tr ..read more

Send us a Text Message. [Original air date, July 4, 2023] Miguel Armaza brings you a curated selection of the best lessons, stories, and candid reflections about raising venture capital.  You’ll hear directly from some of the strongest fintech entrepreneurs around the world spanning four continents. The founders featured in this episode have built revolutionary companies. Many of them multi-billion-dollar enterprises. To get there, they’ve successfully raised venture capital from some of the most respected investors in the world.  We feature nine founders: Alex Prot, CEO/Co-Founde ..read more

Miguel Armaza interviews Mikhail Lomtadze, CEO of Kaspi.kz (NASDAQ:KSPI), one of the largest publicly traded fintechs in the world and the leading tech platform in Kazakhstan. Kaspi is traded on the Nasdaq and has a current market cap of $24 billion dollars. They also have incredible numbers. They serve 15 million customers, in a country with a population of 20 million; 2/3 of their clients use them daily; 2023 revenue was $4.2B with net income margin of 45%, and they’re growing at ~50% YoY. We discuss: Transforming the company from a bank to leading tech giant Kaspi’s obsession around prod ..read more

Miguel Armaza interviews Blake Hall is the CEO & Co-Founder of ID.me, one of the leading US companies in identity verification with over 130 million users. Founded in 2011, ID.me has raised around $300 million in equity from BoxGroup, Blu Venture, Moonshots Capital, Capital G, Morgan Stanley, Softbank, and a long list of impressive funds and angels. Blake is also a decorated war veteran and he was awarded 2 Bronze Star medals from the US Army for his service in Iraq. We discuss: Leadership lessons from his days of combat in Iraq with the US Army Transition from military service to entrep ..read more

Miguel Armaza interviews Vishal Garg, CEO & Founder of Better.com (NASDAQ: BETR), a publicly traded online mortgage lender that has funded more than $100 billion in mortgage volume in the last decade. Prior to going public in 2023, they raised capital from a long list of VCs, including Activant, Softbank, AmEx, Citi, and Goldman among others. We discuss: How Better’s business volume exploded in 2020 & 2021, but later dropped 99% in a matter of months Going from 1,500 to 10,000 employees within almost a year and then having to layoff most of them An inside look into Vishal’s controver ..read more

Miguel Armaza interviews Charles Moldow, General Partner at Foundation Capital, a 30-year old venture capital firm with $3+ billion in AUM. Charles joined Foundation in 2005 and over the last two decades has led early-stage investments for many companies, 14 out of which either went public or were successfully acquired. Some of his investments include Lending Club, DOMA, Rappi, Rover, and OnDeck Financial. I learn a lot every time I talk to Charles and I hope you’ll enjoy this conversation as much as I did. We discuss: Why data is the new gold and a framework on how to invest in the sector ..read more

Miguel Armaza interviews Oliver Hughes, Head of International Business at TBC Bank, a Central Asian leading bank that’s publicly traded on the LSE with a $2B market cap. Oliver is also a true fintech leader - in the past, he was the CEO of Russia’s Tinkoff bank, where he built the operations from scratch to become the most profitable digital bank in the world, eventually reaching a market cap of more than $20B. He’s been leading in fintech well before anyone was talking about it. We discuss: Leading Tinkoff Bank for 15 years and becoming the most profitable digital bank worldwide Why global ..read more

Miguel Armaza interviews Rodger Desai, CEO & Founder of Prove, one of the leading global companies in identity verification and fraud reduction.  Founded in 2008, Prove serves over one thousand corporations, including 9 of the top 10 US banks, and has raised around $200 million from Wellington, Oak HC/FT, Apax Digital, Mass Mutual, AmEx, Capital One, Verizon, and a long list of funds and impressive angels. We discuss: Why KYC processes will become nearly free in the near future Using cell phone and telecom data to reduce scams and improve identity verification Implications of AI-po ..read more