FIAT Ventures: How an Emerging VC Fund is Supporting and Growing the Next Generation of Payment Innovators
Alex Harris, Co-founder, FIAT Ventures
In episode 84 of The Payments Show Podcast, I spoke to Alex Harris who is a Co-founder at FIAT Ventures.
FIAT Ventures is a Venture Capital company based in Silicon Valley which has a unique method of working closely with their portfolio companies compared to other VC firms. This discussion ranges from the unusual journey Fiat Ventures took into the world of venture capitalism, to their insights into specific payment companies they have backed and the dynamics of those partnerships.
AUDIO VERSION: thepayments.show
Episode Highlights:
How is FIAT Ventures Different from Other VC Firms?
“… about 60% of our investments we’ll actually work with them on the growth side first. We'll get to see truly how they're operating together. We'll look at the analytics and data and validate that they're real, where there are challenges. So that's definitely different in terms of that path that they come through that route. Other VCs don't typically have that kind of hands-on experience that we have in actually working. In some cases, we're working with the companies for several months before we're investing. Having months of hands on due diligence is pretty rare. For the companies that come to us and we have not yet worked with them, we can stress test that against some of what our team knows works and what doesn't. Again, that's kind of the unique insight of having those playbooks that we've developed and working with 150 plus companies.
Helping People Who Are Ignored, Underserved, or Underrepresented in Finance
We focus a lot on financial inclusion: building a more inclusive financial environment for the future. Close to 50% percent of founders that we've backed are underrepresented. And we think that's important for, for a variety of reasons. The biggest piece is there are a number of areas of the population that are ignored or underserved. We see a lot of founders who typically have lived that experience in some way or another are familiar with it, building solutions for that. We think that is both the right thing to do, but it's also a tremendous business opportunity in terms of these massive segments.
Every Company is a Fintech Company
“…a lot of people make the assumption that fintech is just consumer banking or digital consumer banking. That is just one tiny slice of fintech when the reality is we call it “fintech plus” and “fintech adjacent”. That nearly every company is a fintech in some way, whether it's how they're processing payments, whether it's a solution in this market, whether it's hardcore technology in terms of a KYC provider, or fraud prevention…”
