Tag Archives: US

LFP171 – The Past, Present and Future of Venture Capital w/Josh Bell Dawn Capital

Venture Capital is nigh-on essential for many ambitious, big-build, fast-scaling Fintechs and Techs in general. Fund raising is essential. Thus how the VC market is evolving is of the utmost importance to ambitious firms and founders.

In this episode Josh Bell one of the founding partners of leading London-based European-wide VCs Dawn Capital who have raised over a billion to invest in growing businesses joins us to look back, look around now and look into the future. How can you best raise funds? Plenty of learn…

Topics discussed include: Continue reading

LFP160 – Entrepreneur Masterclass: What Attributes Do You Need To Create A Billion Dollar Company? w/Clay Wilkes CEO Galileo

The Tech press is full of unicorns – but these are almost always “on paper”. Those companies that someone has bought for over a billion – be it a trade sale or IPO – are far rarer. Clay Wilkes has created both starting with just an idea. Galileo Financial Technologies which he co-founded, powers 95% of US digital banks and 5 out of the top 5 of UK digital banks and was sold to SoFI. Galileo was formed in 2000 and succeeded in growing without and external funding  until raising a $77 million Series A round in October 2019 (from Accel). In the 90s Clay floated his prior startup i-Link which was a pioneer in VOIP, 

In this episode Clay shares the entrepreneurial values that he has found most essential in creating not one but two tremendous businesses and taking them from conception to successful trade sale/float. We also focus on the fact that many of these attributes are practices or skills rather than something that one can be – it is something we can work on and keep refining and improving. Few people are very strong without going to the gym and lifting weights, or as Clay has done, few can run marathons without putting in lots of hard work and going through pain barriers.

But this is no mere “no pain no gain” “just keep slogging away and be brilliant” simple blog post level conversation. Clay is a great antithesis to the oft-promoted US model as entrepreneur as somewhat psycho model which exists but is over-emphasised. Clay’s entrepreneurship is grounded in family life – as he says “what really matters”.

As a special bonus for the show notes I will share two aspects that we don’t emphasise in the show. First Clay came well-prepared – now of course all guests do but I would say that his was in the top 10% of guests. Would you – or I – prepare for “yet another interview” if we had sold our company for a billion the month before? I’d imagine that 99.999% of folks in such circs would, as it were, stroll along with their hands in their pockets – after all you don’t get to build a company of that size without being a good talker.

Another example is that Clay referred to reading my book on the SmallCo Board. Again how many entrepreneurs who had successful created two hugely valued companies would read another business book when they could write several themselves?

In both these cases I am reminded of a book I have read about but not read – “Relentless from Good to Great to Unstoppable” by Tim Grover, trainer of the likes of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.

But the real lesson here is not about a conversation with a remarkable man but that he models what we can endeavour to become too. We too can always go the extra mile to do our next task even better than we were going to do it. We too can always keep the beginners mind and always believe there is much more to learn not matter how much we know already.

Finally I am reminded of another rare chap I knew who was the american head of an authentic Chinese lineage (which is super-rare). I recall him telling me that his pupils think he is further ahead than they are because he trained super-hard in the past. This he said is true. But, he said, what they don’t realise is that every day he is leaving them further behind as he trains more and puts more into his training.

What would your life be like – in any any aspect you choose, business is just one – if you committed to seeing how good you could be? And not just that but when you had achieved more than you ever thought you could you remain humble, open, don’t coast and always assimilating more?

The deeper part of this podcast for me is what is behind the words – however the words themselves point to the attributes that we can all practice and improve upon. Topics discussed include: Continue reading

LFP148 – Special Episode! The Lord Mayor Of London: The City, Promoting US-UK Fintech Ties & Regional Fintech

Do you known that William Russell’s – the 692nd Lord Mayor of London – first trip was to the US to promote Fintech and that he is perhaps the first Lord Mayor of London to have visited all the regions and is well up-to-speed on regional Fintech? No me neither before we spoke. However his mayoral theme is “Global UK – Trade, Innovation and Culture” which is super-important in this Brexited year.

What actually is The City – a phrase we all use? What is the Lord Mayor and what is his role?

How does the geographic district relate to FS as a whole – much of which is in Canary Wharf and spread around the UK?

How does the CIty’s soft power work and what have some Fintech’s already found out about the influence it can bring? What is US investors’ attitude to UK Fintech at present?

Also a small prize for spotting a splendid ancient Clock chiming away in the background of this recording in Mansion House 🙂

All these topics and more are discussed in this episode including: Continue reading

LFP130 – Equity Crowdfunding – Past, Present and Future Innovations w/Jeff Lynn Exec Chairman Seedrs

Ten years ago Jeff and his co-founder came up with the idea for Equity Crowdfunding and seven years ago Seedrs became the UK’s (world’s?) first regulated Equity Crowdfunder. In this episode we revisit the origins of the concept, what it was thought to be then and how it has evolved with the person who can surely lay claim to be the father of UK equity crowdfunding.

As often everything takes time to evolve and build out. But ten years in much has been achieved – and not only much for Seedrs but importantly for the hundreds of companies who have raised vital capital on the platform. In the world of the now much forgotten “supply-side reforms” there is arguably nothing better that can be done for SmallCos than to have such an effective conduit to raising funds.

One thing that has taken time to evolve is for the rest of the world to catch-up with the UK’s lead. However as we shall hear there are promises that Equity Crowdfunding will finally become a Thing across Europe so plenty of exciting times ahead as well as behind.

These topics and much more are discussed in the show: Continue reading

LFP121 – Litigation Crowdfunding w/Cormac Leech CEO Axiafunder

Creativity springs eternal. Here is yet another new topic, one that no one could have imagined even a couple of decades ago. Litigation crowdfunding gives litigants a new source of funding and investors a totally new investable asset with non-correlated returns. Cormac Leech CEO and co-founder of Axiafunder walks us through this complex landscape.

Litigation Crowdfunding investment is definitely not for the unsophisticated. Barristers rarely assess even the best of cases as having more than ~75% chance of success such are the vagaries of the legal process. Vice versa though, for reasons we shall come onto, investment returns are super-normal and a portfolio of well-managed litigation crowdfunding loans has the possibility of very high returns indeed.

Cormac was last on the show some three years ago, appropriately talking about innovating in P2P. Well here he is having done that big-time.

Topics discussed include: Continue reading

LFP119 – New Year Special! Is FS + Tech Ushering In Orwellian Tyranny Rather Than Freeing The People?

It’s time for the New Year Special and we tackle what is surely the most important topic of our times – “Is FS + Tech Ushering In Orwellian Tyrrany Rather Than Freeing The People?”. The BigTech giants increasingly act as public censors with the modern equivalent of Nazi book burning, Big FS firms and Fintechs such as Mastercard, Paypal, Patreon deplatform, unperson people and collude to block their income in the name of holding people to “reasonable” (ie their) political/moral/ethical standards. In this they are egged on by the dying MSM, by some politicians and by activists organising online to pursue the culture wars so dividing the US in particular but exported elsewhere too.

But wasn’t the internet supposed to liberate people, to connect them directly, in conversation or in Finance via P2P?

What has gone wrong when instead of decentralisation of power and communications tech has led to the greatest concentration of global power ever known to man?

What can be done about it? Can we use tech as a force for good? As a way of empowering the people not billionaires and distant bureaucrats?

O tempora o mores!

Topics covered in this annual solo show include:  Continue reading

LFP113 – Special Episode! Regulators – Unelected Power & Uncertain Constitutional Position w/Sir Paul Tucker former Deputy Governor Bank of England

This is the most important topic for our democracy. What is the constitutional position of regulators? Are they a 4th branch of the State or subsidiary to the existing 3 (executive, legislature, law)? Amazingly no-one knows and modern constitutional law textbooks make no mention. Is the spirit of Magna Carta which set in train the restraint of arbitrary questionable power over us dead when people we have no ability to hire and fire rule our lives in ever greater minute detail?

Their reach. Our lives these days are shaped in the UK (mut. mut. elsewhere) by the likes of OfCom, Ofgem, ONR, Ofwat, ASA, BBFC, CMA, EHRC, GBGB, ISPO, OGA, SHC, CAA, ORR, CQC, NHSI, CNHC, GCC, FCA, PSR, PRA, EA – in total 90 regulators in the UK :-O And that’s before we mention quangos (NDPB’s non-departmental public bodies) which in the UK employed 111,000 in 2009. As we heard in LFP112 the FCA is currently proposing to de-democratise P2P. How can they have these powers? Who are they to remove your freedom or mine. I mean that sincerely – its one thing if parliament removes our freedoms, thats bad enough but at least we can vote the government out. We have no such choice when it comes to the FCA or any of the other proli9ferating regulators.

Their cost. Furthermore all this bureaucracy and micromanagement of our lives does not come cheap. In UK-FS the cost of BoE/PRA/FCA has increased six-fold since 2000 The cost of  the 90 regulators is direct expenditure of £4bn and indirectly are believed to cost industry £100bn p.a. to comply (source: National Audit Office).

Does it work? Lord Turner in LFP065 agreed w/r/t FS with Niall Ferguson’s “excessively complex regulation has become the disease for which it purports to be the cure”. John Kay in LFP055 also felt, like I, that in FS this new approach was leading to more crises not fewer.

Asymmetric risk profile of regulators. In essence there is no cost to retraining Gulliver’s freedom down with one more thread, one more paragraph of regulation but they run a huge risk if Gulliver goes on a bender and trashes the local village. There is little downside for them in the short term in reducing the freedom of citizens to do what the hell they want. However when something goes wrong – and it always does – there is hysteria and political calls for public flogging of regulators. What would you do in those circs if you worked in a regulator?

Sir Paul Tucker not only has 34yrs experience at the BoE, as well as roles on the broader banking stage, he is now a research fellow at Harvard, and chairs the Systemic Risk Council a body set up in 2012 of wise elders such as Paul Volcker, Lord Turner, Jean-Claude Trichet, Paul O’Neill, John Reed and many more who advise current regulators. All of this in itself would be more than sufficient to have clear insights into regulation per se. However above and beyond all this Paul has spent several years working on a super-impressive tome called “Unelected Power – The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State” and has thus been thinking super-deeply about the topic. The book itself is well over 500pp with an astonishing 30pp bibliography and is guaranteed to become a reference work in this topic. None less than Paul Volcker says of the book “Paul Tucker has written a most timely and thoughtful analysis of the role of independent agencies in democratic societies.”

Paul is also not arguing from any position of “leave it to the mandarins” as cynics might think. Both he and the governor Mervyn King argued against the BoE being given excessively enhanced powers post-crisis. He has said Too much govt power lies in the hands of unelected regulators” and would have subtitled the book “How technocracy should retreat to preserve our system of government and in its own interests”. Another comment I warmed to was “policy makers should refrain from participating in many other and broader issues confronting their societies”.

So it’s a super-important episode for us all as citizens let alone for the development of Fintech and FS. And a super long intro to the show notes which I will wrap up with a quote from inside the cover of the book:

“Unelected Power lays out the principles needed to ensure that central bankers, technocrats, regulators, and other agents of the administrative state remain stewards of the common good and do not become overmighty citizens…Tucker explores the necessary conditions for delegated but politically insulated power to be legitimate in the eyes of constitutional democracy and the rule of law. Tucker explains how the regulatory state need not be a fourth branch of government free to steer by its own lights, and how central bankers can emulate the best of judicial self-restraint and become models of dispersed power. Like it or not, unelected power has become a hallmark of modern government. This critically important book shows how to harness it to the people’s purposes.”

Topics discussed include: Continue reading

LFP095 – The 5 Keys to Successful International Expansion w/Jonathan Quin CEO WorldFirst

Which Fintech started in a basement in Stockwell, has done over £65bn of FX business, do over 1 million transfers a year with 600 staff in 7 offices, whose chairman is a former deputy Governor of the Bank of England and according to price comparison sites offer better prices than other Fintech FX players on virtually all sizes of deal?

Worldfirst as many of you might not have guessed (though those of you reading this online will have had a huge hint in terms of the banner above 😀

Jonathan Quin their co-founder and CEO for 14yrs joins us today to discuss the art and science of international expansion – a truly vital step if UK Fintechs are ever to move beyond a potential audience of 1% of the world’s population to far far more.

Topics discussed on the show include:  Continue reading

LFP081 – Trade Finance and Supplier Finance in the Digital Age with Guy Willans COO of Trade River

Trade Finance is one of those less media-highlighted but vital areas of the economy – it really is the oil in the engine of international trade. It’s one of those “how hard can it be” areas where it turns out quite a lot of wrinkles make it more of a speciality field than it might be. One can presume that this is due to it being an ancient business, after all finance was needed for the silk road and all other routes and merchant banking had its origins in international trade.

TradeRiver were founded in 2011 and have provided over £100m of working capital finance to businesses in the UK. They provide UK businesses with a unsecured line of revolving trade finance to fund purchases of goods or services within 24 hours, both worldwide and in the UK. Facilities can vary from £100k up to £5million. They recently opened an office in Baltimore to serve the US market.

Being a digital player their aim is to be quick, simple and paperless (more rare than you might imagine in Trade Finance).

I am delighted to be joined today by Guy Willans, Trade River’s COO whose varied career – from Sandhurst, working around the world, an AIM listed dot-com, importing, sales and twelve years at HSBC et al certainly provide a rich enough background to discuss Trade Finance in the round and in context.

Topics discussed on the show include:  Continue reading

LFP076 – Convergence: Insuretech/MGAs as an Example of Straddling Old & New FS with Charlie Blackburn CTO Azur

Do you have to be either “a Fintech” or “an incumbent”? Increasingly as #newFS and #oldFS converge this duality becomes less meaningful and its more about how well FS players young and old are embracing both “digital” per se as well as the business model changes it both implies and enables.

Azur is a great example of this trend. As an “MGA” (more on that anon) they fit into a well-established “old” category of the insurance industry. They are a comparatively new company whilst part-owned by a global giant. And they certainly “get” the digital thing in terms of both “tech” and also “business model changes”.

In LFP074 Andy Rear of the reinsurer MunichRe discussed with us their concept of reinsurance as a service. Put simply the ability to, as it were, just plug into the wall for your electricity/reinsurance – which then leaves InsureTechs able to do everything they might want and avoid falling into a regulatory net and needing a gazillion dollars of capital. Andy said that the key to the future were MGAs – Managing General Agents – but we barely skinned the surface on them

So here we are diving into MGAs and in the interests of brevity lets jump into the topics we discuss:  Continue reading