The Network Effect
Economy, Elections, & Crypto - Oh My!
Whipsaw is the best way to express these past few months, weeks and even days. We've seen an aggressive Fed raise rates, election outcomes different than expected and a massive implosion from the FTX bankruptcy. Times of turmoil can either make or break investments. We do not wish bad thanks on anyone, but we like when rationality returns as excess leaves the market. We just turned a corner in the US that sets up a much better environment for investing and building companies.
Community plays strongly into this work. Whether it is the community that is built for a few days at a conference like Money2020 or the New England FinTech gatherings that are building a long term set of connections - we need it all to help support startups. We work hard at Vestigo to play a role in building the vibrant ecosystems that create great companies.
We've found that optimism has a strong presence in the conferences and gatherings attended. There's so much promise in startups focused on artificial intelligence, machine learning and data insights. We are excited by the possibilities within the ecosystem in this new economic time.
- Dave & Mark
Envisions Interview
The Network Effect: Money2020 Recap
w/ Kelly Shaw, Principal, and Nick Kim, Associate, at Vestigo Ventures
Money2020 Reflections
Mike, Nick and I recently wrapped up a networking heavy, event-filled Money2020. For those not familiar with Money2020, it is a four-day Fintech Conference in Las Vegas that occurs every October. It usually draws around 20,000 individuals spanning investors, small and large start-ups, and corporations. Despite the market turmoil, there was still a strong air of optimism among attendees for the future of Fintech.
This was my second year attending Money2020. My biggest learning last year was to not overfill my calendar so as to be able to fit in meetings with founders or other relevant industry contacts met through the myriad networking events. Despite my best intentions, I found myself arriving in Las Vegas with a back-to-back calendar from morning to late in the evening. As such, I did my best to squeeze in meetings with start-ups and other relevant individuals/firms I met at events.
On top of individual meetings, there was no shortage of happy hours and other fun events. Shoutout to FT Partners for an amazing Happy Hour/ concert with Post Malone! CMFG Ventures and Alloy also held great happy hours. Despite the many events that occurred each night, Mike, Nick, and I were able to divide overlapping meetings and events to ensure wide coverage.
While Money2020 offers a wide variety of speakers and programming, I had found last year that most of these sessions were not super interesting, particularly given Vestigo’s early-stage purview. Of Money2020 offered programming and content, I did leverage the discovery/networking website. While a bit clunky, I was able to schedule a few meetings through it.
Discovery of new start-ups is, of course, core to Vestigo. On top of our meetings with interesting founders, Money2020 is also a great opportunity to strengthen relationships beyond the 2-D Zoom screen. We met with a few of our LPs and friends at Corporations and VC firms. We also held a breakfast and a lunch with our portfolio founders. It was great to drive deeper personal relationships and broker meaningful connections between our founders and relevant LPs, VCs, and Corporations in attendance within our network.
While physically exhausted after three+ days of non-stop meetings and events, I flew back to Boston energized to continue many of the conversations held at Money2020.
- Kelly Shaw
FINRA, FinTech, & NYC
NYC in the fall: changing leaves, a bright city at night and FinTech. What could be better?
The primary regulator of financial advice via its mandate from the SEC established a committee of many notables to help it learn more about changes coming to the brokerage world from technology. I joined the group from the start bringing my prior experience of being on the FINRA Board of Governors, which is the main oversight board of the regulator, and my current role as GP of Vestigo. The group shares insights and pushes on areas for better regulatory insights and rule making. We tend to be united in knowing the rules creates better outcomes.
Topics over the years have covered ICO’s and crypto as well as the Metaverse and FinFluencers so FINRA has deeper insights. All of us bring our best thinking and questions to help dig into the issues within new technologies and business models to create a rule book built for a simpler time.
- Mark
Mass FinTech Hub Angel Investor Community Launch Event
In the October edition of Envisions, we shared information on an initiative that the Mass Fintech Hub launched aimed around fostering a supportive community for angel investors. This initiative is comprised of local and virtual gatherings between angel investors to provide them with helpful resources, starting with the Angel Investor Education Series.
We were pleased to host the launch event in our office at Cogo Labs, featuring an intimate group of community members who were either active or inspiring angel investors. It was an impactful evening of knowledge transfer and relationship building. An alumni of the Angel Investor Education Series shared his account on the program. He shared that the biggest challenge on his journey as an angel investor had been investing on his own and getting up the learning curve. He proceeded to emphasize the thoughtful structure within the course that builds the foundational skill set he sought after.
There were also accounts from seasoned investors who shared a few nuggets of wisdom as summarized below:
- Consider the sustainability of the startup's business model. How cyclical is it? Is there implied seasonality? Is it a recession-proof business? Does the startup reduce costs, save time and delight its target customers? How durable is the model? The answers to these questions will determine whether the value add is conducive to the cost of the investment.
- Common sense takes you a long way.
- How much does the startup ask for a change in behavior? The more the ask, the harder the adoption.
- Consider what you bring to the relationship. How will you be a value add investor? The idea is not to spend every day with the startup, but if you can provide some managerial expertise, introduce them to strong hiring candidates, customers or distribution partners, or be a sounding board on a tough day - you would be an accretive investor.
- Diversification is key and there is power in numbers. This is how you get your return to fund.
We hope you enjoyed our recap of the evening!
P.S. - it's not too late to sign up for the angel investor education series: Fintech community members who wish to learn how to become Angel Investors and potentially be sponsored by the Mass Fintech Hub to take an Angel 101 class, may register their interest here.
- Team Vestigo
Portfolio Updates
SEI Enhances SEI Wealth Platform with Unified Managed Household Capabilities from LifeYield
SEI announced enhanced UMH capabilities within the SEI Wealth Platform through a strategic partnership with LifeYield. The new service provides the ability to deploy a single investment model across multiple accounts within the same household, while benefiting from SWP's end-to-end, digital wealth management experience.
SEI Investments Company
Pat Larsen Joins Veterans in Digital Assets Podcast
Chris Perkins, President of CoinFund and Co-Founder of Veterans in Digital Assets interviewed fellow Veteran, Pat Larsen, CEO & Co-Founder of ZenLedger, on entering the crypto space in an environment of constantly changing market landscapes and economic conditions.
Global FinTech Series Interviews Chaz Perera
Chaz Perera, Co-founder and CEO of Roots Automation discusses his AI-first approach to creating a startup that offers digitized employees that can, "think, read and intuit like people!"
Sudipto Ghosh
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