The Leading FinTech Investors Could Make 2020 A Big Year

FinTech investments are expected to reach new heights in 2020. Even with the current state of the economy, many financial technology companies are seeing a surge in the stock market as consumers and businesses turn to FinTechs for everything from working from home to banking online.

“Fintech is poised to have a much greater impact in 2020 than many people realize,” noted Ecosystem principal advisor Paul Gestro.

As for who will be at the front of the line in making these investments, here is a look at some of today’s leaders in the FinTech space.

Nigel Morris, QED Investors

As the co-founder and managing partner of QED Investors, Morris has been involved in unicorn investments including Credit Karma, NuBank, Avant, SoFi, Klarna, GreenSky, and AvidXchange. In addition, he serves as the Chairman of ClearScore and Mission Lane, and is also on the boards of Red Ventures, AvidXchange, MediaMath, Prosper, Zopa, NuBank, ideas42, and Scotia’s Digital Advisory Council.

Deven Parekh, Insight Partners

Parekh joined Insight in 2000, with some of the companies in his portfolio including Chegg, Football Fanatic, Media Mind, Tumblr, Hayneedle, Alibaba, Twitter, JD.com, Yext, Turnitin and eVestment. He also serves as Board Chair for Bullhorn, Appriss, and EveryAction, and is a member of the Board of Directors for several companies.

Micky Malka, Ribbit Capital

A native of Venezuela, Malka founded Ribbit Capital in 2012. Since then, Ribbit has been involved in fundraises for Earnin (formerly Activehours), Capital Float, Cheddar, Credit Karma, Coinbase and Xapo. In addition, he is a board member at MercadoLibre.com.

Matt Harris, Bain Capital Ventures

Harris started his investing career at Bain Capital Private Equity in 1995, and then founded Village Ventures in 2000 before returning to Bain Capital Ventures in 2012. Some of the companies that have been in his portfolio include Acorns, Flywire, Bill Trust, Novus, Zelis and DaVinci Payments.

Charles Birnbaum, BVP

Birnbaum spent three years at mobile app Foursquare before joining Bessemer Venture Partners, where he is a partner focusing on investing in early stage and promising financial services, consumer, and education companies in the U.S. and Europe. His portfolio has included Alloy, Bread, Brightwell, Shift, Zopa, HomeLight, Yodle, and Spruce.

Vanessa Colella, Citi Ventures

Before assuming her role as Citi’s Chief Innovation Officer, Head of Citi Ventures, and Head of Citi Productivity, Colella oversaw venture investing and D10X for Citi Ventures, and previously ran marketing for Citi’s North American Consumer Bank. The firm’s portfolio includes Betterment, BlueVine, Clarity Money, Freebird, Grab, Datameer, Flybits, Jet, Hopper, Trulioo, and Square.

Michael Moritz, Sequoia

Sir Michael Jonathan Moritz has had an illustrious career with Sequoia Capital leading investments in PayPal, LinkedIn, Zappos and Google (to name a few). Although he is no longer managing the firm, he is still finding time to invest in companies such as Instacart, Klarna, Kayak, Skyscanner, and Stripe.

Adam Valkin, General Catalyst

South African-born Valkin has been involved in investments including Brainly, ClassPass, Deliveroo, Fundbox, Giphy, Monzo, Rapyd, Rebag, Super Evil Megacorp, Truss, Vroom, and WayUp. He also is the co-founder of LOVEFiLM, which was acquired by Amazon, and Propertyfinder, bought by REA.

Rick Yang, NEA

Yang, who joined NEA in 2007, is the head of the firm’s consumer investing practice. Some of his current investments include Drop, Gen.G, Genies, Lyric, MasterClass, Omio, Opendoor, Plaid, PlayVS, Robinhood, Stride Health, and Zero Financial. He was also involved with Braintree (acquired by PayPal), Gaikai (acquired by Sony), and Pure Energies (acquired by NRG).

Angela Strange, Andreessen Horowitz

Before joining Andreessen Horowitz as a general partner, Strange was a product manager at Google, where she launched and grew Chrome for Android and iOS. At a16z, she focuses on investments in financial services including infrastructure, insurance, real estate, and increasing financial inclusivity. She is currently a board member of Addi, SynapseFi, and Tally, and board observer for Earnin, HealthIQ, Mayvenn, PeerStreet, and Point.

Source: thefinancialtechnologyreport.com