The Fintech Blueprint

Lex chats with Nelson Chu, founder and CEO of Percent -  the modern credit marketplace. Nelson kicks off the discussion b by walking through his inspiration for building the private credit marketplace and the challenges of operating in the fintech industry. He explains that Percent aims to provide a better alternative investment platform for credit investors by offering shorter durations and lower...

Lex chats with Richard Ma, CEO of Quantstamp -a leading blockchain security company. Richard kicks off by discussing the origins of the company and the importance of security in the blockchain space. He explains that the idea for Quantstamp came after he invested in Ethereum and witnessed the hack of the DAO, which prompted him to focus on the security side of Ethereum. Richard describes how Quant...

Lex chats with Christian Catalini, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Lightspark - a company aiming to break down global payment barriers, throwing its weight behind a new standard intended to make payments as easy as sending an email. Christian kicks off by discussing his career in blockchain and academia, as well as the challenges and opportunities in the fintech industry. He explains how...

Lex chats with Shelby Austin, co-founder and CEO of Arteria AI - Arteria AI is an AI-focused company that develops a contract lifecycle management platform for end-to-end digital contracting. Shelby kicks off by discussing her career journey and the development of her company, which focuses on solving documentation challenges in the financial services industry using artificial intelligence (AI). S...

Lex chats with Rachel Lin, the Co-Founder & CEO of SynFutures, a decentralized derivatives trading platform. Lin discusses her background in traditional finance and her transition into the fintech and cryptocurrency industry. She explains her experience working in structured derivative sales and trading at Deutsche Bank, where she interacted with clients such as hedge funds and corporates who used...

Lex chats with Stan Miroshnik, founder and managing partner of 10Squared Capital, discusses his early experiences in financial services and his journey into the world of digital assets and crypto. He talks about the challenges of navigating the ICO market and the importance of price discipline in investing. Miroshnik also shares his insights on the current state of the market and the opportunities...

Lex chats with Jerome Le Luel, founder and CEO of TRIVER -  a London-based startup that uses open banking data and AI to provide short-term working capital to SMEs. To kick off, Jerome discusses the application of AI in fintech lending for small businesses. He explains that traditional banks have struggled to automate lending decisions for SMEs due to regulatory constraints and manual underwriting...

Lex chats with David Minarsch, co-founder and CEO of Valory - a team focused on providing research, products, and services at the intersection of multi-agent systems (MAS) and distributed ledger technology (DLT), one of them being Autonolas - a platform that offers an open-source software stack and an on-chain protocol, facilitating secure operations and incentivizing autonomous application develo...

Lex chats with Steve McLaughlin, CEO and founder of FT Partners - the premier financial technology investment bank, and Jon Lear, president and co-founder of Fintech Meetup -  the leading fintech conference in the world today. They discuss the early days of fintech, the growth and evolution of the industry, and the current market trends. They also touch on the definition of fintech and its boundar...

Lex chats with Jeff Boortz, the Chief Product Officer of Blockstream. Blockstream is a company at the forefront of Bitcoin ecosystem development, and they discuss the new developments and innovations in the Bitcoin space. Boortz talks about his career background, including his time at Google, and how he transitioned to Blockstream. They also discuss the skills and differences between tech companie...

Lex chats with Yat Siu, co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands -  a global leader in blockchain and gaming that is working to provide property rights for virtual assets via NFTs and related technologies. Yat discusses his journey into technology and gaming, as well as the intersection of gaming and decentralized finance. He shares his early experiences with technology, including writing MIDI so...

Lex chats with Ed Maslaveckas, the founder and CEO of Bud, a FinTech company focused on data aggregation and artificial intelligence in financial services. They discuss the evolution of Bud's business model, the atmosphere of the FinTech industry in the UK, the challenges of data enrichment and customer insight, and the potential of AI agents and generative AI in transforming financial products. M...

Lex chats with Dan Finlay, co-founder of MetaMask, and Dean Tribble, CEO of Agoric, about the future of wallet strategy and the underlying technological changes in the Web3 space. They discuss the growth and usage of MetaMask, the philosophy behind its development, and the core dimensions in which they have tried to grow the wallet. They also talk about the concept of "Snaps," which allows develop...

Lex chats with Christopher Pallotta - founder and CEO of Templum, a company focused on alternative investments and private markets. Pallotta discusses his background in technology and investing, as well as the journey of Templum and its transformation into becoming the operating system for private markets and alternative assets. He explains how Templum's technology, broker-dealer and alternative t...

Lex chats with Eva Shang, CEO of Legalist - a technology-powered investment firm specialising in alternative assets. Shang discusses her company's strategies in litigation finance, bankruptcy, and government receivables. She explains that Legalist uses technology and data analysis to identify investment opportunities in the legal space. Shang also discusses the challenges and complexities of under...

Lex chats with Guy Young - the CEO and Founder of Ethena Labs, the crypto infrastructure company building USDe which is the first-ever scalable stablecoin not reliant on existing banking institutions alongside a permissionless 'internet bond'. They discuss Ethena, a new protocol for the synthetic dollar, and the market dynamics around Ethereum and the concept of the internet bond. Young explains h...

Lex chats with Sam Bobley, founder and CEO of Ocrolus - a fintech infrastructure company that powers underwriting processes for lenders like SoFi, Lending Club, and Enova. In this episode Sam starts off by sharing how he got started in entrepreneurship at a young age and the influence of his father, who was a serial entrepreneur. Bobley explains how Ocrolus focuses on document automation using OCR...

Lex chats with  Matt Bivons, the founder and CEO of Canopy, a modern digital lending company. Bivons discusses his background in fintech and his journey from being a product designer to starting his own company. He explains the importance of designing products for others and how he identified a gap in the market for a lending infrastructure solution. Bivons also talks about the evolution of the di...

Lex chats with Nassim Eddequiouaq and Riyaz Faizullabhoy - Co-Founders of Bastion - a transaction and Web 3 orchestration company that aims to provide infrastructure for businesses to build user-friendly experiences on top of blockchain technology. The founders, Nas and Riyaz, have a background in security and have worked together for several years at companies like Docker, Anchorage, and Facebook...

Lex chats with Adam Felesky, CEO and co-founder of Portage - an investment firm focused on fintech and financial services. Felesky discusses his background in finance and tech, his experience as an entrepreneur, and the investment opportunities he sees in the fintech sector. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the nuances of different verticals within fintech and the potential for incumb...

Lex chats with Chandini Jain, founder and CEO of artificial intelligence company Auquan. Together, Lex and Chandini discuss the use of AI in financial services. Jain explains that AI can help optimize information flow and improve decision-making by efficiently processing and analyzing large amounts of data. Jain highlights the importance of accuracy in AI models, particularly in the financial indu...

Lex chats with Arik Shtilman, CEO of Rapyd - a leading fintech-as-a-service platform. In this episode, Shtilman discusses his background in technology and financial services, as well as the journey of building Rapyd into a leading payment company. He talks about the challenges of starting a consumer payment company and the pivot to becoming a fintech-as-a-service platform. Shtilman explains the im...

Lex chats with Cynthia Kleinbaum Milner, CMO at MoneyLion - a mobile banking and financial membership platform that integrates spending, saving, borrowing, and investing tools to empower consumers towards better financial wellness. Kincking off the conversation, Cynthia delves into the intricacies of charting a career in the ever-evolving landscape of digital transformation, sharing her transition...

Lex chats with Pete Townsend, Managing Director of the Techstars Web3 Accelerator - one of the largest pre-seed investors and accelerator programs in the world. Pete kicks off the conversation by sharing his career journey, from early experiences in finance to the present, highlighting the evolution of finance, where technologists have emerged as key wealth creators. Their discussion covers succes...

Lex chats with Caitlin Long, CEO of Custodia Bank (formerly Avanti Financial Group) - a Wyoming payment system provider and a custodian of digital assets required to fully comply with Know Your Customer, Anti-Money Laundering, and related laws and regulations. Together they delve into the fascinating world of fintech, US banking history, and the evolution of banking and payment networks. Starting...