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An interview with the co-founders of VC agency Fiat Ventures and sister arm Fiat Development
Of all of the enterprise capital funding invested in 2021, round one in each 5 {dollars} went to fintech. However this growth now appears behind us, as international fintech funding exercise returned to pre-2021 ranges.
Worse, fintech didn’t escape the latest waves of tech layoffs, with high-profile corporations like Brex, Chime and Stripe making headlines for this disheartening motive over the previous few weeks.
And but, fintech startups are nonetheless getting based and funded this 12 months. Of the 223 corporations in Y Combinator’s summer time 2022 batch, 79 fell roughly into the fintech class.
Why are founders and traders nonetheless putting bets in fintech, and the place? To search out out extra, we reached out to fintech-focused VC agency Fiat Ventures.
Fiat co-founders Alex Harris, Drew Glover, and Marcos Fernandez additionally run its sister arm, Fiat Development, a progress consultancy working with fintech and insurtech shoppers. This allows them to remark not solely on sector traits from an investor perspective, but in addition to share sensible recommendation.
Certainly one of their key suggestions is for fintech startups to lean into buyer acquisition channels whose price is much less variable or seasonal than others, however our alternate lined a wider vary of subjects, from monetary inclusion to offline channels and extra. Learn on:
Editor’s be aware: This interview has been edited for size and readability. Lots of the linked corporations are portfolio corporations of Fiat Ventures or shoppers of Fiat Development.
TC: What makes you say that “fintech acquisition funnels are too sophisticated”?
Alex Harris: Fintech merchandise by nature have sophisticated acquisition funnels and enrollment flows. Some problems are unavoidable in a extremely regulated setting, however superfluous problems can come up when rigorous testing will not be utilized and funnels embody pointless bloat.
Even the smallest element can generate friction. For instance, within the know-your-customer (KYC) course of, many fintechs will ask a buyer for his or her total Social Safety Quantity. Most often, for non-credit merchandise, solely the final 4 digits of the SSN are wanted for identification functions. Whereas solely a five-digit distinction, this may have a significant influence on conversion charges that may save giant sums of cash at scale.
Knowledge is definitely king, however there’s a time and place for knowledge assortment and personalization. Too usually, a well-intentioned knowledge group will ask personalization and demographics questions instantly in an enrollment course of. Nevertheless, these questions can most frequently are available a post-enrollment survey or periodically all through the lifecycle of a buyer. Even post-enrollment, these questions have to be thought out. We repeatedly see knowledge collected for the sake of amassing it, with out actionable insights derived from them.
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