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In this Fintech Leaders edition, I sit down with the great Greg Krasnov, Founder & CEO at Tonik, the first and largest neobank in the Philippines, which officially started operating in 2021 and has since reached almost $150M in consumer deposits and is backed by Mizuho, Sequoia, Point72, Insignia, and many more.
It’s also worth mentioning Greg is a Ukrainian serial entrepreneur and about a decade ago built Platinum bank in Ukraine and sold it once it became the third largest consumer bank in the nation.
We recorded this episode on Tuesday, Feb 22 – roughly 24 hours before Russia invaded Ukraine. Today Ukraine is under attack and during these horrific and difficult times for Greg’s country, my heart goes out to him, Tonik’s Ukrainian team, and their families. They are a resilient nation with incredibly talented people, and Greg and Tonik represent these values.
If you are looking for ways to provide any type of support Ukrainian people, I’ve included a few vetted links below:
In this episode, we discuss:
What Greg learned in over two decades of building banks and fintech businesses.
“The market opportunity for consumer lending and closing that gap for financial inclusion here is enormous. In the Philippines alone, we're talking about a consumer finance market currently being a $10 billion asset class, and… it needs to be anywhere between $50 - $100 billion… so you're talking about billions worth of balance sheet to be had. And the only way to do that is with retail deposits and liabilities.”
Tonik’s approach to credit risk and how they are using their customer’s digital footprint and predictive analytics to expand access to the financial system.
“We’re all leaving this tremendous digital footprint out there and that's exactly what this whole Snowden/NSA thing has been all about, right? So if the governments are mining it, why can't we mine that as bankers, but for the benefit of the client, as opposed to for restricting personal freedoms.”
Staying innovative in a remote environment and how companies can balance internal cooperation and conflict to stay innovative.
“One mantra that I give to our employees all the time is, I never, ever, ever want to hear the phrase, ‘this is how we’ve always done it.’ ”
Why it’s crucial for fintech founders to pick the right investors who actually understand their industry… and a lot more!
“In a credit business, the dumbest-ass metric that you could ever use is number of customers. There's many other metrics, but that one you just don't use, right? Because then you disregard credit and you disregard a bunch of other stuff. So we needed to find the types of investors that would get that.”
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Emerging Fintech Leaders
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Three early-stage fintech companies doing amazing things
1.🍠 CASAVA (@GoCasava on Twitter) - Bringing digital insurance products to the mass-market in Nigeria.
💰Funding Status: Earlier this year, Casava secured $4 million in pre-seed funding from Target Global, Entree Capital, and a syndicate of local Nigerian and international angel investors.
👥 Founder: Bode Pedro (LinkedIn / Twitter @bodepedro)
2.✏️ TRACE FINANCE - Disrupting cross-border banking for Latin American small businesses.
💰Funding Status: Trace announced the completion of a $4.3 million seed round in mid-February. The round was led by HOF Capital and included Circle Ventures, Mantis VC, BlockFi Ventures, Stellar Development Fund, and more.
👥 Co-Founders: Bernardo Brites (LinkedIn), Rafael Luz (LinkedIn), and Leone Parise (LinkedIn)
3.💳 QASHIO - Empowering HR departments in Middle Eastern businesses to take charge of expenses and cash flow management.
💰Funding Status: Qashio most recently raised $2.5 million in a pre-seed round, led by MSA NOVO and joined by Rally Cap Ventures, Palm Drive Capital, and Plug and Play Ventures among others.
👥 Co-Founders: Jonathan Lau (LinkedIn) and Armin Moradi (LinkedIn)
Want to break onto the fintech scene with a feature in our newsletter? Introduce us to your startup! You can also find the full list of featured companies here.
-Thank you for reading!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
