Money20/20 Special: Kristy Kim, Co-Founder/CEO of Tomo Credit and Justin Howell, Co-Founder/CEO of Rize
Miguel Armaza heads to Money20/20 Las Vegas to chat with Kristy Kim, Co-Founder & CEO of Tomo Credit, and Justin Howell, Co-Founder & CEO of Rize.
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Today, I bring you a special episode featuring my live conversation at Money2020 with Kristy Kim, Co-Founder & CEO of Tomo Credit, and Justin Howell, Co-Founder & CEO of Rize.
To get us started, I sit down with Kristy Kim, where we explore:
Building a FICO-free underwriting model and how the challenges of her US immigrant journey drove Kristy to launch Tomo Credit, a next-generation credit card catered to young adults, students, and immigrants.
“I got my first job and realized I had no credit score, and that was a big problem because I couldn't get an auto loan… So I thought to myself, well, if lenders don't want to give me money, as good student and with a full time job, then who else do they want? And the answer was, they just want people with a credit score.”
Bridging the gap between crypto lovers and the traditional credit card industry, and why Tomo Credit is launching crypto features using customer crypto wallet data to improve their underwriting decisions and enable clients to build credit.
“Let's say you have crypto and not just cash. Well, you can add your crypto wallet and show us that you have X amount of money in your crypto wallet and we can use that data to increase your credit limit or approve you, despite the fact that you don't have a lot of cash.”
And what Kristy considers to be the hardest part and the most rewarding part of being an entrepreneur.
“The hardest part is probably the fact that it's 24/7. You are always on. I try my best to have some downtime and meditate and do Yoga, but the reality is, you want to give 100%... But the rewarding part is that I can see the satisfaction from our customers.”
Next up, you’ll hear my conversation with Justin Howell, where we cover:
How building a B2C customer-centric and intuitive financial services solution, eventually led them to pivot to a B2B FinTech infrastructure platform.
“We discovered what we had built for ourselves, particularly the ability to bridge across multiple verticals like banking and brokerage, was a much more elegant and flexible solution than anybody else had done today… And so we pivoted the business from being a B2C builder ourselves to now being a B2B platform that supports other FinTech builders…”
The importance of providing the modern consumer with seamless interoperability across banking, brokerage, and crypto capabilities in a single platform.
“That interoperability across multiple verticals, is really what end customers are looking for these days, both consumers and SMBs.”
Thoughts from their fundraising experience and the importance of finding investors who support, not just the vision of the company, but especially the team.
“We’ve had a series of investors who were willing to stick their neck out and make a bet when nobody else was... They may not have loved the first ideas of what we were doing, but they figured that we were the right team to go figure out where the actual prize was eventually going to be.”
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Emerging Fintech Leaders
Three early-stage fintech companies doing amazing things
Lithuania’s Kernolab can turn any business into a fintech. Using their unique banking-as-a-service APIs, the company embeds financial services into a company’s existing online presence in order to keep customers engaged and on site. The wide range use cases spans all the way from gig economy platforms to enterprise-level e-commerce to logistics businesses. Fresh off a pre-seed raise led by Lighthouse Ventures, Kernolab is knocking on the door of the future of embedded finance.
Founder: Vachtangas Babunasvili
Eko is the clear-cut impact investing option for the next generation. The online trading platform personalizes portfolios to fit each investor’s values within minutes while allowing for changes to be made at the snap of a finger. Monitoring performance is just as transparent and simple as signing up thanks to Eko’s user-friendly interface design. Values-based investing may not be a new idea, but following through on it is, and that’s where Eko is poised to make a difference. Now hiring a Head of Growth!
Founder: Mart Vos
Fairplay gives e-commerce startups in Mexico freedom to scale. By advancing revenue to proven performers (solely to be used for marketing, logistics, and inventory spend), the company opens financial doors early in the startup lifecycle. Not only does such deliberate funding from Fairplay accelerate sales, but it also allows small companies to prove out their business model and gain credibility with future investors and potential lenders without severe dilution up front. Fairplay recently raised a $5 million seed round led by QED Investors and Mountain Nazca, who were joined by Fin VC. What’s more, they’re now hiring remotely!
Co-Founders: Andrew James Devlyn and Manolo Atala
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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.