Funding the Next Wave of Fintech Solutions with Alex Harris of Fiat Ventures

Episode Overview

Our Guest: Alex Harris- The Architect of Modern InsurTech Ventures in Fintech Industry.

Alex Harris is a luminary in the fintech sector, particularly known for his deep involvement in the InsurTech venture space. As the Co-Founder and General Partner at Fiat Ventures, he has carved a niche for himself by spearheading investments in groundbreaking fintech startups, with a special focus on those transforming the insurance industry through technology. His journey in the tech world is marked by a series of strategic roles that showcase his prowess in scaling businesses and driving innovation. Before founding Fiat Ventures, Alex was instrumental in the growth of Chime, a digital bank, where he led paid growth and partnerships, contributing significantly to its success during the critical post-Series A phase through to their Series D round.

In his earlier career, Alex demonstrated an exceptional knack for identifying and nurturing high-potential ventures, a skill he has refined over the years and now applies with remarkable success at Fiat Ventures. His approach combines a keen market insight with a hands-on investment strategy, enabling him to work closely with portfolio companies. This collaborative style has helped numerous startups to navigate the complex landscape of fintech, especially in the InsurTech domain, guiding them through growth challenges and strategic pivots. His expertise is not just in funding but also in providing the mentorship necessary for young companies to understand and leverage the nuances of the financial services industry.

Beyond his venture capital endeavors, Alex is passionate about fostering financial literacy and innovation, particularly among the younger generation. This passion is reflected in his involvement with ventures like Copper Banking, an initiative aimed at educating teens about financial management in an engaging and practical manner. His vision extends to creating an ecosystem where financial empowerment is accessible to all, leveraging InsurTech ventures as a key driver of this change. Alex’s thought leadership in the fintech space is widely recognized, with his insights and forecasts often sought after by industry professionals and media alike. His commitment to the advancement of fintech, especially InsurTech, is evident in his strategic investments, mentorship roles, and his advocacy for a tech-driven transformation of the insurance sector.

Episode Transcript

Alex Harris: Thinking about how AI can enhance your business. It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking. All the wow factor of AI ChatGPT when we first started playing with it, and any of the image generation. That’s all is impressive but from a business perspective, it doesn’t need to be crazy. We can make this small change and it’s actually going to save us 40 man hours a week. It’s going to allow us to provide access to our clients, to our users, 24 over seven. Some of those things aren’t groundbreaking from a tech perspective. So to me, the question is, is there something that you should be incorporating in your business to build a better experience, and better unit economics? Are there likely applications where it can enhance your business? For most businesses, yes. Most definitely.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Welcome to PayPod, the Payments Industry Podcast. Each week, we’ll bring you in-depth conversations with leaders who are shaping the payments and fintech world, from payment processing to risk management, and from new technology to entirely new payment types. If you want to know what’s happening in the world of fintech and payments, you’re in the right place.Hello everyone, and welcome to PayPod. I’m your host, Jacob Hollabaugh, and today on the show, it’s time to put our investor caps on once again and take a step back to look at the fintech market from a high-level view. What spaces are ripe for innovation? What spaces have the potential for a lot of growth? And generally, where is the market overall, and who or what might be the biggest movers and shakers in the years to come? To explore the answers to some of these questions, I am very pleased to be joined today by Alex Harris, Co-Founder and General Partner at Fiat Ventures. The VC fund focused on supporting and growing the next generation of early-stage companies in the fintech space. Alex, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here today.

Alex Harris: Thanks so much for having me. I am excited to be here.

Jacob Hollabaugh: The pleasure is mine. I really love it when we get to have investors like yourself on and take, as I was saying there in the intro, the higher level view and go wherever you’re seeing interest within the market go. Let’s kick things off though with a little walk down memory lane, if you will take me back about three years ago, almost to the month, I think it was now, what were you doing prior to founding Fiat Ventures, and what was it that you saw in the world of fintech that led you to want to literally invest specifically within this world, this industry?

Alex Harris: Yeah, absolutely. I first and foremost think of myself as an operator and a growth guy and have been that way my whole career. Prior to starting Fiat, most recently, I was at Chime, the digital bank, joined early just after series A, and led paid growth there as well as partnerships. Then, as we were closing our D round, decided to start a consultancy, realized I really enjoyed being a good partner to all these different companies, and decided you could actually make a career out of that. Instead of just being a good partner, you can maybe try to build a business around it. So I did that, and that’s actually what came first. It’s about five years ago now as Chime was closing that D round. What followed was us developing the market-leading growth consultancy in terms of today, we now have 35 full-time employees, we have 15 different business lines, essentially full-stack growth. Then we have 160 advisors on fiat advisors that will be brought in for specialized topics, separate from the full-time employees, we have them for those specific areas. Taking back to three years ago for the foundation of ventures, the idea was we have this tremendous growth expertise but also very importantly, this visibility into trends in the market, visibility into is this what we’re seeing on the deck. Is this plan believable? Is this go-to-market strategy something that can be executed? Having that access. So we had a number of people say you guys should really start a fund. So we say we do the ultimate due diligence by working with companies first and everything we do in the growth space. And that was really what led to the start of Fiat Ventures, which as you mentioned. Yeah, we’re now about three years in.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah. So do you exclusively like, that you’re not going to invest in someone that you haven’t worked with before? Do you kind of exclusively work with the same people on the venture side and the growth side, or are you willing to separate those if need be?

Alex Harris: Great question. Definitely will separate those. It’s probably about half of the investments we make, we’ve worked with or have some relationship with. We completely separate them. As far as it’s not a reward for working with us or anything like that. They’re entirely separate. It’s a matter of giving you some numbers, I think we’ve worked with about 160 companies to date on the consulting side. We have invested, I believe, in 16 of those, 17 of those. We’re very much open to everyone. However, we’re still leveraging that expertise. Still saying, what expertise do we need to bring in here to validate that? So even in the case that we’re not doing the ultimate due diligence by working with someone for several months, at least. We’re doing the ultimate due diligence in that our team is looking at it, validating a lot of things, and making sure we know everything we need to know to properly evaluate a space.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah. I would assume then to that network effect of like, we might not have worked for you before, but you know, this is over here in that we have worked with the 160 folks, we have this massive team, we have all this expertise. So us, investing in you, there are lots of funds out there that you can get investment from, but not all of them come with it, you’re also tapping into this network. I would assume that’s one of the things that helps set you apart a little bit and makes you even more attractive as an investor and a partner coming in.

Alex Harris: Yeah, I think, to portfolio companies, I don’t take this for granted. It’s an honor, but I appreciate that most people look to us. I mean, money is a little bit of a commodity. So I’m sure everyone’s happy to have investment, especially in this market. But because of the extra value add we bring generally they’re excited to work with us and we can provide that true value add to actually not just write a check and hope for the best, but actually build the business together.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah, for sure. You’d love to have them be excited. Not just that the check has arrived in the bank account has gone up, but like the check arrived from these people. And that’s also part of why we’re excited. On the investment side, what does your initial contact process look like for most companies you’re investing in? Are you doing the scouting, researching, and reaching out yourself? Are you taking applications and pitches? A mix of both? How do you go about discovering the companies that you want to ultimately, or end up ultimately investing in?

Alex Harris: Great question with a complex answer. There are a number of feeders.

Jacob Hollabaugh: I’m going to ask you a lot of questions today. Probably I know the answer is both, but let’s walk down both lanes.

Alex Harris: Yeah, totally. It’s an important question. And it’s something that we’ve got some unique distribution into. not the least of which, by the way, is starting with those 160 advisors, we have them set up with relationships somewhat similar to a scout carry where they’re looking actually at these companies and saying, hey, there’s something here, you should really take a look. So it’s that deep look too. Because they’re working closely with them. Our advisors are a big one, our broader network, is friendly with a number of other VCs. A lot of people come to us directly, and then a lot come through the client side. One way or another, they find us early. VCs send them to us, and we start working with them, and that’s a path. So I’d say there’s that growth path, the advisor path, and word-of-mouth referral. And a lot of people just are more and more coming directly, which I really appreciate as well. I feel very fortunate to have an incredible deal flow. Especially in this market, there are so many incredible founders right now out there who just need a chance and a check.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah, it’s a lot of opportunity. The opportunities are harder to see or different. You see it in different ways in different market conditions. But certainly, right now, the folks that can offer the financing are in big favor these days. Now fintech is obviously a super broad, catch-all category for a lot that’s going on. And you know there’s new sub-industries popping up every day like this little part better, and break these things out. Do any specific areas of the world of finance stick out to you as kind of the most ripe for change or improvement right now, or maybe viewed in the reverse way, an area that you’re getting most commonly pitched, or having some of your consultants come back more often than not and be like, hey, this space, there’s another company, any hot spaces of late?

Alex Harris: So first off, you’re totally right. Fintech is super broad. We think in many ways, almost every company is a fintech in some way. If you’re processing payments in some way. So fintech is very broad. Maybe this will be a little controversial of an answer, but. I am a huge believer in InsurTech, and Insurtech has really taken a beating in terms of multiples and venture dollars in recent years. And part of that has been because you have this massive industry insurance as a vertical is one of the oldest businesses we have, unbelievable lifetime value in it, and massive business potential. So you have these traditional players using traditional technology for underwriting, for onboarding, for marketing, all these other aspects that are fully ripe for disruption. So we saw this wave of InsurTech and companies that were disruptive. The problem is the way most of them were built, not all, but most. The economics were not very sustainable. Mm. And so you have in this next generation of InsurTech companies that are rebuilding, either being born out of this time, learning from past mistakes, or are being rebuilt with unit economics in mind with some of these optimizations and sustainable growth, not just big numbers so you can raise a splashy growth round, but actually building a fundamentally strong business. So given that insurance is such a tenant of financial lives. I believe something that we’ve gone through this wave of excitement and exuberance and a big pullback and now learning that wave is rising again. There are certainly other other answers that I have. But that’s one that I think is just not talked about enough. And it’s one that I’m excited about the future of for sure.

Jacob Hollabaugh: And once again as you said, it’s one of the biggest verticals, that exists period. And so it’s one that if you see a vertical of that size and that market size that’s back on the upswing and a wave coming, it’s certainly one you would want to be a part of and is going to have a massive impact. If you can be a part of one of the companies that’s very successful in it. When you get to the point of really considering a specific investment. And again, as I referenced earlier, I know the answer to this question about to ask is going to be both. But if you had to maybe lean one way or the other as far as the first one you do your due diligence on, would you say you’re more focused on the founder and leadership team and being confident in them, or the idea in the product itself? Again, the answer is both. You need both. But if there was one, you’re like, I’m going to check this out first. Then the other one is, do you lean either way on that?

Alex Harris: The answer is both for sure, but it actually is the founder and it is. Stuff changes, the market changes, and you need to know. You need to have that kind of relentless nature to you, that passion that I’m going to figure this out, not the like. Let’s give this a try and see what happens. But that focus and that I’m going to figure this out. I’m going to build a profitable company. I’m going to build a massive business. I’m going to build the next unicorn. We see that often with mission-driven founders. It’s something that they’ve lived with or part of their community that they’ve lived, and they’re going to fix this problem. When you have that relentless mentality, you will figure out a solution. You also have a lot of bright minds. And we saw this quite honestly, with a lot of dollars invested in Web3, for instance, a lot of those founders were brilliant. Some of the smartest people went to work in Web3, which meant you had a ton of smart people wanting to build in a space that had seen some recession, a lot of them pivoted into AI companies and companies that are completely different than what they sent out to do. This is kind of across the board. We’ve seen it ourselves but across the board. These founders figured out a way. They figured out something that’s an entirely different business. But you’re betting on the founder who can. Have the humility and the openness to listen to the signals in the market for when they need to make some changes, the nimbleness to make those changes on the fly, and the ability to actually execute. And so I’d say we’ve seen time and time again that at the end of the day whether your acquisition cost is going to be this and this channel is going to work, and whatever you lay out on the deck to to an extent maybe, but nothing’s ever exactly as you laid out. But the founder dynamics. And those intangibles that a founder has. Those will see you through. And the winning companies at the end of the day, have those types of. So I’d say the answer is both very emphatically on the founder.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah, I love hearing that. And I’m with you. And to take it back to your InsurTech. For example, if you have the right founders in place, they’re the types that some people can ride back out that like we were in the right space, we had the right idea, the solution changed and evolved, and we were actually willing to change and evolve with it and get through and be on the second part of the wave, just like we rode the first part of the wave. Absolutely. I love hearing that. so you covered there kind of what characteristics you’d probably be looking for in that founder on the product and the kind of company side itself. Are there any key characteristics, key numbers you’re looking at, or any kind of things that stand out to you as the strongest signals as you’re doing your diligence on that side of like the moment you see those, not it only takes this one thing and here’s the check, but the strongest kind of signals that stand out of like, “Oh, I’m going to keep digging on this”

Alex Harris: Yeah, there isn’t one hard, fast number in terms of like, you need to be at this revenue or, or this payback period or anything like that. You know, there’s we all have those numbers that we look for that are strong signals and you can get excited about. There isn’t one core number to look at. I’d say the aspect that really jumps out to me that makes it most exciting is kind of the believability of their go-to-market and their growth and testing that and leaning in there. So it’s at the end of the day any raising of venture dollars is “Can you tell a believable story.” So you can have people who are just good storytellers and then you can have people who have backed it up because they’ve done it before, and people who can back it up with compelling data in a plan. So I think that’s really where the rubber meets the road is this something that has been validated either by the team or by the market? Is it new territory? If so, probably should be priced appropriately, if it’s a complete exploration. But what signals do you have and what conviction do you have behind not just the founder, but the product and the fit? You look at competition in the market as well and think at the end of the day. You know, it’s not always a bad thing when there’s a ton of competition. It’s the validation of the opportunity. But the question is, an idea is, I don’t want to say worthless, but the idea is just an idea, it’s really in the execution and delivery. So it’s a matter of the competition. Why this one? So we certainly will look at deals. There is going to be a unicorn, a decacorn in this space. There are eight companies that are competing for it. Who’s it going to be and why? Why is it this one?

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And you referenced the storytelling before, and I sometimes joke although I think it’s very real as sometimes if the best storytellers, the best marketers out there get on the wrong teams, it can be disastrous for an industry when you’re like, you’re so good at telling that story that I had to believe it in everything behind it wasn’t able to back it up. And so getting nice matches of storytelling products that deserve their story to be told.

Alex Harris: The funny thing is it’s something that I think investors are aware of too, because you can have incredible founders and incredible builders, but they can’t tell the story to save their lives. And you actually have a concern like “Can they go raise money? I believe in them. I’m convinced or I’m convinced after all this time, or know them. But if they can’t tell that story, this may be problematic.” They may have the best product, but you need to be able to raise money. At the same time, you can look and basically say like, okay, is this person just splashy and great at raising money for some reason? Is there substance there? Can they execute? Yeah, it kind of cuts both.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Did they just win me over in the room or did I actually buy what they were truly selling? So totally I’m sure that’s a tough thing for you to sift through every time you’re meeting with some new folks.

Alex Harris: Most definitely.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Let’s talk about a specific company or two here. Who is one person or one company maybe in the wide world of fintech that’s doing something you find really interesting right now, whether you’ve invested in them or not? If you’ve got a cool recent investment, you want to shout out or tell us a little about otherwise. Is there anyone that has stuck out to you recently that you thought was doing something really innovative, really cool, really new?

Alex Harris: Well, I love all my children equally. Of course. I get so excited by innovation and what I see all the time and things crossing my mind. I am crossing my desk, I’ll say maybe two answers. One is looking at looking at some companies that are looking to unlock the way enterprises and startups use AI solutions but do so in a safe and compliant way, which is everything in financial services. Because there’s all these tools that are so powerful, but you’re sharing private health data, private financial data, all these other pieces, there’s a lot of sensitivity to it. So I think it’s the kind of infrastructure play and companies in that space. There are a few that we’re looking at. Who is going to be instrumental in unlocking AI in financial services and doing it in a way that really works in a highly regulated industry? Since those are also in the pipeline, that’s what I’m kind of speaking about and there are a few I tend to go back to, copper banking, which is a bank for teens. we started working with Copper in the very beginning before they launched on the growth side, helping them launch. Then we worked with them, they had a unique growth strategy where their acquisition cost was about a quarter of anything else in the market. We invested in their seed round and then saw them continue to succeed and ended up leading their series A, so I’m currently on the board of Copper. and it is a team that is focused on the right things in terms of financial literacy but in an approachable way. This next generation, I would say I hope, but I see it all the time, this next generation is believing in financial literacy as something important and something cool, something that, they really want to learn about and experience and have that hands-on approach. Coppers have really gone about it in a unique way to empower teens in the next generation to both learn and be hands-on with everything from investing, earning money and how they pay for things, saving, a number of components of financial literacy that quite honestly, generation and generations before us did not get. And that’s why in addition to being just exciting in terms of I believe they’re going to be a tremendous market leader for many years to come. Venture aside, it’s really the impact on the next generation that gets me most excited about them.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah, absolutely. And I love that example because I love that space because I agree with you as someone firmly millennial, it’s two sides of the same coin. I’m super thrilled that finally, there are young generations that are both actively asking for and being delivered like it would be a good thing to teach you and make seem like a cool thing to be interested in financial literacy and just understanding economics and money and just how the world kind of operates. And we definitely had none of that really at all, even up and through university level, college at the collegiate level.

Alex Harris: It’s not in the school curriculum. It really most often comes from home or it doesn’t. And occasionally a friend or someone or if you’re really ambitious, you maybe will learn it yourself. And back in the day, you were looking in the newspaper for stock prices and trying to learn some of that. But for the most part, it comes from home. Parents are busy, parents often don’t have financial literacy. That’s ideal in many cases. They don’t want to talk about it. It’s a taboo subject. They don’t want to talk about budgeting and struggles and having to pay taxes and some of these things. So it’s now become much more open and cool and approachable and a topic that is now very much out there and open. So I’m excited. It’s one of the things that makes me excited for this next generation.

Jacob Hollabaugh: I Love it. Though the first part of your answer alluded to, you used AI as a part of the answer, which is something I’m kind of required at this point to ask every guest about, but with the wave of mainstream AI and the actual real gains that have been made in the space in the last couple of years, from an investment standpoint, I’ll ask the question kind of bluntly, is it the only thing worth investing in right now, or is it a requirement essentially of how not that you are an AI company, but that the company is leveraging AI technology to assist whatever it is doing or how it operates in any way? Is it almost a requirement at this point, or how do you just look at AI in general in this fintech landscape?

Alex Harris: Definitely not the only thing as far as a great opportunity. There is a lot of opportunity. There’s a lot of competition. And quite honestly we’re seeing a little bit of the price being driven up a little early, as if we haven’t learned our lesson the past couple of years or the cycles before that. But I would say it is not, as far as AI is a feature or incorporating, required, not always, but I feel like it’s becoming a fundamental building block where it’s kind of like, maybe this is the best analogy, but it’s like do you need to use slack to build a tech company? No, there are other ways to do it, but it’s helpful to the infrastructure. I think it comes to really a better way to look at it though, rather than a simple analogy of just a utility like that is thinking about how AI can enhance your business. It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking. It doesn’t have to be something all the wow factor of AI, ChatGPT. When we first started playing with it in any of the image generations, that all is impressive, but from a business perspective. It doesn’t need to be crazy when you’re talking about how we can make this small change and it’s actually going to save us 40 man hours a week. It’s going to allow us to provide access to our clients, to our members, to our users, 24/7. It’s going to allow us to take a step in the enrollment flow. We have to sign up for a product. And part of that you need to have some onboarding and answer some questions. Those are responsive questions. Maybe that can be done by AI. So you can schedule that on your own time. I don’t know if you’ve ever signed up for a product, especially on a company side like a B2B product, and you have to schedule a demo and all these things. There’s a lot of inefficiencies. Some of those things aren’t groundbreaking from a tech perspective, given the way it’s developing. So to me, the question is, is there something and that probably is that you should be incorporating in your business to build a better experience, and better unit economics, and so is it required? No. Are there likely applications where it can enhance your business for most businesses? Yes. Most definitely.

Jacob Hollabaugh: And just a nice general awareness, whether how it can enhance you or is there someone who could come along, and an awareness of how it could impact what you are doing with someone else down there as kind of the competitive analysis too?

Alex Harris: Yeah. And in some ways, as I said, every company is a fintech company in some ways. You could say every company is an AI company. These are just like fundamental building blocks, building blocks of businesses.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Absolutely. The final question I have for you is what excites you most about the year ahead? We’re a little ways into 2024 now. But you know, at the end of the second month here, we’ve still got a ways to go. What excites you most about the year ahead either specific trends or major events you’re waiting big plans for Fiat? Any all the above? What excites you most about the year ahead?

Alex Harris: Fiat specifically, we have a number of really key deep channel partners that we have been working with that we’re going to be rolling out in a bigger way. We have several announcements coming for that and ways that we’re supporting companies in innovative ways, continuing to scale out. Our advisor network is amazing to see what unbelievable talent is wanting to and willing to take part in our ecosystem is just an incredible honor. As a broad answer for excitement in the market ahead, I’d say it’s been a rough couple of years. Um in the market for one in tech, and we’ve learned a lot. And I’m excited for that reset, which has already started to happen and it’s already well in motion, but similar to my answer about InsurTech and other businesses. It’s kind of an opportunity to start again, to build again, to build better. So while history does repeat itself, founders will learn from those lessons and build better the next time around. So we’re in this new phase. And I think 2024 is going to be a huge year for building, and learning from the past. We’re going to see a tremendous vintage of businesses that were founded in that 2023 to 2025 timeline. So really excited for the businesses to come from this next year.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Well, I hope you are spot on, because it does sound like exciting times ahead. And this has been an absolute pleasure. For those listening who may want to learn more about Fiat Ventures, check out some of the companies within your portfolio, or get in touch with you where it’d be the best place for them to go to do so.

Alex Harris: Yeah. Our website is fiat.vc, for our ventures side, and fiatgrowth.com for the consulting side. Feel free to reach out. I am Alex at fiatgrowth.com and Alex at fiat.vc. We also have forms through the site and a number of other ways to get in touch with us. We’re pretty active on LinkedIn and, a number of other ways but excited to stay in touch. Thank you so much for having me, loved to have this discussion, and excited to see what happens in the years ahead.

Jacob Hollabaugh: I Love it, wonderful. We’ll link to those and more in the show notes below. Alex, thank you so much for the time and knowledge today. I’ve enjoyed it and hope to speak again sometime soon.

Alex Harris: Likewise. Thank you.

Jacob Hollabaugh: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, head on over to soarpay.com/podcast to subscribe on your podcast listening platform of choice. That’s soarpay.com/podcast.