An interview with the co-founders of VC agency Fiat Ventures and sister arm Fiat Progress
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 couple of weeks.
And but, fintech startups are nonetheless getting based and funded this 12 months. Of the 223 corporations in Y Combinator’s summer season 2022 batch, 79 fell kind of into the fintech class.
Why are founders and buyers 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 Progress, a progress consultancy working with fintech and insurtech shoppers. This permits them to remark not solely on sector traits from an investor perspective, but in addition to share sensible recommendation.
One in every 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 trade lined a wider vary of matters, from monetary inclusion to offline channels and extra. Learn on:
Editor’s notice: This interview has been edited for size and readability. Lots of the linked corporations are portfolio corporations of Fiat Ventures or shoppers of Fiat Progress.
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 issues are unavoidable in a extremely regulated atmosphere, however superfluous issues can come up when rigorous testing just isn’t utilized and funnels embrace 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 complete Social Safety Quantity. Normally, for non-credit merchandise, solely the final 4 digits of the SSN are wanted for identification functions. Whereas solely a five-digit distinction, this could have a significant impression on conversion charges that may save massive sums of cash at scale.
Knowledge is definitely king, however there’s a time and place for information assortment and personalization. Too usually, a well-intentioned information crew will ask personalization and demographics questions straight in an enrollment course of. Nonetheless, these questions can most frequently are available in a post-enrollment survey or periodically all through the lifecycle of a buyer. Even post-enrollment, these questions must be thought out. We usually see information collected for the sake of amassing it, with out actionable insights derived from them.