angela strange
@astrange
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General Partner (FinTech/Enterprise) @a16z , proud Canadian, mom, distance runner (@ increasingly slower paces!); Previous: product leader
San Francisco, CA
Joined February 2007
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Pinned Tweet
Financial services is heavily regulated, so will be slow to adopt Gen AI right? Wrong.
A year ago, Gen AI x FinServ use cases were theoretical. Now, early implementations abound & we have a clearer picture of GenAI's potential (+ opportunities hiding in plain site). A 🧵👇
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Thinking of starting a Fintech company? We will make
@a16z
's resources available to a Fintech EIR (remote ok!).Ideal profile: startup experience & the passion to solve a critical problem in financial services (fully fleshed out idea not required).To apply:
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1/The logistics of starting a company in the U.S. are a mostly solved problem: Stripe Atlas for company formation, Mercury for business banking, Ramp/Brex for corporate cards, Carta for cap table management, Gusto for HR. Yet, just getting started in many countries is HARD 🧵
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At the
@a16z
summit last year, I discussed why "mainstream" financial services are not meeting the needs of tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of millions more worldwide.
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Financial services fall flat for tens of millions of Americans and billions of people worldwide. Here's my presentation on creative new models being deployed to bring better financial access to all. And this is just the beginning!
@a16z
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I'm proud to announce our investment in
@synapsefi
. AWS made it easier to launch new internet services, Synapse is doing the same for financial services. W/ the cost/complexity of infrastructure coming down, soon any company can be a FinTech company.
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1/ Fintech in Latin America is growing explosively. Why? New post by
@matt_haf
& me on the large, latent demand of >600m people and why the opportunity for startups has never been bigger 👇
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1/ Open source will catalyze the financial services industry's biggest evolution to date. In this $25T industry, increasing power & influence will shift from suits to developers.
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1) People hating banks is old news. It’s more interesting to look at root causes for the inertia. And more importantly, why is the centuries-old banking industry changing so suddenly? New post: Why our most hated institutions will become our most beloved
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1/ FinTech opens new markets for vertical software previously considered too small & enables sales models previously deemed too expensive. New Blog post w.
@kshenster
,
@seema_amble
,
@kimberlywtan
on the opportunity for SaaS to embed FinTech!
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Google Maps calculates the optimal route for us, but when it comes to finances, moving from A to B is still manual, often unsuccessful. Excited to invest in
@meettally
, platform to automate/simplify our financial lives, starting w/$1T of credit card debt
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1/ Why doesn't insurance just "come with" everything? Rental w. apartment lease, cyber w. domain name, pet w. dog etc. Instead, we buy the valuable thing, then go somewhere *else* to get insurance. New post w.
@seema_amble
on opportunities for startups
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1) New post! Google Maps for Money The best way to cut through financial complexity is to abstract it away with software. SW is very good at distilling the key points we need to make decisions & even executing those decisions for us.
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1/ Thrilled to officially welcome
@GEVS94
as a partner on the
@a16z
fintech investing team w/
@arampell
@dhaber
@illscience
@seema_amble
@joeschmidtiv
@sumeet724
@MAndrusko1
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1/ Every [fintech, crypto, marketplace, vertical SaaS] co is faced with a hard trade-off: let your newly recruited customers transact right away (great experience!), but accept potentially crippling financial risks:
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1/ Software easily crosses borders-often just requiring language translation. Money also crosses borders- but w/ opaque FX rates & costly delays. We dive into who is solving these problems & opps for future. See
#a16z
global payment hub for a map & more!
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Early FinTech wedges: No overdraft! Get your paycheck early! Now banks are racing to "catch up"?Just this past week: Ally eliminates overdraft, Capital One & others announce early direct deposit. If ever there was evidence that competition is good for consumers...what's next?
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Everyone, regardless of socioeconomic background will have affordable financial services. There are great entrepreneurs building this future already and much more opportunity ahead for founders
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1/ Peter Levine,
@seema_amble
& I are excited to announce our investment in
@moov_io
- open source financial services building blocks (or "banking primitives as a service") w/
@wadearnold
, Bob Smith & team + the Moov developer community
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Such an honor to join
@HarryStebbings
on
@twentyminutevc
- How FinTech, & companies adding FinTech is just getting started, your kids' "bank" might be a game, 2 ways to become the system of record, finding new wedges to acquire customers and more
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1) A strong finance team is critical, now more than ever. Companies of all sizes are dynamically planning for uncertain times ahead. New post w.
@seema_amble
:fintech & enterprise entrepreneurs are teaming up to modernize SW for the finance suite (finally!)
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14% of Colombians have a credit card, 70% have a smartphone. This isn’t uncommon for 3B+ under/unbanked people globally. Announcing our investment in
@Addi_col
.
@SantiaSua
& team are bringing much needed tech-enabled credit starting w/ point of sale lending
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1/ The company of the future is default global: A startup's first 50-100 employees may span several countries. What are the software cos needed to support companies that are multi-country/multi-currency from Day 1? w.
@illscience
@seema_amble
@joeschmidtiv
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It's no secret there's explosive startup growth in LatAm!Great to talk w.
@Harrystebbings
about opportunities ranging from hospitality to FinTech.Tune in to hear about companies like
@Addi_col
@jeeves_inc
@hellocasai
@pomelo_latam
@loft_br
@RappiBrasil
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The biggest shift happening in fintech is that it's going EVERYwhere. *any* company can offer financial services.Ridesharing co's w bank accounts for drivers is just the beginning...think of your favorite brand -- could they be your future bank?(It's already started, with Apple.)
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1/ It's getting cold...so time for a16z hot takes on what to watch in '24. In financial services, 2024 will mark a pivotal shift: developers emerge even more as the key buyers & influencers in the procurement of financial infrastructure.
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1/ Excited to announce our investment in SeedFi: developing a suite of financial plans for the 100m Americans who live paycheck to paycheck. Seventy percent of Americans have less than $1,000 saved, 45 percent have no savings at all.
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1/I've written before that the global CFO is in crisis, but it's the emerging markets CFO who is in major crisis. In many LatAm markets, finance/payments/risk functions of otherwise very sophisticated companies are supported by ppl doing manual data entry (not by software!)🧵👇
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1) We are at just the beginning of a wave of non-fintechs buying/launching fintechs
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Google enters banking in the US with planned checking accounts via Citi/Stanford Credit Union. They will need a “hook” to get consumers to switch - probably more than: “Hey Google, what’s my balance?” Any hypothesis?
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Excited to be working with
@seema_amble
, the newest member of
@a16z
Fintech who has already been investing in fintech/insurance across geographies. Seems like Business Insider is impressed too:)
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Insurance is a $7 trillion global data and risk business. Yet large parts of the insurance industry struggle to take advantage of modern data infrastructure.
@joeschmidtiv
& I are excited to announce our investment in hx! 🧵👇
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An honor to get to kickoff
@fintechdevcon
!! Such great energy here. Thanks
@moov
@wadearnold
for bringing the community together. Open source is coming to financial services
Please help. Angela Strange just blew our socks off and now our feet are cold.
@astrange
@a16z
#fintechdevcon
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Excited to back more founders pursuing large and mostly untapped opportunities in Latam.
@hdubugras
says it well - “Here in the U.S., it is really hard to find a good idea. In Brazil, there are a lot of obvious good ideas”
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And here's the keynote talk I gave this year at
@a16z
innovation summit -- on *insurance*. 1 in 10 F500 companies is an insurance company... all of which were started before World War 2!
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1/ As CEOs and finops ppl know, if you have employees & operations in more than 1 country, it can mean managing a tangled web of corporate cards, bank logins, transfers,FX and weeks of reconciling on the backend. Now there’s a solution! meet
@jeeves_inc
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October
@a16z
fintech newsletter!
- Open source comes to fintech - making financial services easier to code
- Getting crypto policy right
@TomicahTD
&
@jamesrathmell
- Automation not education by
@illscience
- Financing the hustler economy by
@sumeet724
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2023 will be the year compliance gets MUCH more productized. Companies that do this well (or provide this as a service) will have a strong competitive advantage! This is esp hard x-border, and in b2b. One of the most fruitful areas to explore AI apps - wdyt?
8️⃣ Compliance as a Competitive Advantage
Post Dodd-Frank, 30,000 financial regulations quickly ballooned to 50,000.
@astrange
explains how these regulations pose a significant weight on financial service firms, but equally an opportunity for founders to help companies keep up.
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Faster payments are good for everyone, the increased fraud is obviously not.
@sardine
's best in class fraud engine & payments on-ramp will become a requirement for a faster payments world
@soupsranjan
@adityagoeleth
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A continued demonstration of vertical SaaS companies monetizing via Fintech by Toast POS. First payments, now loans. Where in addition to having already acquired the restaurant customer (usually high cost for lending cos!), Toast has better data.
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1/ 5% of mortgages are in forbearance. That's ~3m Americans concerned w/ their ability to stay in their homes. Their main avenue for support is through hard-to-reach mortgage servicers using tech built in the 60s. We are investing in Valon! Here's why:
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Sub 2 hour marathon! This is an amazing feat of human and team performance by Eliud Kipchoge. That’s 4:34/mi for 26mi— try it for 400m:)
“In breaking the two-hour barrier, I want to open minds to think that no human is limited.”
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4/ Excited to announce our investment in Sardine, aptly named for the fishy behavior it will prevent. Sardine provides risk-free, instant ACH and card settlement for fintech & crypto companies, vertical SaaS, marketplaces, etc
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A one chart summary of why it's gotten even harder for the majority of Americans that live paycheck to paycheck. And why now it is more important than ever to avoid financial services fees (overdraft,monthly fees,ATMs,late fees esp rent etc.)
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February
@a16z
fintech newsletter is out:)
Our latest fintech newsletter is out👇
-FICO’s new scoring system
-Credit Karma's acquisition
-NYC bans cashless businesses
-The trend behind
#debtfreeisthenewsexy
-LendingClub buys a bank
-Varo to *become* a bank
-Tech for tenants
Read & subscribe:
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Announcing our investment in the formidable team
@ydev
@michael_yu
&
@usevesta
! Finally - a modern operating system (LOS)+workflow engine+Open APIs to power the mortgage industry. The consumer & lender experience is about to get much better
@kimberlywtan
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@bhorowitz
makes the often intangible concept of culture come to life with historical & unexpected modern day (prison!) frameworks, combined with his practical experience. Thought provoking and immediately useful for anyone running a company/team
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2) Most employees live paycheck to paycheck and come dangerously close to 0 balance. With impossible to predict delays (in paychecks, $ from checks being available or cashed) - every mistake results in a $30 overdraft fee...adding to $34B in overdraft fees last year.
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2) Similar to what AWS did for compute and storage, new infrastructure companies are rebuilding each layer of the banking stack and providing modern software “as a service.” Thus, the cost and complexity of building or adding financial services is coming down.
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Thrilled to continue to support
@thazhmon
& team at
@jeeves_inc
on their journey to grow their world class team to support fast-growing global companies!! All-in-one corporate multi-currency card & expense mgmt platform inc working cap & growth loans 🚀🚀🚀
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3) It's the people who need their cash the most who suffer the most from these payment delays. Why pay 1-5% of your check to cash it immediately when banks do it for free? Because you can't afford to wait the 2-7 days for the bank to clear it.
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If you're going to host a conference in 105 temp...best to have a great sense of humour about it? 😂😂
#fintechdevcon
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What if you could have a team of fintech experts & the network and resources of the most connected founders right at the start of your entrepreneurial journey? Announcing A16Z Start 👇
1/ Excited to officially announce a16z Start!💥 We're pumped to partner with founders starting at the earliest stages by providing them up to $1M + a network of support to jumpstart their company. So what is a16z Start? More 👇
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1) Bank fees have been rising for a long time - but why is this suddenly mainstream news? Consumers are stretched thin, fees are worse, Fintechs are providing alternatives—and forcing incumbents to respond. Check out
@a16z
newsletter or listen to the latest
#16Minutes
for more
Record ATM fees; Looming zero interest rates; High-yield savings accounts proliferate;
@nubank
hits 15 million users.
Commentary by
@astrange
@illscience
@seema_amble
@matt_haf
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There’s margin to be gained by new title insurance and mortgage companies (it shouldn’t cost $10k to underwrite!)Challenge=Distribution. FinTech’s like OpenDoor are building title/mortgage, expect traditional players to look for new title/mortgage partners
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3/ Companies like
@jeeves_inc
@deel
@latitudlatam
@Datanomik
are already providing critical pieces of the "Default Global" infrastructure and there are many challenges still to be tackled!
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7/ Gabe's fun fact is that one day he will be President of El Salvador. I believe him.
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1/ FIs/Fintech will embrace GenAI faster than you might think. In the battle between the startup and the incumbent - small companies can innovate faster, but existing companies may have a data advantage.Early use cases abound! this is just the beginning 👇
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1) Sixth! edition of the
@a16z
monthly Fintech team newsletter with commentary of what's in the news, or what should be! with
@arampell
@illscience
@seema_amble
@rexsalisbury
@matt_haf
.
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Companies now *start* building in multiple countries -
@jeeves_inc
@deel
are the financial OS for this next default global generation. But many more infra opportunities exist! Fun conversation w/
@illscience
hosted by
@rexsalisbury
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Ever wonder why sometimes obviously good transactions are declined? or spend categorization/controls by category are often wrong? It's in part due to strings like: BT*DD *DOORDASH AMBESAN or MGRSBUX 62269 👇
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A generational shift in travel has been underway even pre-Covid. What would it take to build a new hospitality brand from the ground up? Casai is powering tech-enabled accommodations with the best of local culture - live now in Mexico City!
@nicobarawid
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"If finance is a competitive sport, the credit card companies are undefeated" - check out the new season of
#AgainstTheRulesPod
where
#MichaelLewis
&
@meettally
CEO
@SF_JCB
explain how coaching could level the financial playing field
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Distribution is hard in any industry. It can be especially hard in financial services. 's very well thought through and executed path to growth provides ideas for future products and networks yet to be created - :) post by
@seema_amble
!
Bill. com offers the sort of unglamorous, workhorse software that’s often taken for granted (accounts payable/receivable). So how did it become one of 2019's top IPOs?
@seema_amble
reveals what startups can learn from the company's viral growth strategy:
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We are going to miss you
@matt_haf
!!
🔥 Some personal news 🔥
After 4+ amazing years
@a16z
today is my last day. Crazy to think that since moving from 🇫🇷 I spent 50%+ of my time in the 🇺🇸 with the firm
What next? Investing ➡️ Operating
Excited to join
@jeeves_inc
to build financial tools for global startups 🦁🚀
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1/ Regulation is usually a *headwind* for startups, but Brazil provides a refreshing counter example. Here we dive into 5 of the most important changes, and the tailwind they continue to create for the fintech ecosystem
@floraoliveira__
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4/ FinTech goes far beyond payments - vertical software companies should consider lending, cards, insurance, bank accounts, compliance, payroll & benefits
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"AML is the world’s most ineffective policy experiment"- a well articulated "rant" by
@sytaylor
Filing reports (SARs) isn't stopping the near 5% of GDP from crime. Fintechs can do better: as users and as builders of new tech focused on this global problem
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A great thread by
@arampell
on how BNPL can provide a powerful (parallel!) network alternative to the acquirer/network/issuer of today - w SKU level data! One of the many reasons we are excited about
@Addi_col
@Affirm
1/ Why is “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) an early threat to trillions of dollars of market cap - Visa (almost $500B), MasterCard ($350B), card issuing banks, acquiring banks/services (Fiserv, FIS, Global Payments, etc)?
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7/
@latitudlatam
is accelerating a powerful flywheel of entrepreneurs in LatAm. Latitud is the product (company formation & more) & the distribution(Latitud fellows become customers!)
@GEVS94
& I are thrilled to back
@brianrequarth
@ginag
@YuriDanilchenko
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4
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Gooooo
@jeeves_inc
!!
@thazhmon
@sherwingandhi
have found pent up demand for their multi-country, multi currency expense management platform!! Welcome
@saarsaar
to the team!
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4/ Entrepreneurs can now go to & start their company for a fraction of the cost & time. This is just the tip of the product vision for making entrepreneurship more accessible. The team is quickly building to offer a full product suite for cos across LatAm
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3) It will become easier to launch a FinTech company and easier for existing institutions to improve (finally!). Most significantly -- In the not-too-distant future, I believe nearly every company will derive a significant portion of their revenue from financial services.
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1/ More countries, more problems! Digital products are even easier to create now with AI. Selling these products globally, however, is not yet straightforward. New post by me &
@sumeet724
🧵👇
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All businesses are impacted by COVID - some more than others, some positively, some negatively. Is that impact structural or ephemeral? A helpful framework for decision making by
@arampell
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While many home insurers warn "this application will take 15-20mins",
@hippo_insurance
is just a few clicks. There are 100s data & process improvements behind the scenes that build towards a totally new customer experience. Congrats
@AssafHippo
& team!
1
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Excited to join
#Founders
at
@googlecloud
for a live Q&A this Friday, Jan 26th! We will talk GenAI & Financial Services, fundraising, my path to
@a16z
(which includes Google!), and more. Join
@ryankiskis
& my AMA:
#VCAMASeries
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5/ Develop infrastructure building blocks: InsurTechs & incumbents could build faster & platforms could launch bespoke products. A fresh take at each layer of the stack could eventually reach a point where adding insurance is as modular as adding bank products.
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5/ The team at Sardine is uniquely positioned with their deep compliance, risk, fraud and payments expertise from companies like Coinbase and Revolut. Proud to be backing
@soupsranjan
,
@adityagoeleth
,
@zahidshaikh
alongside
@fubini
&
@tpbrown5
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2. Most SMBs already use
@stripe
@Square
@QuickBooks
etc. Not only do these companies sit on troves of financial data in digital form, many are also set up to quickly underwrite & disburse loans. Exactly the type of technological platforms needed in this crisis.
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6) It shouldn’t be expensive to be poor. When fintech enables more people to plug into better financial services and participate in the economy, everyone wins.
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Excited to welcome
@illscience
to team fintech w
@arampell
and me
@a16z
! Coincidentally we keep up our first name w "A" team criteria :)
Thrilled to share that I’ll be joining the
@a16z
team: where I’ll be looking out for the next wave of fintech companies that are making money fair, efficient, and perhaps even joyful ..
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5/He built a community of LaTam entrepreneurs inc.
@mejiassebas
,
@sfogel
,
@ahbilbaoo
,
@cvander
,
@brianrequarth
,
@gastonirigoyen
,
@carlosjgarciao
,
@vogelbit
,
@rewzca
,
@flohagenbuch
,
@pbarbieri
,
@thazhmon
@Bouazizalex
,
@woloski
,
@nicobarawid
,
@SantiaSua
to see how he could help
1
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Great study on cash flow underwriting from
@FinRegLab
(supported by
@petal
,
@LendUpCredit
,
@KabbageInc
,
@Accion
& others)
2
7
30
Ever wonder how the credit card solved the chicken & egg problem to bootstrap a network of consumers and merchants? It all started in...Fresno! Great thread by
@arampell
1/ September 18th marks the 61st anniversary of the most valuable network effect of all time: the credit card. How did we get here? Read on. And read
@opinion_joe
‘s book “Piece of the Action” for more...
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We are (finally!) at the point where new, important companies will be created - they will improve the buying process, but more importantly improve pricing and access for many.
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6) Over the next 5-10 years we will continue to see the launch/growth of new FinTech companies. Incumbents will improve; Brands we already love will launch new financial products. Financial service products will be affordable and accessible to everyone & we may even love them:)
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AI companions will be commonplace MUCH faster than we think - they have arrived
@venturetwins
@stuffyokodraws
@kirbyman01
@martin_casado
Consumer applications are first -- what enterprise applications might not be that far behind?
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4/
@moov_io
is taking an inside-out approach, rebuilding the most fundamental primitives in modern Go libraries and wrapped in REST— ACH, wires, RTP, OFAC, and a ledger for stored balance—and open sourcing them - to create composable, extensible building blocks
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Building a company is hard - but just getting set up shouldn't be. In most countries it still is. now makes it 10x faster/cheaper in LatAm to start a venture backed co.
@brianrequarth
@ginag
@YuriDanilchenko
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