Bill Cilluffo sits down with QED Principal, Ale Piedrahita, to discuss how living in multiple countries during her childhood has influenced her international life, her perspective on the European VC ecosystem, the competitive edge that Europe’s fintech sector has and the market trends she's most excited about.
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Speaker 1 (00:39):
Thank you.
I'm Bill Salufo, head ofinternational investments at QED
Investors.
Today on the podcast, I'm veryexcited to be joined by
Alexandra Pedrahita, a principalin our London office.
Ale, welcome to the podcast, hi, bill.
Thanks for having me Veryexcited.
Definitely Me too.
Well, look, before we getstarted, there's a bunch of
things I'd love to cover aboutyour background, what you're
doing now, kind of how you thinkabout leadership and your role.
(01:01):
But just to give our listenersa little bit of an orientation.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Wouldn't mind if you'd give us a bit of an
elevator pitch of what's yourbackground and how did you get
to QED?
Yeah, so try to make the storyshort, I grew up in Spain, but
of South American parents.
So because I'm being a father ofa Brazilian, American mother
studied in the US, started mycareer at Aries Management,
which is a large alternativeasset manager and I think that
we'll get to this in the podcastbut gave me my first glimpse
(01:30):
into fintech from, I guess youcould say, the other side.
I was super curious about what Isaw going on on the fintech
side of things.
So I decided to do an MBA atLondon Business School to sort
of transition my career back toEurope at that point and to
pursue my interest in fintecheither from an operating or an
investing perspective.
(01:51):
So I had two differentexperiences in terms of
internships during the MBA oneon the VC side with Balderton,
another on the startup side, acompany called Givestar in the
sort of non-profit space, but itwas in payments and decided to
go the VC route, took my firstjob with a fund called March
Capital, based in LA, coveringfintech, and then was lucky
(02:12):
enough to join the QED teamalmost three years ago, about
two and a half years ago now, inOctober of 2021.
So loving it ever since.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It's amazing how fast time flies, eh so, ale, based
on that background, how manydifferent cities have you lived
in?
It's got to be a large numberEight, eight cities and that's
got to be at least four or fivecountries, right?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, so, almost three years in, I'm getting
restless here in London.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Well, if there's one city that might hold you for a
while, London's got a lot goingon.
No it.
There's one city that mighthold you for a while, London's
got a lot going on.
No, it's been one of the mostfun things for me as QED has
grown is just people that we'reable to bring in from all over
the world, living all over theworld with lots of wild
backgrounds, and I know yours istoward the top of that list, so
that's awesome.
So when you were younger youmentioned you've got South
American parents.
They met in the US, moved toLondon, moved to Madrid, so you
(03:01):
had already moved a couple timesby the time you were eight.
Can you talk about what thatwas like for you at recognizing
you're quite young, movingaround to different countries so
early, and maybe how that'sinfluenced the rest of your very
much international life.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, I'd say like it's probably the most I don't
know defining thing, or it wasfor me the most defining thing
about myself growing up was thatI always sort of felt like an
expat wherever I was.
I therefore love and I'm alwaysattracted to expat communities,
Even here, living in London.
I'm married to a Turkish guyand 90% of our friends here are
(03:39):
international.
They're not necessarily English, but what I think that that
creates is people that arehighly adaptable and flexible
and, I think, curious, becausewhen you move time and time and
time again, you have no choicebut to basically adapt and make
the best of every move and,ideally, learn the most about
(04:01):
every place that you're in andget as ingrained in that sort of
culture in that place.
So, yeah, it makes you anadaptable person that can, I
think, relate to a lot of peoplefrom different backgrounds, and
I think that that for sureinfluenced my sort of desire to
go into venture capital, whereyou're constantly speaking to
(04:22):
people from so many differentbackgrounds in different places
and you have to be able to sortof relate, understand, build a
relationship with those people,truly understand what's going on
underneath the surface of acertain company or a sector, or
a fund or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, it's interesting you say that.
I mean I've only done oneinternational move in Toronto,
so it was as easy aninternational move from the US
as possible.
But it was actually interestingafter five years and we moved
back and look back at who ourfriends were.
I don't think we realized anyof this at the time.
There's probably only onecouple I could come up with that
we were truly good friends with, where both of them were
Canadian.
I mean, it was almost all likeone spouse might be Canadian,
(05:00):
the other spouse was eitherAmerican or Indian or you know
from wherever else.
It's interesting how the expatskind of stick together.
Fascinating to hear you saythat.
So for university you came backto the States, to go to
Georgetown.
I guess how did you decide thatcoming back to the US for
school was the way to go for you?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I had been in an American school in Madrid so the
sort of US educational systemwas kind of ingrained in me.
My parents had both gone touniversities in the US and then
had met there.
So I always had my eyes set onthe US and Georgetown, I think,
is a very uniquely, veryinternational school, partially
because it's in Washington DCand partially because of the
(05:41):
School of Foreign Service whichis, I think, one of the top
three schools for internationalrelations and politics in the
country.
So it attracts a very diversegroup of students which I loved
and was an extension and areflection of me and the school
I had grown up in in Madrid.
And it really feels like fullcircle that now, coming back to
(06:03):
DC, four or five times a year, Ilove it, DC is.
Or five times a year I love it.
Dc is the background of my.
The Washington Monument is thebackground of my film.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
That's awesome.
When's the last one of yourtrips that you went back and
visited campus?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Not too long ago.
I think it was a year and ahalf ago, two years ago because
my youngest sister was stillstudying there and graduated in
2022.
Oh, perfect.
I was there for graduation.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Oh, that's awesome.
I think this year at our CEOconference we even went to the
bar down on Georgetownwaterfront, but not quite as far
over as campus.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Exactly, I walked over there, but we were very
close, very close.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
No, that's great.
So after Georgetown you alreadyalluded to the fact that you
spent a number of years workingfor Aries Capital and got to see
FinTech kind of from the otherside, I guess.
How did you sort of decide togo to Aries and can you describe
a little bit about yourexperiences there?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
So I actually started at a fund of funds in
Philadelphia called HamiltonLane and Aries was one of their
biggest managing partners thatthey managed capital for and
allocated capital towards, andso it was one of their biggest
partners.
So I developed a closerelationship with Aries from
(07:11):
Hamilton Lane and was eager toget closer to sort of the direct
investing side.
So I joined Aries actually onthe corporate strategy and
business development team, whichmeant sort of a whole
hodgepodge of things at an assetmanager meant sort of a whole
hodgepodge of things at an assetmanager.
The project that then led me toFinTech was that I was at Aries
at the time that, like iCapitaland Case were just starting up
(07:33):
and they were these sort ofdigital platforms catering
towards wealth managers andmaking investment products sort
of accessible for those wealthmanagers online.
So all the subscriptiondocuments, all the DD documents,
everything that a wealthmanager would look at for sort
of a closed-end fund, liquidcredit funds, real estate funds
(07:55):
and making that entire processavailable online for them.
And so we at Aries had a hugearray of mostly alternative
assets, as I said, everythingfrom private equity to energy,
to real estate and liquid creditand private credit, and we
basically did a review of all ofthose investment platforms that
were just starting to pop upback then this was like 2015,
(08:18):
2016, and reviewed sort of whichof these platforms which were
getting the most traction, withwhich coverage of wealth
managers.
Is digital investing really thefuture for private markets?
Is this really going to happen?
So we looked at that wholespace, which, ironically, we
have been discussing in the lastfew QBRs again, and I just got
super interested in what I wassort of reviewing from the other
(08:41):
side and had no doubt that sortof digital access to investment
products was the future andthat I wanted to kind of go to
the other side and be involvedin growth of the fintech side.
That was kind of my journey atEric.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
That's awesome.
So kind of having come to therealization that you wanted to
be in fintech, you decided to goto business school at LBS.
I think, if I'm not mistaken,lbs is our biggest business
school alum.
At QED, I think, uva is ourbiggest undergrad and LBS is our
biggest grad school.
What made you decide to go thebusiness school route, as
opposed to looking to just jumpdirectly into a fintech, and
(09:16):
why'd you pick LBS?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So I think I decided to do the business school route
because I had very few contactsand relationships in any of the
tech world at all.
I was also sort of curiousabout should I try to access
fintech from the investing sideand join a venture capital fund
or should I operate?
(09:39):
So I wanted to give myself sortof that time in business school
to A strengthen my pencil ongeneral sort of business acumen,
build my network and then kindof explore both sides of fintech
from the investing andoperating.
I chose LBS.
I mean, it was my top choice.
I think it was basically theonly school I applied to.
As I said, I wanted to come backto Europe but because I wanted
(10:01):
to be in the tech world, I knewI wanted to be in a city where I
could be doing internships andaccessing and building my
network in the ecosystemthroughout the MBA as well.
And INSEAD, which is the othersort of I admire second best MBA
in Europe, is an incredibleschool but it's sort of in the
outskirts of Paris and Franceand quite isolated from a lot of
(10:23):
these ecosystems that I wantedto be embedding myself and I
think that decision was great.
As I said, I ended up doingmany internships throughout the
term at Balderton and then atGifstar and actually a brief
stint at WeWork, which hasnothing to do with fintech.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I don't know.
They probably thought it did.
They thought it had to do witheverything, right.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Exactly, but yeah, so that turned out really well.
I got a new career and I got ahusband out of LBS, so that was
great.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Well, that's perfect.
Perfect.
When you went to school, youknew you wanted to get into
fintech.
You weren't sure aboutinvesting or operating.
You had a chance to do a coupleinternships, one on each side.
What made you decide?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
to go the investing route rather than the operating
route.
Yeah, I think that what made mego the investing route was that
during my internship atBoulderton I felt a lot of the
skills that I was using as a VCand in sort of networking and an
innate curiosity and divingdeep and research and was just
innate to my personality and itfelt like kind of a natural
(11:32):
extension of the way I behave innormal life.
It like fulfilled thatcuriosity component that I've
always had.
It fulfilled that desire tosort of build relationships,
connect with people as well asconnect to other people and
enable and broker a lot of sortof the ecosystem.
So I really loved that aspectof it.
(11:53):
I think that studying what'sgoing on in different sectors
and markets and studying theunderlying players and trying to
sort of understand and place abet on which company is going to
drive a certain market forwardand in what direction will that
be, I think that intellectualexercise is just to me, probably
the most stimulating thing outthere.
So I really enjoyed myinternship.
(12:15):
I felt like before, after andduring it was just sort of very
natural behavior to me and so Idecided to pursue it.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Oh, that makes a lot of sense.
I mean, that is one of the morefascinating things about VC is
just the number of differentsectors.
You look at number of differentthings.
You study the strategicthinking involved in it.
You don't get bored very often,that's for sure.
I'll put it that way.
So you made the decision to gointo VC, wound up going to March
(12:44):
Capital in LA for a bit andthen back to QED in London, so
you've had the chance to kind oflook at VC both in the US and
in London.
I mean London slash Europe morebroadly.
How did you decide to, I guess,settle in on Europe?
Was that more of a kind ofpersonal choice?
Or was that more of theecosystem?
Was just what interests you?
(13:04):
I mean, can you talk about?
You know that train of thoughtthere?
I mean, it's pretty, prettyunique to have worked, worked in
both.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I'd say it was a mix of personal and professional.
As I said, I had done the MBAin London to move my career back
to Europe.
This is where I wanted to befor personal reasons.
But then also my exposure tothe US market I think was great,
because there is no doubt thatthe US is the leader in the
(13:30):
venture capital markets and inthe tech markets and I think
getting exposure to that wasgreat.
But it actually for me reallyreconfirmed that Europe was
where I wanted to be and I thinkthat in most sectors Europe
likely lags the US.
I think fintech is the onesector that it actually truly
rivals the US and that we're onan unequal playing foot.
(13:53):
So I think that there's a lotof innovation and business
models that kind of pop upalmost simultaneously in Europe
or ahead in Europe of then theUS.
I always say we at QED are theEuropean team.
The sectors that we're lookingat, the business models, et
cetera.
They're all much more on parwith our US team than
necessarily some of our moreinternational emerging markets
(14:15):
teams.
So I think fintech is uniquewithin Europe because I actually
think it's fintech in Europe iscompetitive with the US, and so
that always attracted me.
But also I think Europe hasobviously the innate challenge
that it's a collection ofcountries with different
demographics, both sort ofconsumers as well as SMEs and
enterprises.
An SME in France is not thesame as an SME in Germany and it
(14:40):
makes the challenges of kind ofgrowing cross-border and going
international.
It's a lot harder to reach thesame sort of market size in
Europe as you can in the USbecause of those borders and
those differences.
And I think that, as somebodythat grew up moving so much, I'm
always very attracted to thatquestion of sort of
international expansion and isit possible and how can you
(15:03):
adapt a product and what's theright way to enter a new market.
So I like that challenge that Ithink the European market faces
.
And then the final thing is thatI think that the European
market, in terms of sort ofinvestors, is just naturally
smaller and I felt like it was aan ecosystem that I could
(15:24):
actually wrap my arms around.
I today feel like I know 95% ofthe people that I that I need
to know in Europe in terms ofother funds or angels or
whatever it is, and I neverthought that was possible in the
US.
The US is just so large that Ialways had a bit of an
overwhelmed feeling, whereas inEurope I actually feel like I
can I can grasp it, at leastfocusing on one sector which is
yeah.
Yeah, in Europe I actually feellike I can grasp it, at least
(15:45):
focusing on one sector which isyeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, no, that makes sense.
I mean back to something yousaid a second ago.
I mean it is an interesting,almost hybrid right.
So in some cases, you know,germany is quite different than
France.
I mean in many ways Germany isvery different than France, but
some business opportunities it'scompletely different businesses
.
Yet there are some businessopportunities where you truly
can be pan-europe, given someharmonization of regulation,
(16:08):
common currency etc.
So it's to your point.
It's interesting to think aboutwhich businesses can easily be
pan-european and whichbusinesses really need to be
country by country.
So it's a kind of a reallyinteresting mix in that regard
yeah, agree very much.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
So we have a lot of examples of each in our
portfolio here.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Definitely definitely Well.
So look, when we got started inEurope, we were very UK focused
.
Our team still is all Londonbased, but I think, as time has
gone along, more and more of ouractivity has been throughout
different countries in Europe.
If anything, our two unicornsin the portfolio, neither one of
them located in the UK, whichis kind of ironic given where we
(16:51):
started.
You know how have you seen themigration of the ecosystem since
you've been looking at it,starting in business school and
then being here at QED for twoand a half years of kind of?
At least my perception is itwas quite London centric and
maybe that's one reason youpicked LBS.
But if you look at it now it'syou know 30 billion was raised
in the UK.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
The second largest market.
Those second largest marketsare France and Germany, which
are at 18 and 20, I forget whichone and then countries like
Sweden, spain and Italy and Ithink the Netherlands are all
sort of in that 5 to 10 range,so it gets a lot smaller.
Netherlands are all sort of inthat five to 10 range, so it
(17:47):
gets a lot smaller.
But, as you said, we've seen amajor uptick in activity in
especially, I'd say, france andGermany in the last five years,
with France really acceleratingin the last few years.
I think a lot of it is sort ofnatural tech ecosystems and how
they operate right, which isthat like once you have a
business that has scaled orIPO'd so in Sweden it's been
(18:11):
Klarna and then Adyen for theNetherlands and so each country
kind of has their scale ups thatare kind of getting to a
maturity level that then startsto spawn off a lot of other
founders, and so that sort ofmaturity cycle has kind of
eventually made its way throughthe rest of the European
(18:31):
ecosystems.
I'd say, as I said, sort ofFrance has been probably the
most active and especially whenit comes to fintech in the last
few years, of sort of that firstgeneration of companies,
spawning off new founders whohave the last generation of
companies founders all as sortof angel investors on the cap
tables and really helping andgrooming that second generation
(18:53):
of companies and getting theflywheel going.
That's part of it, and I thinkthat, from an investor
perspective though, whereaspeople do usually have large
teams covering Europe, they viewthe entire continent sort of
opportunistically right.
So I mean, there are of courseseed stage funds and local funds
(19:13):
in each country, but most ofyou know tier one local funds in
each geography are actuallystarting to go international
right.
So HV, which was sort of thelargest fund in Germany, now has
offices in Paris and in London.
Nordstrom, which was originallyNordic, has offices here and in
Germany and in Paris, the samefor Balderton.
(19:33):
So everybody is kind ofeverywhere and views the region
as sort of one region to coverand be opportunistic sort of
throughout it.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
How have you and you know, with our very extensive
two-person European team, howhave you and Yousef sort of
thought about adapting to thissomewhat fragmentation of the
market ecosystem?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
As you know, because we've discussed this with you a
lot too sort of is it better tohave 100% coverage in one or two
geos or 70% coverage in six?
Right, because it's unrealisticto strive for 100% coverage in
six as a team of two.
Right, because, as you, it'sunrealistic to have to strive
for 100% coverage in six as ateam of two.
Right, and I think that we'vesort of we veered towards sort
(20:16):
of that 70, 80% coverage, butcovering multiple geographies.
As I said, I think that, likegives you the ability to sort of
take advantage of sort ofmomentum in certain markets.
So if France is acceleratedwith a whole new generation of
founders, like we'll spend alittle bit more time there,
always covering the UK as wellas a base case, because that is
(20:38):
the largest market and this iswhere we are.
But given that we're a team oftwo, it's unrealistic ever to
not miss anything and seeeverything.
And so I think being more sortof proactive about what we do
want to see, where we do want tocanvas, where we do want to
spend time, and doing soopportunistically and shifting,
has been sort of where we'velanded and I think it's worked
(21:01):
really well so far.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, I mean it's an interesting microcosm of, I
guess, qed as a whole, where asa global firm, we're probably a
little lightly staffed in everygeo that we're talking about,
but then you get some of thescale benefits and learning
benefits of being that broad.
So it's always a trade-off andI'm sure over time the answer
changes depending on whateverthe market dynamics are.
Well, look, I'd love to moveinto a couple specific topics
(21:24):
about the market and maybe ourportfolio.
You referenced earlier in thecall that various aspects of
digital wealth management wassomething you're passionate
about.
I know it's something thatyou're spending a decent amount
of time on.
I wonder if you can talk aboutsort of the opportunities that
you see in wealth management, Iguess specifically in Europe,
although to your point, they'reprobably not super unique in
Europe versus the US and someother developed markets.
(21:46):
But I wonder if you can talk alittle bit about what you're
seeing and maybe what you'relooking for.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah, so, as I said, it's always been an area that I
was passionate about sincejoining QED.
Ironically, right when I joined, it was totally out of favor,
so I joined end of 2021.
I think that the first era ofrobo-advisors personal, you know
(22:11):
, pfms personal financialmanagement apps had raised a ton
of capital.
There had been sort ofcompetitive wars that had
resulted in sort of super highCACs as kind of that age of
digital marketing and in the ageof easy money, flourished, and
then, of course, in a zerointerest rate environment too, I
think that those businessmodels just it was the worst of
(22:33):
all worlds, right, like therewas easy money, so there was too
many marketing dollars goingafter the same consumers and too
many apps trying to capture thesame consumers, and then the
business model side of things inthe low interest rate
environment was also very, verychallenging, right.
So when I joined, a lot ofthose consumer platforms, when
it came to wealth tech in thefirst generation of them, were
(22:55):
completely out of favor.
Ironically, as sort of themarkets have shifted and we've
entered new, higher rateenvironment, a lot of those
business models and businessesthat were completely out of
favor three years ago when Ijoined are actually sort of
publishing incredibly strongnumbers, right, so businesses
like Scalable in Germany andMoneybox here in the UK and a
(23:20):
lot of those sort of robo plusadvisors.
So I think that's sort of beenan interesting theme that we've
been looking at again.
Think that's sort of been aninteresting theme that we've
been looking at again.
But I think we obviously wantto go a step beyond that and ask
sort of what is different andnew in these business models
today?
How can they be solid businessmodels that can also flourish in
(23:41):
lower interest rateenvironments?
I think Europe has been a littlebit behind the US because, for
example, those I capitals andcases of the world that I
described that started sort of10 years ago in the US have only
started in the last few yearshere in Europe.
So Moonfair, again out ofGermany, but we most recently
last year, spent quite a bit oftime with very strong seed stage
business called Vega, which issort of democratizing access to
(24:04):
sort of private markets, butdoing so direct to consumers as
well as B2B.
So I think, accessing sort ofthose new asset classes and
creating an investment platformfor consumers that gives them
both access to kind of lowerrisk yield type products as well
as often having sort of thatstock and brokerage aspect of it
(24:25):
, as well as maybe then somemore sort of alternative
products, is an area that we'vebeen spending quite a bit of
time in.
But, as you said, we're alsoquite often attracted to sort of
the B2B business models andenabling the wealth managers
that, for better or for worse,we don't necessarily think are
going to go away in ourgeneration.
(24:45):
So we've been looking at a lotof sort of technology enablers
for the wealth managers thatexist around Europe as well.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Interesting.
Do you have a theory on sort ofwhat changed?
So I mean I'm very much withyou on the generation 1.0.
I mean, you know, I spent sometime, you know, eight or nine
years ago, looking at the spacein the US typically quite large
cax, quite poor unit economics,pretty decent churn dynamics,
really high valuations and justreally hard to see how it works.
(25:15):
And now sort of a new vibrance,and again it's not just Europe.
I think we're seeing, you know,some more, much more vibrance
to the market across differentspaces.
Do you have a theory on what'sdifferent now?
Is it solely related tointerest rates or is it
learnings from that generation1.0 that is helping the founders
in generation 2.0 build betterbusiness models?
I mean any sort of generalthoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
The fact that these cats got out of control and that
the unit economics of a lot ofthese generation one businesses
were terrible is no secret right.
So people are thinkinginnovatively about how they
could monetize in this space.
But I also think that consumerswent through a major
educational curve and a bit of awhiplash as well.
(25:58):
So obviously that sort of firststep of democratizing more
wealth was not only therobo-advisors but also then the
Robin Hoods and the neobrokersof the world and coming out or
going into COVID.
And then during COVID we sawsort of a boom in activity on
those neobrokers as acombination of sort of stimulus
(26:20):
plans as well.
As you know, people stuck andbored at home, and so I think
that people were semi-exposed oreducated on stockbrokers, but
were then totally burned whenthe market crashed now whatever
a year and a half ago and so nowhave sort of accessed
robo-advisors.
They've been on the neoburkersbut got burned and so don't
(26:42):
really like that and aresimultaneously sort of a lot
more aware of sort of managetheir own wealth and invest
their own wealth in the rightway.
Right.
So they're looking for toolsthat provide them with enough
education and guidance thatallows them to sort of make
smart decisions about assetallocation, but aren't these
(27:04):
sort of meme stock drivenplatforms that they don't
necessarily trust as muchanymore, right?
So I think that, like that holygrail of sort of serving the
mass affluent with a new ageprivate bank is a theme that
sort of we've been looking atacross both the US and Europe.
And I think, as I said, what'sdifferent about these business
models is that most of themnowadays are B2B and they're not
(27:26):
necessarily trying to replacethe wealth manager, but they're
trying to sort of enable thewealth manager, through
technology, to provide not onlya more efficient service for
their customers, but also justbetter advice using AI to
analyze portfolios and pasttrading history and sort of
optimization for that and then,as well, giving them a digital
(27:49):
interface for them to interactwith their consumers, because,
realistically, our generation isalways going to want to access
information digitally.
But for certain wealth decisions, I think we'll still want to
speak to someone who can helpand who can give live advice and
oversight, because these aresort of big decisions.
But eventually, if we'recomfortable signing an auto loan
(28:12):
online on a platform with aplatform like Carmoola and
taking out a loan for 20k for acar, eventually those sorts of
20k 30k investment decisions.
I think we will get to a pointwhere we can do it all digitally
, but we're not quite there yet.
So I think the shift is sort offocusing on B2B models.
Wealth managers is somethingnew.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Hey, I'd love to talk aboutmaybe one or two other trends in
the market, maybe through thelens of a couple of portfolio
companies.
You know one company, I knowyou're quite involved with
Remote First, really takingadvantage of how often companies
are working remotely these days, either exclusively remotely or
partially remotely.
I wonder if you could talk alittle bit about what Remote
(28:55):
First does and kind of what themarket trends are that has us so
excited about what thecompany's doing.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I have to sort of give a shout out to Yusuf, too,
on his vision for Remote First,which was the first deal that we
worked on right when I joined.
But when we invested in RemoteFirst deal and remotecom they
were all sort of very much, theywere very present and they were
growing very, very quickly,right.
So just to recap on what RemoteFirst does they're a remote
(29:24):
payroll business, so they enableyou to hire an employee in a
country that you do not have asubsidiary in and they will help
you process all the visapaperwork as well as sort of
onboard that employee and thenpay them.
What they are doing is anemployer of record type business
model where they are, unlikedealremotecom, they are building
(29:50):
software to enable local EORsthat already exist around the
world.
So the EOR business has beenaround for several decades, but
usually these EORs are kind ofvery old school players that are
totally offline, very manualand very local and on the ground
.
And so what Remote First hasbuilt is a vertical software
platform to enable thoseexisting EORs around the world
(30:12):
to serve clients and acquireclients globally, whereas Deal
and Remotecom, who are their twobiggest competitors, actually
vertically integrated and set uptheir own EORs all around the
world.
So their growth is incredibleand they are amazing businesses.
But they've also become highlyoperational businesses because
they have literally 100subsidiaries around the world
(30:33):
that's processing payroll andthey're also liable for that
payroll.
So the trend of enabling remotepayroll was very much already in
effect when we met Remo First.
But what we found in Remo Firstwas an incredibly scrappy young
founder that had made it tobasically almost a million of
ARR between him and a co-founderwith very little money raised,
(30:56):
basically bootstrapped.
And so we saw that this guy hada great go-to-market instinct
and that, given sort of therising tide in this space,
go-to-market would probably bethe determinant of winners.
And yeah, the company hascontinued to excel super well.
They raised their Series B atthe end of last year, they 4x
(31:19):
last year, even sort of duringturbulent hiring and layoff
markets in tech worldwide.
So it's a trend that's here tostay and I think it is a lesson
to us.
A rising tide market isattractive and especially many
of them are not winner-take-all,and so if you don't back the
first player, as long as youfind a player that believe in
(31:41):
from a product strength andgo-to-market perspective,
there's ample opportunityusually to ride that tide.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah, it makes sense and I don't think that tide's
slowing down anytime soon,probably just getting started.
I'm pretty sure Nur is our onlyCEO from Kazakhstan, if I'm not
mistaken.
It's been really fun watchinghim really grow as a leader and
build the firm.
You know one more company I'dlove to jump into just because I
know it really illustratesanother sort of massive trend
around the world is our mostrecent investment that you
(32:09):
really led the charge on Ale.
It's a company called Swap.
I wonder if you can talk alittle bit about what they do
and what are some of the trendsand reasons we got so excited
about backing them recently.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Swap started as a returns management platform for
e-commerce merchants.
They started here in the UK andthe UK, especially the
post-Brexit world, is a marketthat is highly international,
cross-border and is constantlyshipping cross-borders right.
The UK market isn't huge andwhereas a US merchant will
(32:46):
usually only start thinkingabout going international once
they've reached sort of 50, 60,70 million in annual revenues
here in the UK, merchants startthinking globally, from sort of
2, 3 million of revenue right,and start thinking about
shipping internationally andaccessing especially the
European markets.
So that's a theme that we havefocused on, from when it comes
(33:09):
to FX payments hedging and a lotof that payment activity is
happening in sort ofcross-border e-commerce retail.
So that's a little bit how wefound Swap, or came at it from
that angle.
They, as I said, started inreturns management for
e-commerce merchants, which wasstill very broken here in the UK
(33:32):
, so similar to companies in theUS like Loop, and built
cross-border returnsinfrastructure, so the ability
to kind of bring a product backfrom the French market.
And once they had built thoserails, with warehouses, carriers
, orchestrating all thoseplayers they realized that they
could use that sameinfrastructure to sort of solve
(33:52):
the outbound shipping formerchants who were also eager to
kind of keep their entirelogistics stack with one
enabling player like Swap.
So they started with thereturns.
They then backwards integratedinto the outbound shipping as
well and are now hyper-focusedon kind of that cross-border
commerce, solving thatcross-border question for
(34:14):
merchants and giving them sortof a Shopify for their logistics
stack, so being a one-stop shopfor their entire sort of
backend and logistics.
So integrating with 3PLs, as Isaid, warehouses, carriers for
outbound shipping, for returns,enabling insurance for those
products, sustainabilityproducts, and so they're really
(34:35):
taking on nowadays a big publiccompany called Global E and
doing so pretty successfully.
We're really excited about them.
The traction has been, as Isaid, tremendous since we
invested in them.
They were similarly veryscrappy team when we originally
invested and so we're excited tosee where they go from here.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, and another topic, I think, is riding some
pretty amazing global tidesright.
I mean, globalization ofe-commerce is really only
getting started and is onlygoing to continue to grow, and
folks like that will just makeit easier and easier, which will
make it grow bigger and bigger.
So that's fantastic.
So, ali, we're nearing timehere.
I just want to kind of finish,maybe, with a couple more
(35:14):
general questions.
You're several years now intoyour VC career.
Obviously, you meet hundreds offounders in a typical year.
I'm sure you work closely withI don't know a dozen or so
companies in our portfolio orones that you're pretty serious
about possibly investing in.
I wonder if you can share anylearnings on your approaches for
building relationships withfounders.
(35:34):
It's an interesting job wherehaving a good relationship's
important, but sometimes you'realso the bearer of bad news.
We don't always agree with ourfounders.
There's always plenty ofconflicts out there.
It's hard to know what theright answers are.
So how do you think aboutbuilding relationships with
founders that aren't necessarilyjust based on telling them
everything they want to hear,being able to have good,
constructive conflict and also,at times, really agreeing and
(35:57):
stepping on the gas and goingafter it?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Interesting question.
I think that every VC or to bea successful VC, you have to
have your own sort of way ofhelping either portfolio
companies or founders that youare trying to build
relationships with in yourpipeline, and I think that many
of us at QED obviously beingsector experts in fintech, and I
think that many of us at QEDobviously being sector experts
in fintech, our expertise in thefintech space is the main way
(36:22):
that we're able to help.
I think that another way thatVCs can help is just in
brokering connections right.
We speak to hundreds of peopleother investors, other companies
, incumbents, visa, mastercard,jp Morgan every day, and so our
(36:43):
ability to sort of brokerconnections and facilitate, you
know, conversations that I thinkwill be beneficial to both
sides is unique because of sortof where we sit in the ecosystem
.
We're kind of like a spoke inthe wheel, right, and so that's
very often or I think, acombination of those two is how
I always try to help right.
When I'm trying to build arelationship with a founder in a
pipeline, especially one that'skind of hard to reach, there's
(37:04):
nothing better that you can dothan introduce them to a
potential customer right.
They'll love you If you do thatthey'll be happy to answer your
emails and questions every dayand you can DD a founder in a
company through thoseintroductions and through
potential customer introductions, right?
So I mean you mentioned Swapwas one of the big reasons that
(37:24):
we got to a high level ofconviction with Swap was because
I introduced Commerce Merchantto them and I actually just
wanted to pick my friend's brainon that.
Swap is interesting, like dothey solve any needs?
I just wanted her perspectiveon them and she ended up signing
with them in a week in one oftheir biggest contracts.
Those types of introductions, Ithink, are what I really try to
(37:47):
enable every day, because ithelps the company, it helps
whoever you're introducing andthen it helps you in doing your
GD on a space.
The same goes for working withportfolio companies.
I often think of myself as anextension of their sales team,
like with Weaver.
I have Weaver as our banking,as a service company here in
Europe and they sell to a lot offintechs and I have a weekly
(38:10):
call with them on Fridays withtheir sales team, where we just
go over one another's pipelinesbecause it's similar businesses.
So sales, I think, is a key waythat we can help both portfolio
companies as well as pipelinecompanies.
But then sector expertise infintech is obviously critical
too.
So I'd say not quite as much ofthat compared to many of our
(38:32):
Capital One veterans on the team, but in my four years of
fintech investing I'vedefinitely developed my
knowledge and I'm usually ableto lean in and help there,
especially when it comes tolending, embedded lending
partners, et cetera.
I think that that's somewherewhere we as QED really stick out
and are able to help.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
That's fascinating and I think it goes to the value
in bringing in people into thefirm that have all sorts of
different backgrounds, right?
I mean you kind of leaninstantly into hey, how can I
help you do B2B selling Many ofour folks probably would not
excel at that, but wouldprobably excel at various other
aspects of it and how do we sortof line up whatever skills we
need to help whatever companieswe have, because no one person's
(39:14):
ever going to be able to helpin every way have, because no
one person's ever going to beable to help in every way?
So look, two final questionshere for you.
You already referenced that oneof the benefits of going to LBS
is you met a husband Veryexciting and we're recently
married.
Even more recently took one ofthe coolest honeymoons I've ever
heard of.
As we record this, I think yougot back like three days ago or
something thereabouts.
(39:34):
You're probably super jetlagged, as we do this call, but
I'd love to hear about yourhoneymoon.
I have never heard of such anamazing, unique trip.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
It is my favorite topic right now, so I'm excited
that you asked.
I think my debrief with myparents on Sunday night was like
two hours.
I think they finally just cutme off.
Yes, so we went to Bhutan fornine days and then Kathmandu on
the way back.
Bhutan is a tiny country of800,000 people, sandwiched in
between India and what was Tibetis now China.
(40:07):
Very, very Buddhist ineverything in the country.
So Buddhism is embedded in theculture, in the people, in the
politics, in the policy andeconomics.
So the country famouslymeasured gross national
happiness instead of GDP, which,as I mentioned, sadly results
(40:29):
in a GDP of about 2.5 billiononly.
But I think it's growing andit's getting there and I think
tourism is a huge part of that.
So, yeah, but it's a very purenation that, despite being
sandwiched by two giantbehemoths, has never been sort
of invaded, has basically neverbeen in a war itself and has
(40:50):
thus remained very, very pure inculture, in spirituality, in
politics and in monarchy, in themonarch.
And so it's probably the mostdifferent place that I've ever
visited.
But also the trip was just oneof those that I think for me was
perfect because it balancedphysical activity, so we did big
(41:11):
, intense hikes every other dayor so.
The entire country is in theHimalayan range, so all
mountains.
There's only two valleys thatare wide enough to have airports
in the entire country.
Otherwise it's literally allmountains.
So it combined hiking as wellas sort of learning a ton about
culture, the spirituality ofBuddhism, but then also I made
(41:36):
sure especially for my husband,who likes to relax a little bit
more than I do that we had somerelaxing afternoons and some
nice, beautiful hotels.
So it was a really great trip.
I did not dive into the localtech ecosystem and I went
totally offline instead, but Idid read up a lot on Buddhism
and the history of the country,so it was great.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
That's awesome, and you got to see Mount Everest
twice from an airplane.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, which I think has got to be the best way to
see it right, Not from Basecamp.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Hey, Ale, it's been amazing talking to you today.
I'd love to end with kind ofthe same question we ask almost
everyone, and especially in yourcase, maybe entrepreneurs
looking to start fintechbusinesses, looking to pitch you
what's one key tip or piece ofadvice that you would give an
aspiring fintech entrepreneur?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
I think that the most common frustration that I face
often is founders using GMV orgross burden premiums or a very,
very gross revenue type figureas their true revenue figure or
net revenue, and there's nothingmore refreshing than hearing a
founder talk about their netrevenue first and where their
(42:43):
margins truly lie.
I think that that kind ofcreates a lot of transparency
and often can lead to a lot moreconviction, because they're
measuring what matters right.
So I think that that's a nichebut tip that I often give people
Don't hide your gross versusnet.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
That makes a lot of sense and I think people learn
plenty of bad behaviors in 2021that I think are quickly
changing, so I love that pieceof advice.
Ale, it was great talking toyou today.
Thanks so much for coming on,and to all of our listeners,
thank you very much and we'llsee you next time.
This has been the FinTechThought Leaders podcast your
(43:28):
window into the world of venturecapital and financial services
with today's digital disruptors.
Qed is proud to provide thebest FinTech advice you can get.
To learn more or to read thefull show notes from today's
episode, check outqedinvestorscom.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you.
I'm Bill Salufo, head ofinternational investments at QED
Investors.
Today on the podcast, I'm veryexcited to be joined by
Alexandra Pedrahita, a principalin our London office.
Ale, welcome to the podcast, hi, bill.
Thanks for having me Veryexcited.
Definitely Me too.
Well, look, before we getstarted, there's a bunch of
things I'd love to cover aboutyour background, what you're
doing now, kind of how you thinkabout leadership and your role.
(01:01):
But just to give our listenersa little bit of an orientation.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Wouldn't mind if you'd give us a bit of an
elevator pitch of what's yourbackground and how did you get
to QED?
Yeah, so try to make the storyshort, I grew up in Spain, but
of South American parents.
So because I'm being a father ofa Brazilian, American mother
studied in the US, started mycareer at Aries Management,
which is a large alternativeasset manager and I think that
we'll get to this in the podcastbut gave me my first glimpse
(01:30):
into fintech from, I guess youcould say, the other side.
I was super curious about what Isaw going on on the fintech
side of things.
So I decided to do an MBA atLondon Business School to sort
of transition my career back toEurope at that point and to
pursue my interest in fintecheither from an operating or an
investing perspective.
(01:51):
So I had two differentexperiences in terms of
internships during the MBA oneon the VC side with Balderton,
another on the startup side, acompany called Givestar in the
sort of non-profit space, but itwas in payments and decided to
go the VC route, took my firstjob with a fund called March
Capital, based in LA, coveringfintech, and then was lucky
(02:12):
enough to join the QED teamalmost three years ago, about
two and a half years ago now, inOctober of 2021.
So loving it ever since.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It's amazing how fast time flies, eh so, ale, based
on that background, how manydifferent cities have you lived
in?
It's got to be a large numberEight, eight cities and that's
got to be at least four or fivecountries, right?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, so, almost three years in, I'm getting
restless here in London.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Well, if there's one city that might hold you for a
while, London's got a lot goingon.
No it.
There's one city that mighthold you for a while, London's
got a lot going on.
No, it's been one of the mostfun things for me as QED has
grown is just people that we'reable to bring in from all over
the world, living all over theworld with lots of wild
backgrounds, and I know yours istoward the top of that list, so
that's awesome.
So when you were younger youmentioned you've got South
American parents.
They met in the US, moved toLondon, moved to Madrid, so you
(03:01):
had already moved a couple timesby the time you were eight.
Can you talk about what thatwas like for you at recognizing
you're quite young, movingaround to different countries so
early, and maybe how that'sinfluenced the rest of your very
much international life.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, I'd say like it's probably the most I don't
know defining thing, or it wasfor me the most defining thing
about myself growing up was thatI always sort of felt like an
expat wherever I was.
I therefore love and I'm alwaysattracted to expat communities,
Even here, living in London.
I'm married to a Turkish guyand 90% of our friends here are
(03:39):
international.
They're not necessarily English, but what I think that that
creates is people that arehighly adaptable and flexible
and, I think, curious, becausewhen you move time and time and
time again, you have no choicebut to basically adapt and make
the best of every move and,ideally, learn the most about
(04:01):
every place that you're in andget as ingrained in that sort of
culture in that place.
So, yeah, it makes you anadaptable person that can, I
think, relate to a lot of peoplefrom different backgrounds, and
I think that that for sureinfluenced my sort of desire to
go into venture capital, whereyou're constantly speaking to
(04:22):
people from so many differentbackgrounds in different places
and you have to be able to sortof relate, understand, build a
relationship with those people,truly understand what's going on
underneath the surface of acertain company or a sector, or
a fund or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, it's interesting you say that.
I mean I've only done oneinternational move in Toronto,
so it was as easy aninternational move from the US
as possible.
But it was actually interestingafter five years and we moved
back and look back at who ourfriends were.
I don't think we realized anyof this at the time.
There's probably only onecouple I could come up with that
we were truly good friends with, where both of them were
Canadian.
I mean, it was almost all likeone spouse might be Canadian,
(05:00):
the other spouse was eitherAmerican or Indian or you know
from wherever else.
It's interesting how the expatskind of stick together.
Fascinating to hear you saythat.
So for university you came backto the States, to go to
Georgetown.
I guess how did you decide thatcoming back to the US for
school was the way to go for you?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I had been in an American school in Madrid so the
sort of US educational systemwas kind of ingrained in me.
My parents had both gone touniversities in the US and then
had met there.
So I always had my eyes set onthe US and Georgetown, I think,
is a very uniquely, veryinternational school, partially
because it's in Washington DCand partially because of the
(05:41):
School of Foreign Service whichis, I think, one of the top
three schools for internationalrelations and politics in the
country.
So it attracts a very diversegroup of students which I loved
and was an extension and areflection of me and the school
I had grown up in in Madrid.
And it really feels like fullcircle that now, coming back to
(06:03):
DC, four or five times a year, Ilove it, DC is.
Or five times a year I love it.
Dc is the background of my.
The Washington Monument is thebackground of my film.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
That's awesome.
When's the last one of yourtrips that you went back and
visited campus?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Not too long ago.
I think it was a year and ahalf ago, two years ago because
my youngest sister was stillstudying there and graduated in
2022.
Oh, perfect.
I was there for graduation.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Oh, that's awesome.
I think this year at our CEOconference we even went to the
bar down on Georgetownwaterfront, but not quite as far
over as campus.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Exactly, I walked over there, but we were very
close, very close.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
No, that's great.
So after Georgetown you alreadyalluded to the fact that you
spent a number of years workingfor Aries Capital and got to see
FinTech kind of from the otherside, I guess.
How did you sort of decide togo to Aries and can you describe
a little bit about yourexperiences there?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
So I actually started at a fund of funds in
Philadelphia called HamiltonLane and Aries was one of their
biggest managing partners thatthey managed capital for and
allocated capital towards, andso it was one of their biggest
partners.
So I developed a closerelationship with Aries from
(07:11):
Hamilton Lane and was eager toget closer to sort of the direct
investing side.
So I joined Aries actually onthe corporate strategy and
business development team, whichmeant sort of a whole
hodgepodge of things at an assetmanager meant sort of a whole
hodgepodge of things at an assetmanager.
The project that then led me toFinTech was that I was at Aries
at the time that, like iCapitaland Case were just starting up
(07:33):
and they were these sort ofdigital platforms catering
towards wealth managers andmaking investment products sort
of accessible for those wealthmanagers online.
So all the subscriptiondocuments, all the DD documents,
everything that a wealthmanager would look at for sort
of a closed-end fund, liquidcredit funds, real estate funds
(07:55):
and making that entire processavailable online for them.
And so we at Aries had a hugearray of mostly alternative
assets, as I said, everythingfrom private equity to energy,
to real estate and liquid creditand private credit, and we
basically did a review of all ofthose investment platforms that
were just starting to pop upback then this was like 2015,
(08:18):
2016, and reviewed sort of whichof these platforms which were
getting the most traction, withwhich coverage of wealth
managers.
Is digital investing really thefuture for private markets?
Is this really going to happen?
So we looked at that wholespace, which, ironically, we
have been discussing in the lastfew QBRs again, and I just got
super interested in what I wassort of reviewing from the other
(08:41):
side and had no doubt that sortof digital access to investment
products was the future andthat I wanted to kind of go to
the other side and be involvedin growth of the fintech side.
That was kind of my journey atEric.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
That's awesome.
So kind of having come to therealization that you wanted to
be in fintech, you decided to goto business school at LBS.
I think, if I'm not mistaken,lbs is our biggest business
school alum.
At QED, I think, uva is ourbiggest undergrad and LBS is our
biggest grad school.
What made you decide to go thebusiness school route, as
opposed to looking to just jumpdirectly into a fintech, and
(09:16):
why'd you pick LBS?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So I think I decided to do the business school route
because I had very few contactsand relationships in any of the
tech world at all.
I was also sort of curiousabout should I try to access
fintech from the investing sideand join a venture capital fund
or should I operate?
(09:39):
So I wanted to give myself sortof that time in business school
to A strengthen my pencil ongeneral sort of business acumen,
build my network and then kindof explore both sides of fintech
from the investing andoperating.
I chose LBS.
I mean, it was my top choice.
I think it was basically theonly school I applied to.
As I said, I wanted to come backto Europe but because I wanted
(10:01):
to be in the tech world, I knewI wanted to be in a city where I
could be doing internships andaccessing and building my
network in the ecosystemthroughout the MBA as well.
And INSEAD, which is the othersort of I admire second best MBA
in Europe, is an incredibleschool but it's sort of in the
outskirts of Paris and Franceand quite isolated from a lot of
(10:23):
these ecosystems that I wantedto be embedding myself and I
think that decision was great.
As I said, I ended up doingmany internships throughout the
term at Balderton and then atGifstar and actually a brief
stint at WeWork, which hasnothing to do with fintech.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I don't know.
They probably thought it did.
They thought it had to do witheverything, right.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Exactly, but yeah, so that turned out really well.
I got a new career and I got ahusband out of LBS, so that was
great.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Well, that's perfect.
Perfect.
When you went to school, youknew you wanted to get into
fintech.
You weren't sure aboutinvesting or operating.
You had a chance to do a coupleinternships, one on each side.
What made you decide?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
to go the investing route rather than the operating
route.
Yeah, I think that what made mego the investing route was that
during my internship atBoulderton I felt a lot of the
skills that I was using as a VCand in sort of networking and an
innate curiosity and divingdeep and research and was just
innate to my personality and itfelt like kind of a natural
(11:32):
extension of the way I behave innormal life.
It like fulfilled thatcuriosity component that I've
always had.
It fulfilled that desire tosort of build relationships,
connect with people as well asconnect to other people and
enable and broker a lot of sortof the ecosystem.
So I really loved that aspectof it.
(11:53):
I think that studying what'sgoing on in different sectors
and markets and studying theunderlying players and trying to
sort of understand and place abet on which company is going to
drive a certain market forwardand in what direction will that
be, I think that intellectualexercise is just to me, probably
the most stimulating thing outthere.
So I really enjoyed myinternship.
(12:15):
I felt like before, after andduring it was just sort of very
natural behavior to me and so Idecided to pursue it.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Oh, that makes a lot of sense.
I mean, that is one of the morefascinating things about VC is
just the number of differentsectors.
You look at number of differentthings.
You study the strategicthinking involved in it.
You don't get bored very often,that's for sure.
I'll put it that way.
So you made the decision to gointo VC, wound up going to March
(12:44):
Capital in LA for a bit andthen back to QED in London, so
you've had the chance to kind oflook at VC both in the US and
in London.
I mean London slash Europe morebroadly.
How did you decide to, I guess,settle in on Europe?
Was that more of a kind ofpersonal choice?
Or was that more of theecosystem?
Was just what interests you?
(13:04):
I mean, can you talk about?
You know that train of thoughtthere?
I mean, it's pretty, prettyunique to have worked, worked in
both.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I'd say it was a mix of personal and professional.
As I said, I had done the MBAin London to move my career back
to Europe.
This is where I wanted to befor personal reasons.
But then also my exposure tothe US market I think was great,
because there is no doubt thatthe US is the leader in the
(13:30):
venture capital markets and inthe tech markets and I think
getting exposure to that wasgreat.
But it actually for me reallyreconfirmed that Europe was
where I wanted to be and I thinkthat in most sectors Europe
likely lags the US.
I think fintech is the onesector that it actually truly
rivals the US and that we're onan unequal playing foot.
(13:53):
So I think that there's a lotof innovation and business
models that kind of pop upalmost simultaneously in Europe
or ahead in Europe of then theUS.
I always say we at QED are theEuropean team.
The sectors that we're lookingat, the business models, et
cetera.
They're all much more on parwith our US team than
necessarily some of our moreinternational emerging markets
(14:15):
teams.
So I think fintech is uniquewithin Europe because I actually
think it's fintech in Europe iscompetitive with the US, and so
that always attracted me.
But also I think Europe hasobviously the innate challenge
that it's a collection ofcountries with different
demographics, both sort ofconsumers as well as SMEs and
enterprises.
An SME in France is not thesame as an SME in Germany and it
(14:40):
makes the challenges of kind ofgrowing cross-border and going
international.
It's a lot harder to reach thesame sort of market size in
Europe as you can in the USbecause of those borders and
those differences.
And I think that, as somebodythat grew up moving so much, I'm
always very attracted to thatquestion of sort of
international expansion and isit possible and how can you
(15:03):
adapt a product and what's theright way to enter a new market.
So I like that challenge that Ithink the European market faces
.
And then the final thing is thatI think that the European
market, in terms of sort ofinvestors, is just naturally
smaller and I felt like it was aan ecosystem that I could
(15:24):
actually wrap my arms around.
I today feel like I know 95% ofthe people that I that I need
to know in Europe in terms ofother funds or angels or
whatever it is, and I neverthought that was possible in the
US.
The US is just so large that Ialways had a bit of an
overwhelmed feeling, whereas inEurope I actually feel like I
can I can grasp it, at leastfocusing on one sector which is
yeah.
Yeah, in Europe I actually feellike I can grasp it, at least
(15:45):
focusing on one sector which isyeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, no, that makes sense.
I mean back to something yousaid a second ago.
I mean it is an interesting,almost hybrid right.
So in some cases, you know,germany is quite different than
France.
I mean in many ways Germany isvery different than France, but
some business opportunities it'scompletely different businesses
.
Yet there are some businessopportunities where you truly
can be pan-europe, given someharmonization of regulation,
(16:08):
common currency etc.
So it's to your point.
It's interesting to think aboutwhich businesses can easily be
pan-european and whichbusinesses really need to be
country by country.
So it's a kind of a reallyinteresting mix in that regard
yeah, agree very much.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
So we have a lot of examples of each in our
portfolio here.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Definitely definitely Well.
So look, when we got started inEurope, we were very UK focused
.
Our team still is all Londonbased, but I think, as time has
gone along, more and more of ouractivity has been throughout
different countries in Europe.
If anything, our two unicornsin the portfolio, neither one of
them located in the UK, whichis kind of ironic given where we
(16:51):
started.
You know how have you seen themigration of the ecosystem since
you've been looking at it,starting in business school and
then being here at QED for twoand a half years of kind of?
At least my perception is itwas quite London centric and
maybe that's one reason youpicked LBS.
But if you look at it now it'syou know 30 billion was raised
in the UK.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
The second largest market.
Those second largest marketsare France and Germany, which
are at 18 and 20, I forget whichone and then countries like
Sweden, spain and Italy and Ithink the Netherlands are all
sort of in that 5 to 10 range,so it gets a lot smaller.
Netherlands are all sort of inthat five to 10 range, so it
(17:47):
gets a lot smaller.
But, as you said, we've seen amajor uptick in activity in
especially, I'd say, france andGermany in the last five years,
with France really acceleratingin the last few years.
I think a lot of it is sort ofnatural tech ecosystems and how
they operate right, which isthat like once you have a
business that has scaled orIPO'd so in Sweden it's been
(18:11):
Klarna and then Adyen for theNetherlands and so each country
kind of has their scale ups thatare kind of getting to a
maturity level that then startsto spawn off a lot of other
founders, and so that sort ofmaturity cycle has kind of
eventually made its way throughthe rest of the European
(18:31):
ecosystems.
I'd say, as I said, sort ofFrance has been probably the
most active and especially whenit comes to fintech in the last
few years, of sort of that firstgeneration of companies,
spawning off new founders whohave the last generation of
companies founders all as sortof angel investors on the cap
tables and really helping andgrooming that second generation
(18:53):
of companies and getting theflywheel going.
That's part of it, and I thinkthat, from an investor
perspective though, whereaspeople do usually have large
teams covering Europe, they viewthe entire continent sort of
opportunistically right.
So I mean, there are of courseseed stage funds and local funds
(19:13):
in each country, but most ofyou know tier one local funds in
each geography are actuallystarting to go international
right.
So HV, which was sort of thelargest fund in Germany, now has
offices in Paris and in London.
Nordstrom, which was originallyNordic, has offices here and in
Germany and in Paris, the samefor Balderton.
(19:33):
So everybody is kind ofeverywhere and views the region
as sort of one region to coverand be opportunistic sort of
throughout it.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
How have you and you know, with our very extensive
two-person European team, howhave you and Yousef sort of
thought about adapting to thissomewhat fragmentation of the
market ecosystem?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
As you know, because we've discussed this with you a
lot too sort of is it better tohave 100% coverage in one or two
geos or 70% coverage in six?
Right, because it's unrealisticto strive for 100% coverage in
six as a team of two.
Right, because, as you, it'sunrealistic to have to strive
for 100% coverage in six as ateam of two.
Right, and I think that we'vesort of we veered towards sort
(20:16):
of that 70, 80% coverage, butcovering multiple geographies.
As I said, I think that, likegives you the ability to sort of
take advantage of sort ofmomentum in certain markets.
So if France is acceleratedwith a whole new generation of
founders, like we'll spend alittle bit more time there,
always covering the UK as wellas a base case, because that is
(20:38):
the largest market and this iswhere we are.
But given that we're a team oftwo, it's unrealistic ever to
not miss anything and seeeverything.
And so I think being more sortof proactive about what we do
want to see, where we do want tocanvas, where we do want to
spend time, and doing soopportunistically and shifting,
has been sort of where we'velanded and I think it's worked
(21:01):
really well so far.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, I mean it's an interesting microcosm of, I
guess, qed as a whole, where asa global firm, we're probably a
little lightly staffed in everygeo that we're talking about,
but then you get some of thescale benefits and learning
benefits of being that broad.
So it's always a trade-off andI'm sure over time the answer
changes depending on whateverthe market dynamics are.
Well, look, I'd love to moveinto a couple specific topics
(21:24):
about the market and maybe ourportfolio.
You referenced earlier in thecall that various aspects of
digital wealth management wassomething you're passionate
about.
I know it's something thatyou're spending a decent amount
of time on.
I wonder if you can talk aboutsort of the opportunities that
you see in wealth management, Iguess specifically in Europe,
although to your point, they'reprobably not super unique in
Europe versus the US and someother developed markets.
(21:46):
But I wonder if you can talk alittle bit about what you're
seeing and maybe what you'relooking for.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah, so, as I said, it's always been an area that I
was passionate about sincejoining QED.
Ironically, right when I joined, it was totally out of favor,
so I joined end of 2021.
I think that the first era ofrobo-advisors personal, you know
(22:11):
, pfms personal financialmanagement apps had raised a ton
of capital.
There had been sort ofcompetitive wars that had
resulted in sort of super highCACs as kind of that age of
digital marketing and in the ageof easy money, flourished, and
then, of course, in a zerointerest rate environment too, I
think that those businessmodels just it was the worst of
(22:33):
all worlds, right, like therewas easy money, so there was too
many marketing dollars goingafter the same consumers and too
many apps trying to capture thesame consumers, and then the
business model side of things inthe low interest rate
environment was also very, verychallenging, right.
So when I joined, a lot ofthose consumer platforms, when
it came to wealth tech in thefirst generation of them, were
(22:55):
completely out of favor.
Ironically, as sort of themarkets have shifted and we've
entered new, higher rateenvironment, a lot of those
business models and businessesthat were completely out of
favor three years ago when Ijoined are actually sort of
publishing incredibly strongnumbers, right, so businesses
like Scalable in Germany andMoneybox here in the UK and a
(23:20):
lot of those sort of robo plusadvisors.
So I think that's sort of beenan interesting theme that we've
been looking at again.
Think that's sort of been aninteresting theme that we've
been looking at again.
But I think we obviously wantto go a step beyond that and ask
sort of what is different andnew in these business models
today?
How can they be solid businessmodels that can also flourish in
(23:41):
lower interest rateenvironments?
I think Europe has been a littlebit behind the US because, for
example, those I capitals andcases of the world that I
described that started sort of10 years ago in the US have only
started in the last few yearshere in Europe.
So Moonfair, again out ofGermany, but we most recently
last year, spent quite a bit oftime with very strong seed stage
business called Vega, which issort of democratizing access to
(24:04):
sort of private markets, butdoing so direct to consumers as
well as B2B.
So I think, accessing sort ofthose new asset classes and
creating an investment platformfor consumers that gives them
both access to kind of lowerrisk yield type products as well
as often having sort of thatstock and brokerage aspect of it
(24:25):
, as well as maybe then somemore sort of alternative
products, is an area that we'vebeen spending quite a bit of
time in.
But, as you said, we're alsoquite often attracted to sort of
the B2B business models andenabling the wealth managers
that, for better or for worse,we don't necessarily think are
going to go away in ourgeneration.
(24:45):
So we've been looking at a lotof sort of technology enablers
for the wealth managers thatexist around Europe as well.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Interesting.
Do you have a theory on sort ofwhat changed?
So I mean I'm very much withyou on the generation 1.0.
I mean, you know, I spent sometime, you know, eight or nine
years ago, looking at the spacein the US typically quite large
cax, quite poor unit economics,pretty decent churn dynamics,
really high valuations and justreally hard to see how it works.
(25:15):
And now sort of a new vibrance,and again it's not just Europe.
I think we're seeing, you know,some more, much more vibrance
to the market across differentspaces.
Do you have a theory on what'sdifferent now?
Is it solely related tointerest rates or is it
learnings from that generation1.0 that is helping the founders
in generation 2.0 build betterbusiness models?
I mean any sort of generalthoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
The fact that these cats got out of control and that
the unit economics of a lot ofthese generation one businesses
were terrible is no secret right.
So people are thinkinginnovatively about how they
could monetize in this space.
But I also think that consumerswent through a major
educational curve and a bit of awhiplash as well.
(25:58):
So obviously that sort of firststep of democratizing more
wealth was not only therobo-advisors but also then the
Robin Hoods and the neobrokersof the world and coming out or
going into COVID.
And then during COVID we sawsort of a boom in activity on
those neobrokers as acombination of sort of stimulus
(26:20):
plans as well.
As you know, people stuck andbored at home, and so I think
that people were semi-exposed oreducated on stockbrokers, but
were then totally burned whenthe market crashed now whatever
a year and a half ago and so nowhave sort of accessed
robo-advisors.
They've been on the neoburkersbut got burned and so don't
(26:42):
really like that and aresimultaneously sort of a lot
more aware of sort of managetheir own wealth and invest
their own wealth in the rightway.
Right.
So they're looking for toolsthat provide them with enough
education and guidance thatallows them to sort of make
smart decisions about assetallocation, but aren't these
(27:04):
sort of meme stock drivenplatforms that they don't
necessarily trust as muchanymore, right?
So I think that, like that holygrail of sort of serving the
mass affluent with a new ageprivate bank is a theme that
sort of we've been looking atacross both the US and Europe.
And I think, as I said, what'sdifferent about these business
models is that most of themnowadays are B2B and they're not
(27:26):
necessarily trying to replacethe wealth manager, but they're
trying to sort of enable thewealth manager, through
technology, to provide not onlya more efficient service for
their customers, but also justbetter advice using AI to
analyze portfolios and pasttrading history and sort of
optimization for that and then,as well, giving them a digital
(27:49):
interface for them to interactwith their consumers, because,
realistically, our generation isalways going to want to access
information digitally.
But for certain wealth decisions, I think we'll still want to
speak to someone who can helpand who can give live advice and
oversight, because these aresort of big decisions.
But eventually, if we'recomfortable signing an auto loan
(28:12):
online on a platform with aplatform like Carmoola and
taking out a loan for 20k for acar, eventually those sorts of
20k 30k investment decisions.
I think we will get to a pointwhere we can do it all digitally
, but we're not quite there yet.
So I think the shift is sort offocusing on B2B models.
Wealth managers is somethingnew.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Hey, I'd love to talk aboutmaybe one or two other trends in
the market, maybe through thelens of a couple of portfolio
companies.
You know one company, I knowyou're quite involved with
Remote First, really takingadvantage of how often companies
are working remotely these days, either exclusively remotely or
partially remotely.
I wonder if you could talk alittle bit about what Remote
(28:55):
First does and kind of what themarket trends are that has us so
excited about what thecompany's doing.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I have to sort of give a shout out to Yusuf, too,
on his vision for Remote First,which was the first deal that we
worked on right when I joined.
But when we invested in RemoteFirst deal and remotecom they
were all sort of very much, theywere very present and they were
growing very, very quickly,right.
So just to recap on what RemoteFirst does they're a remote
(29:24):
payroll business, so they enableyou to hire an employee in a
country that you do not have asubsidiary in and they will help
you process all the visapaperwork as well as sort of
onboard that employee and thenpay them.
What they are doing is anemployer of record type business
model where they are, unlikedealremotecom, they are building
(29:50):
software to enable local EORsthat already exist around the
world.
So the EOR business has beenaround for several decades, but
usually these EORs are kind ofvery old school players that are
totally offline, very manualand very local and on the ground
.
And so what Remote First hasbuilt is a vertical software
platform to enable thoseexisting EORs around the world
(30:12):
to serve clients and acquireclients globally, whereas Deal
and Remotecom, who are their twobiggest competitors, actually
vertically integrated and set uptheir own EORs all around the
world.
So their growth is incredibleand they are amazing businesses.
But they've also become highlyoperational businesses because
they have literally 100subsidiaries around the world
(30:33):
that's processing payroll andthey're also liable for that
payroll.
So the trend of enabling remotepayroll was very much already in
effect when we met Remo First.
But what we found in Remo Firstwas an incredibly scrappy young
founder that had made it tobasically almost a million of
ARR between him and a co-founderwith very little money raised,
(30:56):
basically bootstrapped.
And so we saw that this guy hada great go-to-market instinct
and that, given sort of therising tide in this space,
go-to-market would probably bethe determinant of winners.
And yeah, the company hascontinued to excel super well.
They raised their Series B atthe end of last year, they 4x
(31:19):
last year, even sort of duringturbulent hiring and layoff
markets in tech worldwide.
So it's a trend that's here tostay and I think it is a lesson
to us.
A rising tide market isattractive and especially many
of them are not winner-take-all,and so if you don't back the
first player, as long as youfind a player that believe in
(31:41):
from a product strength andgo-to-market perspective,
there's ample opportunityusually to ride that tide.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah, it makes sense and I don't think that tide's
slowing down anytime soon,probably just getting started.
I'm pretty sure Nur is our onlyCEO from Kazakhstan, if I'm not
mistaken.
It's been really fun watchinghim really grow as a leader and
build the firm.
You know one more company I'dlove to jump into just because I
know it really illustratesanother sort of massive trend
around the world is our mostrecent investment that you
(32:09):
really led the charge on Ale.
It's a company called Swap.
I wonder if you can talk alittle bit about what they do
and what are some of the trendsand reasons we got so excited
about backing them recently.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Swap started as a returns management platform for
e-commerce merchants.
They started here in the UK andthe UK, especially the
post-Brexit world, is a marketthat is highly international,
cross-border and is constantlyshipping cross-borders right.
The UK market isn't huge andwhereas a US merchant will
(32:46):
usually only start thinkingabout going international once
they've reached sort of 50, 60,70 million in annual revenues
here in the UK, merchants startthinking globally, from sort of
2, 3 million of revenue right,and start thinking about
shipping internationally andaccessing especially the
European markets.
So that's a theme that we havefocused on, from when it comes
(33:09):
to FX payments hedging and a lotof that payment activity is
happening in sort ofcross-border e-commerce retail.
So that's a little bit how wefound Swap, or came at it from
that angle.
They, as I said, started inreturns management for
e-commerce merchants, which wasstill very broken here in the UK
(33:32):
, so similar to companies in theUS like Loop, and built
cross-border returnsinfrastructure, so the ability
to kind of bring a product backfrom the French market.
And once they had built thoserails, with warehouses, carriers
, orchestrating all thoseplayers they realized that they
could use that sameinfrastructure to sort of solve
(33:52):
the outbound shipping formerchants who were also eager to
kind of keep their entirelogistics stack with one
enabling player like Swap.
So they started with thereturns.
They then backwards integratedinto the outbound shipping as
well and are now hyper-focusedon kind of that cross-border
commerce, solving thatcross-border question for
(34:14):
merchants and giving them sortof a Shopify for their logistics
stack, so being a one-stop shopfor their entire sort of
backend and logistics.
So integrating with 3PLs, as Isaid, warehouses, carriers for
outbound shipping, for returns,enabling insurance for those
products, sustainabilityproducts, and so they're really
(34:35):
taking on nowadays a big publiccompany called Global E and
doing so pretty successfully.
We're really excited about them.
The traction has been, as Isaid, tremendous since we
invested in them.
They were similarly veryscrappy team when we originally
invested and so we're excited tosee where they go from here.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, and another topic, I think, is riding some
pretty amazing global tidesright.
I mean, globalization ofe-commerce is really only
getting started and is onlygoing to continue to grow, and
folks like that will just makeit easier and easier, which will
make it grow bigger and bigger.
So that's fantastic.
So, ali, we're nearing timehere.
I just want to kind of finish,maybe, with a couple more
(35:14):
general questions.
You're several years now intoyour VC career.
Obviously, you meet hundreds offounders in a typical year.
I'm sure you work closely withI don't know a dozen or so
companies in our portfolio orones that you're pretty serious
about possibly investing in.
I wonder if you can share anylearnings on your approaches for
building relationships withfounders.
(35:34):
It's an interesting job wherehaving a good relationship's
important, but sometimes you'realso the bearer of bad news.
We don't always agree with ourfounders.
There's always plenty ofconflicts out there.
It's hard to know what theright answers are.
So how do you think aboutbuilding relationships with
founders that aren't necessarilyjust based on telling them
everything they want to hear,being able to have good,
constructive conflict and also,at times, really agreeing and
(35:57):
stepping on the gas and goingafter it?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Interesting question.
I think that every VC or to bea successful VC, you have to
have your own sort of way ofhelping either portfolio
companies or founders that youare trying to build
relationships with in yourpipeline, and I think that many
of us at QED obviously beingsector experts in fintech, and I
think that many of us at QEDobviously being sector experts
in fintech, our expertise in thefintech space is the main way
(36:22):
that we're able to help.
I think that another way thatVCs can help is just in
brokering connections right.
We speak to hundreds of peopleother investors, other companies
, incumbents, visa, mastercard,jp Morgan every day, and so our
(36:43):
ability to sort of brokerconnections and facilitate, you
know, conversations that I thinkwill be beneficial to both
sides is unique because of sortof where we sit in the ecosystem
.
We're kind of like a spoke inthe wheel, right, and so that's
very often or I think, acombination of those two is how
I always try to help right.
When I'm trying to build arelationship with a founder in a
pipeline, especially one that'skind of hard to reach, there's
(37:04):
nothing better that you can dothan introduce them to a
potential customer right.
They'll love you If you do thatthey'll be happy to answer your
emails and questions every dayand you can DD a founder in a
company through thoseintroductions and through
potential customer introductions, right?
So I mean you mentioned Swapwas one of the big reasons that
(37:24):
we got to a high level ofconviction with Swap was because
I introduced Commerce Merchantto them and I actually just
wanted to pick my friend's brainon that.
Swap is interesting, like dothey solve any needs?
I just wanted her perspectiveon them and she ended up signing
with them in a week in one oftheir biggest contracts.
Those types of introductions, Ithink, are what I really try to
(37:47):
enable every day, because ithelps the company, it helps
whoever you're introducing andthen it helps you in doing your
GD on a space.
The same goes for working withportfolio companies.
I often think of myself as anextension of their sales team,
like with Weaver.
I have Weaver as our banking,as a service company here in
Europe and they sell to a lot offintechs and I have a weekly
(38:10):
call with them on Fridays withtheir sales team, where we just
go over one another's pipelinesbecause it's similar businesses.
So sales, I think, is a key waythat we can help both portfolio
companies as well as pipelinecompanies.
But then sector expertise infintech is obviously critical
too.
So I'd say not quite as much ofthat compared to many of our
(38:32):
Capital One veterans on the team, but in my four years of
fintech investing I'vedefinitely developed my
knowledge and I'm usually ableto lean in and help there,
especially when it comes tolending, embedded lending
partners, et cetera.
I think that that's somewherewhere we as QED really stick out
and are able to help.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
That's fascinating and I think it goes to the value
in bringing in people into thefirm that have all sorts of
different backgrounds, right?
I mean you kind of leaninstantly into hey, how can I
help you do B2B selling Many ofour folks probably would not
excel at that, but wouldprobably excel at various other
aspects of it and how do we sortof line up whatever skills we
need to help whatever companieswe have, because no one person's
(39:14):
ever going to be able to helpin every way have, because no
one person's ever going to beable to help in every way?
So look, two final questionshere for you.
You already referenced that oneof the benefits of going to LBS
is you met a husband Veryexciting and we're recently
married.
Even more recently took one ofthe coolest honeymoons I've ever
heard of.
As we record this, I think yougot back like three days ago or
something thereabouts.
(39:34):
You're probably super jetlagged, as we do this call, but
I'd love to hear about yourhoneymoon.
I have never heard of such anamazing, unique trip.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
It is my favorite topic right now, so I'm excited
that you asked.
I think my debrief with myparents on Sunday night was like
two hours.
I think they finally just cutme off.
Yes, so we went to Bhutan fornine days and then Kathmandu on
the way back.
Bhutan is a tiny country of800,000 people, sandwiched in
between India and what was Tibetis now China.
(40:07):
Very, very Buddhist ineverything in the country.
So Buddhism is embedded in theculture, in the people, in the
politics, in the policy andeconomics.
So the country famouslymeasured gross national
happiness instead of GDP, which,as I mentioned, sadly results
(40:29):
in a GDP of about 2.5 billiononly.
But I think it's growing andit's getting there and I think
tourism is a huge part of that.
So, yeah, but it's a very purenation that, despite being
sandwiched by two giantbehemoths, has never been sort
of invaded, has basically neverbeen in a war itself and has
(40:50):
thus remained very, very pure inculture, in spirituality, in
politics and in monarchy, in themonarch.
And so it's probably the mostdifferent place that I've ever
visited.
But also the trip was just oneof those that I think for me was
perfect because it balancedphysical activity, so we did big
(41:11):
, intense hikes every other dayor so.
The entire country is in theHimalayan range, so all
mountains.
There's only two valleys thatare wide enough to have airports
in the entire country.
Otherwise it's literally allmountains.
So it combined hiking as wellas sort of learning a ton about
culture, the spirituality ofBuddhism, but then also I made
(41:36):
sure especially for my husband,who likes to relax a little bit
more than I do that we had somerelaxing afternoons and some
nice, beautiful hotels.
So it was a really great trip.
I did not dive into the localtech ecosystem and I went
totally offline instead, but Idid read up a lot on Buddhism
and the history of the country,so it was great.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
That's awesome, and you got to see Mount Everest
twice from an airplane.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, which I think has got to be the best way to
see it right, Not from Basecamp.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Hey, Ale, it's been amazing talking to you today.
I'd love to end with kind ofthe same question we ask almost
everyone, and especially in yourcase, maybe entrepreneurs
looking to start fintechbusinesses, looking to pitch you
what's one key tip or piece ofadvice that you would give an
aspiring fintech entrepreneur?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
I think that the most common frustration that I face
often is founders using GMV orgross burden premiums or a very,
very gross revenue type figureas their true revenue figure or
net revenue, and there's nothingmore refreshing than hearing a
founder talk about their netrevenue first and where their
(42:43):
margins truly lie.
I think that that kind ofcreates a lot of transparency
and often can lead to a lot moreconviction, because they're
measuring what matters right.
So I think that that's a nichebut tip that I often give people
Don't hide your gross versusnet.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
That makes a lot of sense and I think people learn
plenty of bad behaviors in 2021that I think are quickly
changing, so I love that pieceof advice.
Ale, it was great talking toyou today.
Thanks so much for coming on,and to all of our listeners,
thank you very much and we'llsee you next time.
This has been the FinTechThought Leaders podcast your
(43:28):
window into the world of venturecapital and financial services
with today's digital disruptors.
Qed is proud to provide thebest FinTech advice you can get.
To learn more or to read thefull show notes from today's
episode, check outqedinvestorscom.
Thanks for listening.
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