FinTech Silicon Valley

Yash Patel is General Partner at Telstra Ventures, a San Francisco-based VC firm that differentiates by generating revenue for its portfolio with strategic channel partners and customer relationships as well as by using data science to drive its investment process. Yash's focus is on the consumer side of fintech, Web3, crypto, esports, gaming, SaaS apps, ecommerce, and marketplace. Some of his standout fintech investments while at Telstra Ventures are companies like Super.com (Super Apps) and Playbook (next-gen wealthtech). Previously, Yash was the Director of Corporate Development & Strategy at Adknowledge and was part of the technology investment banking team at Jefferies & Company prior.

Max has decades of experience building global IT & fintech businesses. After getting his MBA at Stanford, he co-founded Russia's largest eCommerce company, Wikimart (dubbed "the Amazon of Russia" by Silicon Valley VCs) and raised $50M+ from Tiger Global. He then switched over to work with e-commerce companies in Asia, focusing mainly on payments as a CEO, investor, and advisor to numerous startups. He started Silverbird amidst the pandemic in London, in 2020, after noticing a major banking gap in international trade: millions of underserved SMEs around Africa, Middle East, and Asian regions and beyond were exposed to high fees, unfair rejections, unnecessary paperwork, and outdated regulations. The key pain point was high-value cross-border transactions - something international trade is all about. Silverbird makes cross-border banking business-friendly and international payments borderless, limitless, frictionless and affordable. It can onboard companies traditional banks can't through the use of AI and data-driven KYC which analyzes publicly open customs and supply chain data to assess the risk-profile of a particular SME.

Max Krupyshev, CoFounder/CEO of the crypto payment ecosystem CoinsPaid. He is a serial entrepreneur with long-standing experience in developing fintech and crypto projects. Having entered the world of crypto in 2013, he stood at the origins of this market in Ukraine, launching a Bitcoin Foundation to promote crypto adoption in the country. Before joining CoinsPaid, he was the product owner for CEX.IO, a global cryptocurrency ecosystem and market leader. As the CEO of CoinsPaid, he sets the goal for the company to become the connecting link between crypto and traditional businesses.

Jeff Booth is a visionary leader, technology entrepreneur and best-selling author of The Price of Tomorrow – Why Deflation is Key to an Abundant Future. With his expertise in technology, system thinking and design, he is at the forefront of a transition from an economic system built for the past, and one built for the future. Jeff has been featured in Forbes, TechCrunch, Inc.com, The Globe and Mail, BNN, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Bloomberg, TIME, and The Wall Street Journal. In 2015, he was named BC Technology Industry Association’s (BCTIA) Person of the Year, and in 2016 Goldman Sachs named him among its 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs. He is a Founding Partner of ego death capital, Co-Founder of addy and NocNoc. He has been a Young Presidents Organization member since 2004 and contributes time as a Founding Fellow at the Creative Destruction Lab. Jeff currently sits on the boards of Scoop Solar, Terramera, Fedi and Breez.

Andy has been a prominent figure in the financial services industry for more than 25 years, during which he has served as President and owner of Miles Franklin, Precious Metals, Ltd.  Prior to starting Miles Franklin, Ltd. in 1989, Andrew became a Licensed Financial Planner, specializing in Swiss Franc Investments and alternative investments.  At Miles Franklin Ltd., a company that has recently eclipsed $5 billion in sales, Andrew has developed an operation that maintains trust, collaboration, ethical behavior, superior customer service and satisfaction to better serve their clients.  He is responsible for overseeing the firm's operations and business functions, including strategic planning, account management, finance, and new business. Andrew has distinguished himself as a successful entrepreneur, a foremost expert on the precious metals industry and a reputable speaker on economics, global investing, and foreign currencies.

Stacy has been working in the blockchain sphere since 2016. She has worked as a marketing consultant for businesses who wanted to integrate blockchain. She has worked with trading platforms, DeFi projects and has worked in Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa & South Korea. The Calypso Group are mainly focused on Calypso Pay. Calypso Pay is a crypto payment processor. They released several financial products for different business segments. Their global aim is to help business seamlessly adopt crypto (dive into Web3)

Eric Shoykhet is the Founder of Atom Finance and Link Financial Technologies link.money ,venture-backed software companies that collectively have raised $100mm. Previously, he was an investor at Governors Lane, an event-driven hedge fund. At Governors Lane, Eric worked on investments across a variety of sectors including industrials, financials, technology, and consumer staples. Prior to this, he worked in the Restructuring and Reorganization group at Blackstone. Eric graduated from the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business at the University of Pennsylvania with degrees from both the Wharton School and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Michael Fanfant is a Palo Alto-based General Partner at Runa Capital. He looks for early stage startups with solutions across B2B SaaS and regulated industries like fintech, edutech and digital health. Michael joined Runa in 2017 after co-founding Octane Lending, where he was also COO. He serves on the board of Octane Lending, which was valued at more than $900 million during its Series D round in 2021.

Vladimir is a entrepreneur with long-standing experience in establishing and developing fintech projects. The total capitalization of Vladimir’s projects exceeded $1 billion at the beginning of 2022. As a professional businessman, Vladimir is interested in developing new, never-before seen solutions that would benefit society and improve the quality of everyday life. As the CEO of Choise.com, Mr. Gorbunov is responsible for managing the company's development, building operational processes, and achieving short-term and long-term goals in accordance with the established mission.

Hugo is an entrepreneur with over two decades of experience in the marketing communication space. He is Co-Founder and CEO of Minima - the world’s first completely decentralized, and mobile native blockchain protocol. Prior to launching Minima, Hugo ran and founded internationally awarded advertising agencies, creating global campaigns for companies including Vodafone, Toshiba and Sony Electronics.  He was previously General Manager of marcomms at Sony Europe for its computer and audio divisions.

Jazmin has a STEM background, with a first-class degree in Mathematics from the University of Surrey, Guildford. She has a passion for innovative technology and using it as a tool to improve personal and corporate potential. Her previous career includes 8 years as a consultant, implementing Oracle’s Financial Planning software for UK based and global businesses; and becoming a certified management accountant. Since discovering blockchain technology in 2018, she has dedicated her time to learning about the vast societal, financial and technological opportunities that it can enable. Excited by the prospects of a mobile-native blockchain with low barriers to entry, she joined the Minima community in 2020, spending a year getting involved and supporting the Minima team in her spare time. By October 2021, she joined Minima full time as their Technical Communications Manager, making a side-step change in her career. Her role now involves bridging the gap between the developers and the community; analysing the protocol, creating educational content and promoting the growth of Minima as the most decentralised blockchain globally.

Wayne was a Wall St investment banker and venture capitalist; owner/operator of the number two rock broadcasting stations in Los Angeles; Founder/CEO of the first utility wind energy developer (backed by Chevron); CEO of an international telecom that introduced the first direct dial telephone and wireless service to Moscow; Founder of two software companies. He is now CEO of ClimateCapex, a fintech platform for clean energy project finance.

Dmitry Mishunin is the founder and CEO of a DeFi security and analytics company HashEx. He is a businessman with skills in strategic management, specializing in cybersecurity and security audits. Dmitry has a long-standing expertise in product development in Ethereum, Bitcoin, Binance blockchains. Under his management HashEx has become one of the leaders in the field of cybersecurity and smart contracts audit. Since its creation, the company conducted over 500 audits for projects of various levels and helped preserve more than $5 billion worth of investor funds.

Kamyar Naficy is the Founder and Principal of KNECTCOMMS, a marketing and communications consultancy to the finance, technology and fintech sectors. He previously worked in senior marketing and communications roles at JP Morgan, London Stock Exchange Group and UniCredit. He holds a BA from the London School of Economics and an MPhil (Masters) in Management Studies from Cambridge University.

Marwan Forzley is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Veem, a next-generation global payment provider that enables businesses to quickly and securely send and receive payments in local currency. Veem uses the blockchain as a new settlement rail to enable frictionless and inexpensive payments. Prior to Align Commerce, Forzley founded and served as CEO of eBillme, an online payment solution that extended online banking to the merchant’s checkout process. After selling eBillme to Western Union, Forzley joined the Western Union’s digital team as General Manager, eCommerce, and Strategic Partnerships. With extensive experience and expertise in eCommerce infrastructure, mobile payments, content delivery, and alternative payments, Forzley is one of the top entrepreneurs working to pioneer better payment systems.

Robin Gandhi is the Senior Vice President of Product Management and Payments at TripActions. He leads the product, engineering, design, and operations efforts for TripActions' Liquid offering, the next-generation spend management solution. Prior to TripActions, Robin headed Adyen's global issuing offering as well as acquiring and partnerships for North America, working with the global card schemes, banks, financial institutions, and third-party partners that make omnichannel commerce possible for their merchants across the globe. He has a strong payments background, having come to Adyen from Digital River World Payments. In addition, Robin has more than 10 years in management consulting, having spent time at Accenture, Mitchell Madison Group, and also founding his own firm, Broadroots Consulting, which was acquired by the New York-based agency, Converseon. Robin holds an MBA from the top-ranked INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France. SPONSORED BY TACEN https://www.tacen.com/

Rosario Ingargiola is Founder/CEO BOSONIC.digital, a San Francisco based Financial Technology and Infrastructure company offering the only non-custodial, real-time clearing and settlement platform in existence. Clients include Banks, Neo Banks, Hedge Funds, Lenders, Market-Makers, Broker-Dealers and Miners. 

Alex Marquez launched Experian Ventures in 2016 and is currently the Global Managing Director and a member of Experian’s Investment Committee. As a leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to our clients around the world, we invest in data/analytics, information security, healthcare, automotive and the broader financial services ecosystem. We have invested more than $225m across the globe since inception.  Alex was Managing Director with USAA's Corporate Development Group and a member of USAA's Executive Management team where he built USAA Ventures into one of the most active FinTech CVC after his first year. Alex created USAA's Blockchain Working Group and investment thesis in blockchain [according to CBInsights, USAA was recognized as the first bank/insurance company to invest in blockchain technologies] and was responsible for the group investment in Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), Saffron (acq by Intel), and CafeX, ExpectLabs (acq by Cisco), while establishing USAA's venture brand in Silicon Valley. Alex was a Director with Intel Capital, the world’s largest corporate venture group having invested over $14B globally. In addition, Alex was co-founder and CEO of AppScotch, which brought transparency to paid mobile advertising. AppScotch was acquired by AppAnnie in 2016. Alex received his BS Electrical Engineering with emphasis in Semi-Conductor Physics from UNLV and received his MBA from Purdue University.

Kaarel is the strategic thinker and visionary behind Veriff. Kaarel keeps Veriff’s team one step ahead of fraud and competition in the dynamic world of online identification. Under Kaarel’s leadership, Veriff has become a leader in the IDV market, currently the only service provider offering near-real-time verification (improving from 70 seconds to 6 seconds in 2020), with sophisticated fraud control delivering close to 99% decision accuracy. Kaarel’s emphasis on global impact has led Veriff’s AI-powered decision engine to analyze more than 9,550 variations of government-issued IDs from over 190 countries in 39 different languages. 

Jon Soberg is Managing Partner at MS&AD Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on the future of finance, risk assessment, and building a sustainable society. Jon has made over 120 investments across 5 continents and has held more than 40 board positions. Prior to becoming an investor, Jon was a serial entrepreneur and operator, with an IPO exit at Adforce. Jon has a Master's degree in Engineering, a CFA, and is an MBA and Palmer Scholar at Wharton. Jon is ranked #13 on Business Insider's Seed 100 list of top seed investors.