Amias Gerety, Partner at QED Investors — Helping Founders Navigate Uncertain Times
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Amias Gerety, Partner at QED Investors, a leading global fintech venture capital firm.
Amias and I cover a range of topics, including:
QED’s Success:
Amias previously joined the show in late 2019, and since that time QED has successfully raised over $1B. Amias and the QED team have faced a lot of challenges, both with the pandemic and with the current economic uncertainty, and have worked tirelessly to navigate these waters with their portfolio companies. Amias provides some advice to founders when negotiating with venture capital firms — he recommends that they make sure to optimize for the entire lifecycle of working with a VC, not only the fundraising component.
Cryptocurrency Executive Order:
Amias is uniquely positioned to discuss President Biden’s executive order on cryptocurrencies, having worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury under the Obama administration. Amias believes this order is more a statement about attention and intention rather than a statement about policy. One implication of this order is that a significant number of reports will be written about cryptocurrencies in the future — which is not necessarily a bad thing. Amias also noticed a theme of central bank digital currencies throughout the document. Amias believes this implies a recognition that fully digital, 24/7, and global payment rails are an important functional need that cryptocurrencies could eventually serve.
Select Investments:
Amias and I dive deeper into three investments the team has made recently:
- Tint: Tint empowers tech platforms to sell more by embedding unique insurance products that protect their end-users. Overall, Amias believes that API-based user-interface companies can be very powerful because they are “built to unlock other people’s innovation”. Amias is particularly excited about Tint because the company isn’t only embedding insurance into other financial services, but also embedding insurance into other types of innovative consumer products.
- Atomic: Atomic enables consumer-facing fintechs and banks to integrate wealth management and trading into their products in a frictionless way. While other companies have made investment infrastructure products, Atomic has actually become a registered investment advisor, allowing them to provide consumer investing experiences beyond buying ETFs or stocks.
- Ntropy: Ntropy believes that turning data into leverage rather than a barrier is a gamechanger in financial services. Amias and the Ntropy team understand that building a truly valuable UX requires clean data. Ntropy makes this possible for its clients, and thus allows its clients to unlock new experiences for users.
Exciting trends in fintech:
Over the next few years, Amias is particularly curious to see how the changing demographics for neobanks impact the brands’ success. Many of these neobanks were originally built to capture young users (ages 25–35). He believes that either these neobanks will either “end up on a treadmill” if continually attracting the same clientele, or build themselves into the next generation of trusted banking brands if they expand their clientelle.
___
Amias Gerety:
Amias joined QED as a Partner in 2017 focusing on supporting the portfolio and finding new investment opportunities with a focus on back office technologies and infrastructure companies.
Amias brings a deep background in financial markets, compliance, and RegTech to the QED team. Most recently, Amias served as the President’s nominee and as Acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that role, he was the lead advisor to the Secretary on policies affecting financial institutions. He also oversaw a number of programs focused on supporting small business lending and community development. He previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Financial Stability Oversight Council, an interagency group of financial regulators charged with monitoring and mitigating potential threats to financial stability. Prior to Treasury, Amias was a management consultant at Oliver Wyman. He also served in a number of policy roles and worked in East Africa for Save the Children. Amias is a recipient of the Alexander Hamilton award, the Treasury’s highest honor.
Amias graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard with a BA in Social Studies.
___
About the Author:
Anirudh Singh is a second-year MBA Candidate at The Wharton School, where he is part of the Wharton FinTech Podcast team. He has a passion for economic development, venture capital, financial services, and all things FinTech. Don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, comments, feedback, and opportunities at singhan@wharton.upenn.edu.
If you like this episode, you may also enjoy:
- Adam Nash, CEO of Daffy — Making Giving a Habit
- Rishi Khanna, CEO of Stocktwits — Facilitating a Global Conversation for Individual Investors
- Deven Parekh, Managing Director at Insight Partners — The Evolution of Global Fintech Investing
- Greg Schvey, CEO of Axoni — Harnessing the Power of Private Blockchain
- Arvind Purushotham, Managing Director and Global Head of Venture Investing at Citi Ventures
For more insights from FinTech leaders, follow:
Wharton FinTech
Twitter | Medium | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
