Amy Nauiokas, Anthemis CEO/Founder-Cultivating Change & Building Resiliency in the Financial System
Miguel Armaza sits down with the fascinating Amy Nauiokas, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Anthemis, a Venture Capital firm founded in 2008 that aims to cultivate change in the financial system by investing in, growing, and sustaining businesses committed to resiliency, transparency, access and equity. Some of their most notable investments include Carta, Betterment, Pipe, Rally Rd, Simple, and Backstage Capital.
Amy is also Founder and CEO of Archer Gray, a media production and content company.
In this great conversation, we talk about:
- Amy’s journey and how she found herself making her first Venture Capital investments in Cameroon in the early 90s. As a young student at Dickinson College, Amy moved to Sub Saharan Africa to focus on her International Studies degree. On her first week in Cameroon, she found herself in the middle of an upheaval and her program cancelled all classes — but instead of leaving the country, Amy walked into the US Peace Corps offices and landed a job that consisted in fundraising money to back various volunteer projects.
“I was going and raising money from various different charities, not-for-profits, and US Government agencies to try to support some of these programs… And I realize now, that was sort of venture capital, right? It was funding ideas and individuals to build something that didn’t exist.”
- Navigating Wall Street and why she eventually decided to leave big banks and launch Anthemis. Amy spent over a decade working in large financial institutions supporting multiple digitization efforts, tech projects, and electronic product rollouts. In many ways, she found herself doing Fintech before anyone was talking about it, but ultimately realized the most interesting innovations were not happening within banks but were being driven by small startups.
“A lot of the frustrations that both Sean and I had in our jobs were that we had to kind of convince people that the world was changing, and the sky might be falling, and that if they didn’t pay attention, things were gonna look very different.”
- Fundraising from LPs in 2008 — a year when the financial industry collapsed but also a time with major technological innovations.
“The markets were in complete turmoil and we actually decided in the spring of 2008 to do it. And then on our first day where we were actually out trying to properly fundraise for Anthemis, it was the Monday after Lehman collapsed. So you can imagine, it wasn’t a fantastic way to start a venture capital investment platform or really any company.”
- Bridging the conversation between incumbents and startups. From day one, Anthemis set out to back entrepreneurs with digital business models that look to transform and create resiliency inside of the existing financial system, which led them to simultaneously work closely with bankers and founders.
“From the very beginning, we carved out a lot of our time and energy to spend time with the big banks, insurance companies, and wealth managers in a way that actually made us quite valuable for them… and in those days they didn’t really understand what digital innovation strategy was. And so we were spending a lot of time almost consulting with them on that capacity.
And then separately, we were getting to know the entrepreneurs that were looking to build the sort of platforms and businesses of the future.”
- Their commitment to build the most diverse and inclusive team in Tech and Wall Street and why they launched the Female Innovators Lab along with Barclays.
“The Anthemis team had and continues to have the view that we have to put your own mask on first, right? That if you can’t hire and bring together a diverse group of individuals for your own company, then there’s no way you can advise an early stage founder to do the same. And so we really felt that was important. And so we built a company and a team that values that first and foremost, so it’s been pretty great.
Now we’re 50 people around the world. Of those, 55% are women, 65% of our investment team come from 16 different countries. We speak 16 different languages. Just shy of 40% of our team identify as black, indigenous, or people of color. Just about 13% of our team identify as part of the LGBTQ community. And my favorite stat still is that less than 50% of us have ever worked in financial services before.
So it gives you a sense of how much we value diversity of experience and thought.”
- Fundraising reflections, leadership lessons as a VC founder… and a lot more!
Amy Nauiokas
Amy Nauiokas is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Anthemis, the leading digital financial services investment firm, and Founder and CEO of Archer Gray, a media production and content company. She is a visionary executive, investor, producer and a recognized leader in innovation, strategy, and management across a variety of markets and industries.
As a venture capitalist, Amy identifies and invests in early stage technology companies focused on the disruption of media, financial services and marketplaces. She has built a strong investment portfolio of best-in-class, high growth companies. Current investments include Betterment, Trov, Happy Money and Currencycloud. Her exits include Flo Technologies, Zoopla, the UK’s leading property research website; Fidor Bank, acquired by BPCE in 2016; Simple, acquired by BBVA in 2014; and The Climate Corporation, acquired by Monsanto in 2013.
Amy received a master’s in international business from Columbia University, where she has also served as an Adjunct Professor in the business school, and received her BA in International Studies from Dickinson College.
About Anthemis
Anthemis cultivates change in our financial system by investing in, growing, and sustaining businesses committed to resiliency, transparency, access and equity. Founded on three guiding principles — authentic collaboration, virtuous cycle outcomes and diversity and inclusivity — our deep understanding of markets and models, passion for emerging technology and values inspire everything we do. By creating fertile ground for a diverse group of startups, investors, entrepreneurs, institutions, academics, and visionaries to converge, we believe we can solve the financial systems most pressing challenges faster, better and for the benefit of all. Visit www.anthemis.com for more information.
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