Avoiding Career Inertia & Pursuing a 3rd Act — Caribou Honig, Investor Extraordinaire

In this Wharton Fintech podcast, Miguel Armaza is joined by Caribou Honig, Chairman & Co-founder of InsureTech Connect as well as Co-founder of the HR Transform Conference focused on the impact of technology on the workplace.

Caribou is also a legendary investor who sits on the board of several startups. He previously co-founded QED Investors, was a top executive at Capital One, and is currently a partner at SemperVirens, a VC focused on the Future of Work.

Caribou’s Insuretech Connect, the leading InsureTech conference, will be taking place September 21–23, bringing 200+ leaders to the virtual stage. Register and find more information at https://insuretechconnect.com/

Over the last two decades, Caribou Honig has had a front-row seat to the evolution of fintech and has invested and supported some of the most revolutionary companies in the world. He started his career at Capital One in the early 90s, during what he describes as a “hypergrowth period” going from 1,200 to 20,000 employees within six years. Capital One’s infamous analytical culture taught him how to use data in a business strategy, with a focus on data-driven marketing. But six years later and after holding a few senior roles, he decided to leave Capital One and look for his second act.

After a year-long sabbatical, Caribou partnered with former colleagues Nigel Morris (Capital One Co-Founder) and Frank Rotman to launch what eventually became QED Investors. What started as an advisory network for founders, quickly evolved into a full-fledged VC fund. Taking a page from Capital One, Nigel, Frank, and Caribou decided to take a systematic investing approach and created a culture of challenging each other to prove the strength and logic of their decisions. And, although investing solely in fintech was not the original thesis, they eventually realized financial services was their power alley and decided to concentrate firepower in this sector.

Mr. Honig helped build and develop QED into one of the premier VC funds in financial services. Some of his notable investments included TheMuse, Remitly, and KNIP. But after a decade with the firm, he realized there were other itches he wanted to scratch and it was probably time to look for his third act.

Unlike his first two acts, Caribou now spends his time wearing multiple hats across a number of institutions. Over the last four years, Mr. Honig has co-founded two conferences, joined multiple startup boards, and was recently named Partner at SemperVirens VC, an ecosystem fund investing in the future of work.

Betting on InsureTech

If there is one area of financial services Caribou is excited about, it is definitely the InsureTech space. Unlike verticals like digital lending or digital wealth management, he sees plenty of room for growth in the insurance space and is convinced the story is yet to be written. Some of the key InsureTech trends we discussed include:

• API-ification of Insurance Stack. A couple of years ago, there were already thousands of APIs serving the banking world for a myriad of functions and services. This same trend is just beginning to take shape in insurance and there are probably only a few hundred APIs within the space around the world. Going forward, we can expect several new insurance APIs to pop up.
• Embedded or Invisible Insurance. Embedding insurance services will be one of the most powerful ways to reach the consumer for up-and-coming startups. By partnering with non-financial institutions with access to large client bases, insuretech startups will be able to compete with incumbents and solve the distribution problem. In addition, as companies obtain increased access to customer data, embedded insurance will become invisible insurance with a product so seamless it will be barely noticeable by the consumer.
• Product Innovation. Most incumbents are large institutions with legacy infrastructure that is 5–8 years behind equivalent banking tech infrastructure. To play catch up, the industry will have to develop major product innovations and he expects to see some interesting developments on this front, both from startups and incumbents.

Successful Entrepreneurship

Having met and worked with hundreds, if not thousands of founders, Caribou is convinced great entrepreneurs have an amazing ability to hold a long-term ambitious vision while simultaneously being able to break it down into a series of steps and milestones that need to be achieved to accomplish their grand vision. In his own words, “You have visionaries who can’t operationalize what it takes to accomplish their vision, and you’ve got great operators who, if you tell them what they need to accomplish in the next 12 months, bam! It’s done. But quite rare is to have excellence in both of those at the same time.”

Caribou Honig

Caribou Honig enjoys pursuing harebrained ideas and supporting the creation of new businesses. He is Chairman & Cofounder of InsureTech Connect as well as co-founder of the HR Transform conference focused on the impact of technology on the workplace. Caribou is an independent board director with several startups and is a partner at SemperVirens, a VC firm focused on the Future of Work. He previously cofounded QED Investors, a boutique venture capital firm focused on data-driven companies. Caribou and his wife live in Richmond, Virginia with their two occasionally annoying dogs.