Edward Maslaveckas CEO, Bud and Julia McColl, chief product officer, Chetwood Financial discuss where they would invest VC funds of £10m.
Image source: Julia McColl and Edward Maslaveckas/AltFi.
Crypto, web3, buy now, pay later and data-intelligence focused fintechs would get VC funding from two fintech bosses.
In a session entitled, Who Won AltFi 2022, Edward Maslaveckas, CEO at Bud, and Julia McColl, chief product officer of Chetwood Financial, discussed some of the themes at the AltFi Festival of Finance and 2022.
They also took on the role of VCs temporarily and asked, if they had £10m to invest, which startups would get their money?
McColl said her VC funds would go into crypto, open banking-led businesses, and buy now, pay later.
She said: “I will probably put a small amount in crypto as the high-risk investment.
“I think you have got to believe that open banking and data-led businesses generally have more to deliver and actually will have more impact for consumers and therefore business over the next few years.
“I guess the other area is that buy now, pay later space. We also offer banking as a service and we are finding there is so much appetite for buy now pay later-style products, not necessarily just the Klarna version of that.
“But really installment-based, flexible payment solutions for consumers and businesses is a real growth area.”
Maslaveckas said he would invest in startups that are focused on data intelligence output, as it was a hedge against web3 and it was an area he knew.
Over the course of the two days, the Bud boss picked out the affluent bank Monument which he said was an “awesome opportunity space” and agricultural bank Oxbury Bank as two highlights.
Maslaveckas said: “I would maybe put [money] in three startups that are using a combination of financial data plus other data to look at that niche space where traditional lenders don’t care about.”
McColl added: “I would be looking for businesses, not just in the lending space, but definitely who are following that model of looking to be segmented, more personal, more data-led about what they are creating.”
On whether it was too early to invest in Web3 firms, Maslaveckas said it wasn’t but pointed out that having domain expertise on board was crucial.
He also noted that “the first 50 web3 companies aren’t necessarily going to be the best web3 companies.”
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