Our Demo Day event with Empire Startups in Lower Manhattan brought together nearly a hundred members from the venture community, early-stage entrepreneurs and subject matter experts including those from Shearman & Sterling to open up the dialogue around fundraising trends for FinTech firms and key considerations startups should be thinking about when it comes to complying to regulations.
The event featured a fireside chat with Greycroft’s Venture Partner Kamran Ansari and Donna Parisi, the Global Head of Financial Services and FinTech at the firm, as well as presentations from up-and-coming founders in the FinTech ecosystem including:
- Routable: Omri Mor, Co-Founder and CEO
- Lance: Oona Rokyta, Co-Founder and CEO
- CardFlight: Derek Webster, Founder and CEO
- Novo: Michael Rangel, Founder and CEO
- Hydrogen: Michael Kane, Co-Founder and CEO
The program’s discussions touched on a myriad of topics including top mistakes that founders make when pitching VC firms, the importance of having one’s regulatory and compliance house in order early on in the journey and ways VCs leverage data and information for their investment decisions. Other key themes that emerged from the program included the benefits of FinTech for the unbanked and underbanked population, the growth in B2C services in New York and additional ways that the community is accelerating innovation and improving lives for society.
