💭 Issue #32: The Fintech Bubble
Why this may be the first of many peaks for the fintech industry, a next generation analytics platform, and the treasure hunt for EV-critical metals
💬 Welcome to issue #32 of Between the Lines
If you happened to miss the previews during the Super Bowl, National Treasure 3 is coming soon, but this time it’s starring alumnus Kurt House and KoBold Metals as they search for important metals needed for electric vehicles and create Google Maps for the earth’s crust. The new blockbuster comes at the perfect time as rising oil prices continue to incentivize electric vehicle adoption. 2022 global sales of EVs are projected to surpass 10.5M - a 4M increase from 2021.
~ Josh & Miles
📢 👥 Community Voices: Fintech Is Going To Be Bigger Than We Think
Author: Daniel Shi
Daniel Shi is a Claremont graduate who spent time at Tencent and Amex Ventures investing in gaming, e-commerce, and fintech before spending six years at payments leader Remitly leading up to its IPO. Now, he’s an angel investor and advisor for numerous startups and funds out of his private investment company - South Quad. He shares his take on the current state of the fintech ecosystem below.
I began taking my professional break in December of last year, and ever since then, it has been feeling like the Fintech ecosystem has been falling apart. After an absolutely historic run-up in public and private valuations over the past few years, it feels like we are peering into the abyss for Fintech companies. Whenever you are faced with moments like this, a natural question is, “Well, is this the end?
… my conclusion, is the global disruption of financial services by software and the Internet has endless room to run, but we have no idea what that landscape will look like. In technology markets, the first peak always feels massive, but the future peaks are orders of magnitude bigger.
Daniel argues that we are only in the first peak of fintech and compares it to the first peak of internet companies during the dot-com bubble. He also lays out some key areas he finds promising for future fintech growth such as emerging markets and the crypto economy. Read the full article below, and check out his blog if you want to read more.👇
🚨Claremonster Call-Out: Kaycee Lai
Kaycee Lai is a Pomona graduate and the founder and CEO of Promethium. In the early 2000s, Kaycee held different roles at Microsoft and Dell EMC and then spent the next decade in numerous head of sales and business development roles at data analytics and cloud computing leaders like Delphix, VMware, and Waterline Data. Four years ago, he founded Promethium - a next-generation collaborative analytics platform for business users and data teams. They just recently announced the closing of their $26M Series A led by Insight Partners, .406 Ventures, and Zetta Ventures. Their investment from Zetta was led by legendary HMC board member Jocelyn Goldfein, whose LinkedIn reads like the Forest Gump of the tech world (she was Netscape Navigator’s first summer intern among other unreal roles).
Taking everything I learned we built the Promethium collaborative analytics platform for business users and data teams. We put the entire data and analytics workflow into one solution, added intelligent automation, and made it possible for everyone to get from question to data to answer in minutes instead of months.
Kaycee and Promethium’s mission is to help every company enable their employees to be data-driven by removing friction at every step in data and analytics. The explosion of cloud and SaaS has created even more data silos and the lack of holistic solutions to get from question to data to answer without changing tools is exactly why they've spent the past three years building a turn-key, complete collaborative analytics platform. Read more about Kaycee and Promethium here.
📣 Pardon the Announcement: Product Management & Cyber Security
Nico Rattazzi is a Claremont graduate and has been the VP of Product for the last seven years at Zumper - the largest privately owned rental platform in North America with more than 175 million visits per year on a mission to make renting easier. He’s planning to share his expertise on everything product management on February 22nd at 9 am PST, with an open invite “ask me anything” style discussion. Don’t miss out, start your morning off right, and register below.
CyberSecurity is a massive, rapidly growing sector and Tech Coast Angels has pulled together experts from startups and other established players to discuss the current cyber landscape on February 22nd at 6 pm PST. Matt Thompson (PO), private equity and VC investor at Skyview Capital, will be moderating the discussion. Alex Ruiz, another PO graduate and the co-founder/COO at 3GO Security, will also be joining to share some of the emerging security technologies, best practices, and interesting players in the industry. Go ahead and make the 22nd a double-header and register below.
💼 Who’s Hiring?:
Mooch is an early-stage fintech startup on a mission to democratize personal finance with a free app that automates your budgeting & saving, built on the blockchain. Users (which Mooch calls partners) earn interest on all transactions. Claremont graduate Bryn Edwards runs their marketing and is supporting Mooch in hiring this year. Check out their viral TikTok for finance tips, Excel tutorials, and money-saving hacks. Candidates can reach out to Bryn to ask questions, learn more about the role, or talk about the fintech/blockchain space. Due to a large number of recent applications, the roles below may say that they’re no longer accepting applications, but you can still email Bryn to apply.
One year of experience working as a data scientist with a product team & experience with A/B testing. Strong SQL, UDF, Jupyter Notebook, Python, NumPy, Pandas, and plotting skills are also required. Bonus if candidates have DeFi, Fintech, or consumer app experience.
Software Engineer Intern (Remote)
Ideally graduating in 2022 or 2023 and available for full-time employment following graduation. Someone studying CS or EE/CS who is open to learning Swift for mobile and full-stack development, and is passionate about fixing the financial system through building awesome products! Bonus if they have previous experience with fintech, DeFi, consumer apps, Swift, or Vapor framework.
Tixologi, founded by CMC graduate Asher Weiss, is a blockchain-based ticketing software company that puts event producers, venues, and teams in control of their ticketing. Tixologi recently closed a pre-seed round and they are looking to grow their team as they build the future of ticketing! Interested applicants can reach out to Asher directly.
Harvey Mudd College and Kash Gokli are searching for a Professor of Engineering Management who would be the founding director of the Engineering Leadership Program. They are looking for candidates with significant industry management experience who are passionate about teaching and supporting undergraduate engineering students’ growth. While this is a faculty position, a Ph.D. is not required. Apply here or email Kash with any questions.
John Kodumal and Edith Harbaugh met at HMC and later went on to found LaunchDarkly almost eight years ago. Today, LaunchDarkly isn’t just a leader in feature management — it’s the first scalable feature management platform — and it’s been named on the Forbes Cloud 100 list, InfoWorld’s 2021 Technology of the Year list, and the Enterprise Tech 30 list. Head of Ecosystem Partnerships and former colleague of Miles’, Doug Gould, is looking to hire some Claremont talent:
Make sure to check out the other 5,000+ open jobs at 400+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, make sure to create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 750+ remote-jobs, 180+ internships, or 30+ part-time positions available. We’ve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform — so pay attention Claremonsters!
As always, if any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention Between the Lines. Or if you are an employer and are looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
Did somebody say financings.…💵
Not only did Cruise, founded by Daniel Kan (CMC), just announce Softbank’s $1.3B investment, but they also just publically introduced their new invisible taxi drivers to the city of San Francisco. Sign up here to take a spin into the future.
Congratulations again to Promethium and Kaycee Lai (PO) on their recent Series A. If you’re curious to learn more about the company, sign up for a demo.
KoBold Metals, founded by Kurt House (CMC), just announced a Claremonster $192M Series A led by Apollo and Bond to help their efforts as they continue to build Google Maps for the earth’s crust. KoBold is deploying their Machine Prospector tool to discover new ethical sources of Ni, Cu, Co, and Li which are critical for the electric vehicle revolution.
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🍽️ BTL Snacks:
💻 Building better managers….. Laszlo Bock (PO) and Humu are using AI technology and the “nudge” theory to help organizations keep employees engaged and effective during remote work with their recent Series C.
🚕 Driverless robotaxi services….. are finally open in SF. Autonomous vehicle company Cruise, founded by Daniel Kan (CMC) just announced the launch of its driverless taxis on the heels of Softbank’s $1.3B investment.
🌊 The new summer lake house….. Dremio, co-founded by Jacques Nadeau (PO), just raised a $160M Series E and doubled their valuation as they continue to build their SQL lakehouse world.
⛏️ The metals of the future….. KoBold Metals, founded by Kurt House (CMC) and backed by a16z, is using AI and machine learning to find new deposits of critical metals needed for batteries and clean energy.
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