TLDR:
We (Max and Yonatan) are launching the Fintech Leaders Forum, an intimate community of fintech builders coming together to support each other, brainstorm together and help foster the fast growing fintech community in Israel. The forum is intended for founders, operators and practitioners who have a passion for all things fintech.
Background
Investopedia defines fintech as “new tech that seeks to improve and automate the delivery and use of financial services”. While true, we see the potential as larger than that. Historically, fintech has been vertical — banks for millennials, trading apps for retail investors or insurance companies leveraging AI. But more recently, companies are building financial tools that can be integrated into products of all categories, for many different types of users. These newer horizontal strategies coupled with the success of vertical fintech is what will lead to the next fintech decacorns.
Yonatan and I have been speaking for a few months about building something together. We started a weekly Clubhouse room to discuss fintech but, like many of the best Clubhouse rooms, it faded. We want to build something that will be valuable to the larger fintech community and leverage our passion and experience in the space.
Creating a Community
When you look at the cyber ecosystem in Israel, there is infrastructure designed to help founders start their companies. This in part, has led to global recognition of Israel’s cyber prominence — we build great companies and then help the next generation of founders build great companies. This has been driven in part by army units like 81, 8200 and Talpiot having strong, connected alumni communities.
But it’s more than that, there exists a vast network of cybersecurity angels and operators who invest in and help foster early stage cyber startups. Companies like Checkpoint, Palo Alto Networks, Imperva and Varonis have paved the way for the current wave of Israeli cybersecurity powerhouses: Aqua, Armis, Axonius, Orca, Snyk, Sentinel One, Wiz, and more.
Our feeling is that over the next 5 years, Israel will become a fintech powerhouse in a very similar way to cyber. Israel already boasts fintech category leaders such as Payoneer, eToro, Lemonade, Next Insurance, Rapyd, Riskified, Bluevine, Fundbox and more. Yet no groups or forums exist to provide support to the next generation of fintech founders. That’s what we’re building.
Why Fintech?
Yonatan is an investor at TLV Partners. He’s invested in fintech companies like Unit, Mesh, Stoke, Benga and Kenbi. Max is on the Product Team at Lemonade and previously built a company to facilitate crypto accounting. Together, we have a joint thesis that the world needs more technologies that promote financial inclusion and Israel is uniquely positioned to build those technologies.
The Fintech Leaders forum is first and foremost an experiment. The idea is if we bring together smart and ambitious people who are already solving or want to solve hard financial problems, something great will happen. We’ll start with quarterly meetings of a few, hand selected people where we discuss major fintech trends and problems. Things we’re experiencing and product gaps we see as the next major fintech opportunities.
We decided to build this in public because we both believe that’s the best way to build new things — companies or communities. Building in public creates accountability and transparency on the builder. And in the spirit of transparency, it’s important to say that there is no direct financial motive here for either of us. We’re experimenting because we hope we can bring real value to the Israeli fintech scene. But candidly, as a fintech builder and investor, we’re confident this community will provide value to both of us in the future in more ways than one.
So if you’re interested in being involved — apply here. We already have a strong list of fintech operators interested and we’re always happy to meet more.
Max and Yonatan
