Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Gina Taylor Cotter, SVP & GM, Global Commercial Financing, American Express (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: The data you draw off is limited to just your ecosystem.

Gina Taylor Cotter: That’s correct. If you want to talk about the merchant financing product that has been in the market since 2011, we do have an application process where were gather some of that additional information. The reason being that we will provide loans up to $2 million. We want to secure more information to validate the optimal loan amount that we should provide that business to help them do what they need to do.

In small business loans, we’re solving a very specific need. We want to be able to provide simple access to low dollar loans because we’ve identified in our research that businesses have a need for that. The process is too cumbersome with the bank >>>

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Gina Taylor Cotter, SVP & GM, Global Commercial Financing, American Express (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double-click again one more layer into that. I’m going to give you a proxy of what we learned from our coverage of Kabbage and OnDeck. I would like to hear you describe the heuristics based on which you are evaluating these loans.

In the case of OnDeck or Kabbage, in the segment of e-commerce transactions for example, they would look for a certain number of transactions and a certain number of months of being in business. These are some of the heuristics that they use to approve a loan. What are the heuristics that you use to evaluate your loan applicants? >>>

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Gina Taylor Cotter, SVP & GM, Global Commercial Financing, American Express (Part 1)

Innovations in Financial Technology are flowing from the startup world into the large companies. This excellent conversation gives us a window into how Amex is bringing some of these innovations into their offerings.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as American Express’ activity in the financial technology area.

Gina Taylor Cotter: I work in American Express in the division that focuses on serving businesses with commercial payments. I dedicate my time to helping businesses be successful in building solutions that provide them access to capital, which is very important for small businesses. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Warren Weiss of Foundation Capital (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You’ve been on all sides of the table for a long time. When an entrepreneur is trying to figure out whom to work with and let’s say they have the luxury. A lot of entrepreneurs do not have the luxury of choice. But once they’ve been able to figure a few things out, they actually do have some luxury of choice. At the end of the day, there is too much money chasing too few really great deals. That is the structure of the industry. What is your advice to entrepreneurs on how to select whom to work with?

Warren Weiss: The best time to raise money is when you don’t need money. The traditional way to get to a venture is to get >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Warren Weiss of Foundation Capital (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: At the same time, the cash is tight. How do you put one foot before the other? I saw that in your portfolio, there are some SaaS companies that are related to enterprise HR. What’s the thinking behind that?

Warren Weiss: One is a company called SilkRoad Technology. It’s a mini-Workday for small businesses with as little as 50 people that don’t have access to a full talent management system with a system of records and performance compensation management. It’s simple and easy to use. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Warren Weiss of Foundation Capital (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra:  I hear a theme in what you’ve described – creative ways of playing the gaps or issues in the financial services market. I want to ask you for your thoughts on the small business financing market. I know OnDeck, to some extent, plays in that market for a particular category of companies. Lending Club even borders on a little bit of that market although it’s primarily consumer lending. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Warren Weiss of Foundation Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: It sounds like one of the strategies your firm is following is analyzing a macro trend and making multiple bets on that industry.

Warren Weiss: We’re trying to go deep in certain areas. We see this is a decade of the CMOs and so CMOs will spend more time to automate a business. We hear a lot about Big Data. It’s really about big results, not Big Data and so things like marketing technologies and financial services are two spaces that we’re primarily interested in diving very deep on. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Warren Weiss of Foundation Capital (Part 1)

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Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Warren Weiss was recorded in April 2017. 

Warren Weiss, General Partner at Foundation Capital, has a long track record in the Silicon Valley venture capital industry. He shares areas that he and Foundation are excited about as opportunities for building future Unicorns.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with your overview and synthesis of what you feel right now about the industry, about ventures, and about how to build these unicorn companies. What have you learned? What have you seen? What are you thinking about opportunities for future unicorns? >>>