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The Conversation Continues: Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast Featuring Upstart, Alliant CU, and More!

The Conversation Continues: Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast Featuring Upstart, Alliant CU, and More!

Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast have spent much of the first half of 2022 featuring Best of Show winners from FinovateEurope and FinovateSpring. Be sure to check out our podcast columns from the spring and summer for any Best of Show interviews you haven’t seen yet.

You also may not have caught some of the Finovate Podcast’s non-Best of Show coverage. Whether it’s talking with venture capitalists on the next big thing in fintech or checking in on credit unions that are partnering with innovative fintech startups, the Finovate Podcast remains one of the best ways to keep current with what counts in the ever-changing world of fintech innovation.

To this end, here’s a look at some of the recent Finovate podcasts you might have missed.

Find the Finovate podcast at Soundcloud and follow Greg Palmer on Twitter for the latest in programming news and updates.


Jeff Keltner, SVP of Business Development, Upstart

Host Greg Palmer talks with Upstart Senior Vice President of Business Development Jeff Keltner on why the universe of creditworthy customers is about to grow dramatically thanks to the combination of AI and lending. Episode 123.

I was trained as an engineer and spent my career at the intersection of business and the application of technologies – first at Google where we launched what is now Google Cloud and Workspace. Coming here to Upstart, we really felt like the application of modern technology, and particularly AI, to help lenders produce a better experience for borrowers and better credit decisioning outcomes that help both the institutions and the borrowers was something that really was “of the moment” to happen. That’s what we came here to do.

Rob Perrelli, Vice President of Partnership Development, Alliant Credit Union

Host Greg Palmer and Rob Perrelli, VP of Partnership Development at Alliant CU, discuss how to build successful partnerships and create advocates. Episode 122.

Prior to joining Alliant, I worked with fintechs mainly from a private label perspective to support our direct-to-consumer offering. So it was really interesting. At the time we developed that strategy, where we’d made the choice to go digital-first – even though we had a super-large net of branch representation in our geographies – we were pretty clear that partnerships with fintechs was the way to go forward as we offered new solutions to our customers. With Alliant, we are working with a number of different fintechs in the unsecured, solar, and home equity and improvement spaces to grow our reach nationally and introduce borrowers to Alliant membership and its many benefits.

William Crowder, Managing Partner, Aperture Venture Capital

Host Greg Palmer checks in with Aperture Venture Capital Managing Partner William Crowder for a VC perspective on security, ransomware attacks, and what we can do to be less vulnerable to cybercrime. Episode 121.

I am one of the founding partners of Aperture Venture Capital. We are a relatively-speaking new fund, with a focus on investing at the intersection of financial innovation and culture. If you think about where financial innovation and fintech meet diversity and the opportunities to build a more inclusive economy, then that’s where you’ll find us. We’re backed by some major corporations because we have a fairly unique model in terms of how we approach working with companies. We have folks who’ve invested in us, including FIS, Truist, PayPal, Bank of America, and a few others we have not yet announced publicly.

Amir Kabir, Partner, AV8 Ventures

Host Greg Palmer chats with Amir Kabir, Partner, AV8 Ventures, on what we need to know about embedded insurance and how insurtech will shape fintech in the coming years. Episode 120.

I am currently a partner at AV8 Ventures, which is an early stage fund in the Bay Area (that) started around three years ago. We are in our second fund with around $180 million – with a similarly sized first fund. We have four areas or sectors that we focus on – which, in part, have some overlap. One is enterprise, which incorporates SaaS and infrastructure software. The other one is a healthcare practice. The third one is kind of frontier tech. And the fourth one, which I’m leading, is the fintech and insurtech practice. We typically invest in seed to Series A, $1 million to $5 million – though we are flexible in that regard.

Alison Harwood, Vice Head of Marketplace Banking, Varengold

Host Greg Palmer catches up with Alison Harwood, Vice Head of Marketplace Banking at Varengold Bank, on the emergence of VC funding-as-a-service, Varengold’s new VC offering, and fintech trends for 2022. Episode 119.

In “marketplace banking,” we are working with fintech lenders across Europe to support their business through wholesale debt financing and through banking-as-a-service regulatory fronting business where we are supporting their launch into new markets under our banking license. One of the milestones for our business last year was putting together some retained profits (and) setting them aside to help service our clients more holistically, enabling us to subscribe for equity when they are coming up to a Series A (or) Series B funding.


Photo by Seej Nguyen