![[podcast] QED Investors’ Caribou Honig on investing in today’s early stage fintech](https://tearsheet.co/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/3778953291_6330859503_b.jpg)
Our guest for this episode is Caribou Honig, a founding partner of QED Investors. QED has quietly become one of the top investors in the financial technology space -- their investment portfolio includes early big successes like SoFi and Prosper and also firms like LendUp, borro, Orchard, Avant Credit, blooom, and ApplePie Capital.
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Caribou Honig, QED Investors[/caption]
As part of our conversation, Caribou shares his personal path to how he ended up as part of the founding team of QED after a post-MBA career at Capital One where he developed a passion for data-driven marketing,, including responsibility for a $50 mm marketing budget, management of a 200 person underwriting operation, and cracking the code on digital credit card origination. This experience, along with his co-founders which include the founder of Capital One, provides a differentiator for the investment firm when it comes to deal flow and portfolio building.
In this episode, Caribou shares his views on:
Caribou Honig, QED Investors[/caption]
As part of our conversation, Caribou shares his personal path to how he ended up as part of the founding team of QED after a post-MBA career at Capital One where he developed a passion for data-driven marketing,, including responsibility for a $50 mm marketing budget, management of a 200 person underwriting operation, and cracking the code on digital credit card origination. This experience, along with his co-founders which include the founder of Capital One, provides a differentiator for the investment firm when it comes to deal flow and portfolio building.
In this episode, Caribou shares his views on:
- his background running data-driven marketing at CapitalOne and how this impacts his firm's approach to investing in early stage fintech
- why "data-first" strategies are more likely to win
- hist team's 150 years of experience in consumer lending market and why it's such an exciting sector right now
- current trends in the financial technology space
- how incumbent financial institutions view startups in the space
- how these larger financial firms are planning for their futures
- QED's investment mandate and the types of fintech companies that fit well into the investment firm's sweet spot
- the companies in his portfolio and the investment thesis behind them
- lastly, we’ll talk about where Caribou is looking to make investments in the future.
Listen to the FULL episode
More Resources
- QED Investors (Caribou's firm)