Purpose Driven Investing for Financial Return with Flourish Ventures

It’s great to be back after taking nearly a year off from regular content to build and launch BELLA.   The break wasn’t really planned, but between launching the business, having a son and moving to LA all while dodging COVID, it was unavoidable.   But just because we weren't publishing, doesn’t mean we weren’t going deep on fintech.    The team and I built and launched BELLA in less than twelve months, and we’re aggressively scaling it now.    In the background, I've continued to trade views and break down strategy with the world’s leading founders and investors.    Over the next few weeks, we’ll share some of the most topical discussions we’ve had over the past year, and we’re also working on new content that you’ll start to hear and see.   Right now, we’re especially interested in embedded finance, DeFi, M&A, new takes on traditional consumer finance products, payments, e-commerce, digital investments and, as always, digital banking. We’re always looking to talk to great people in those areas, so please shoot recommendations our way.   We’re still figuring out the podcast schedule, which we expect to be less frequent than weekly. We’ll be increasing focus on our newsletter, especially our premium content. Sign up at bankingthefuture.com/subscribe.   In today’s episode, we’re joined by Tilman Ehrbeck, Managing Partner at Flourish Ventures, a venture firm focused on improving the financial health and prosperity of people around the world. Flourish invests in segments including Challenger Banks, consumer and SME lending, personal finance, data analytics, insurance and financial infrastructure in countries in the Americas, Africa and Asia.   Flourish has invested in companies including Chime, Aspiration, Tandem, Grab Finance and more.    I find Tilman to be extremely thoughtful and a great communicator, and he’s doing hugely important work. This conversation helped me better understand how impact-oriented VCs like Flourish balance purpose with financial returns in the highly competitive venture space.    Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Tilman Ehrbeck.