As AI threatens the SaaS-heavy portfolios of many venture-capital firms, those investors with a clear purpose are doubling down on their value-add. For US-based Six Thirty Ventures, that purpose is helping its LPs – financial institutions, including banks, asset managers, insurers, and brokers – to identify founders and startups that can bring strategic as well as financial returns.
Fintech itself is in flux as financial institutions adapt to big changes that can be both opportunities and dangers, such as AI. Six Thirty’s Evan Thorpe talks about the emerging theme of combining health, wealth, and privacy propositions, from using fintech to rethink the value of mortgages to embedded finance.
Evan is principal for Asia Pacific and splits his time between Asia and the US. He has also worked in fintech (at Droit Financial Technologies) and in data (Dealogic). Evan advises financial institutions and mentors startups. He speaks Mandarin.
Timecodes
0:00 - Evan Thorpe, Six Thirty Ventures
3:26 - Six Thirty’s specific niche in venture, focused on enterprise B2B fintech
5:50 - How AI is changing the portfolio, and other evolutions in VC, and how he maintains a competitive edge
10:57 - Health, wealth and privacy
13:23 - What’s the relevance of wealth to an insurance company, and how would fintechs add value?
16:27 - Fintech ideas Evan’s working on with LPs, such as how products are marketed and sold, eg home equity
19:24 - What’s the role of privacy – and is this the privacy of the end user, or the institution?
22:58 - Cryptography, open finance, and embedded finance; enduring value and trust in business hasn’t changed but new technologies can expand what’s possible.
