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The 2015 Fintech Finance 35: Richard Garman and Brad Bernstein, FTV Capital

No. 6 Richard Garman & Brad Bernstein, FTV Capital


6
Richard Garman & Brad Bernstein
Managing Partner & Partner
FTV Capital

There is no single formula for fintech financing, yet many of the playbooks written over the years owe a debt to FTV Capital. The San Francisco–based firm was formed in 1998 as Financial Technology Ventures, “at the intersection of important emerging technologies and financial services,” says Richard Garman, who joined founding partners James Hale and Robert Huret early on. They built a “sustainable, repeatable business model” around “deep domain expertise” like Garman’s — he was previously CEO of three technology companies, including bank-consortium-owned Electronic Payment Services. That went hand-in-hand with what in the early years was not yet dubbed an ecosystem: a “global partner network” of executives of dozens of major financial institutions, along with a smaller strategic advisory board that meets periodically to share intelligence on market trends and help portfolio companies accelerate sales. The FTV founders stepped aside from day-to-day management before launching the third of the firm’s four funds, which have raised a cumulative $1.8 billion and invested in nearly 90 companies, including such IPO exits as outsourcer ExlService Holdings in 2006 and Financial Engines in 2010. Managing partner Garman, 58, who had an earlier association with Hale and Huret at Montgomery Securities, and Brad Bernstein, 48, formerly of Oak Hill Capital Management and head of FTV’s New York office since 2003, moved into the spotlight for FTV III, which closed in 2008 with $512 million, and $700 million FTV IV of 2014, which is about 50 percent invested. Not buying into an incumbent-banks-are-doomed thesis, Bernstein says, “We see a perfect storm of opportunity in this sector, much of it evolutionary rather than revolutionary.” FTV’s investments tend to be institution-facing, not customer-facing, as with payments venture WePay, which serves online marketplaces and crowdfunding platforms.


The 2015 Fintech Finance 35

1. James Robinson III
& James Robinson IV
RRE Ventures
2. Jane Gladstone
Evercore Partners
3. Matthew Harris
Bain Capital Ventures
4. Steven McLaughlin
Financial Technology Partners
5. Jonathan Korngold
General Atlantic
6. Richard Garman &
Brad Bernstein
FTV Capital
7. Amy Nauiokas & Sean Park
Anthemis Group
8. Thomas Jessop
Goldman Sachs Group
9. Meyer (Micky) Malka
Ribbit Capital
10. Hans Morris
Nyca Partners
11. Maria Gotsch
Partnership Fund for New York City
12. Marc Andreessen
Andreessen Horowitz
13. Barry Silbert
Digital Currency Group
14. Jay Reinemann
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria
15. Mariano Belinky
Santander InnoVentures
16. François Robinet
AXA Strategic Ventures
17. Vanessa Colella
Citi Ventures
18. Alan Freudenstein & Gregory Grimaldi
Credit Suisse
NEXT Fund
19. Justin Brownhill & Neil DeSena
SenaHill Partners
20. Rodger Voorhies
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
21. Michael Schlein
Accion International
22. Kenneth Marlin
Marlin & Associates
23. Rumi Morales
CME Ventures
24. Mark Beeston
Illuminate Financial Management
25. Vladislav Solodkiy
Life.SREDA
26. Fabian Vandenreydt
Innotribe SWIFT
27. Derek White
Barclays
28. Alex Batlin
UBS
29. Jeffrey Greenberg
& Vincenzo
La Ruffa
Aquiline Capital Partners
30. P. Howard Edelstein
REDI Holdings
31. Nektarios Liolios
Startupbootcamp FinTech
32. Roy Bahat
Bloomberg Beta
33. Andrew McCormack
Valar Ventures
34. Lawrence Wintermeyer
Innovate Finance
35. Janos Barberis
FinTech Hong Kong

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