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The 2015 Fintech Finance 35: Mariano Belinky, Santander InnoVentures

No. 15 Mariano Belinky, Managing Partner, Santander InnoVentures

By Tyler Davies

November 09, 2015

< The 2015 Fintech Finance 35

Mariano Belinky

Managing Partner

Santander InnoVentures

Spain’s Banco Santander dived into fintech financing in July 2014 with the launch of Santander InnoVentures, a $100 million fund taking aim at five targets: digital delivery of financial services; e-commerce and payments; online lending; investment product distribution; and big-data analytics. “We envision, three or four years out, having an ecosystem of companies that can create portfolio value by working together and with the bank,” says Mariano Belinky, who has been InnoVentures’ London-based managing partner since last fall. Previously a McKinsey & Co. associate principal in New York and an adviser to Santander, the 40-year-old was recruited by Victor Matarranz, a Banco Santander executive vice president and McKinsey alum, who saw in Belinky an ideal blend of banking, strategic and technological expertise. Belinky urges colleagues to view competition in a new light: “When you look at our app, it’s not really competing with Barclays and Citi. It’s competing with Uber, Google and every single app that I have on my phone.” After working as a junior quant trader at CCC La Capital del Plata in his native Argentina, Belinky in 2001 earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and computer science at New York University. He put in three years as a research technology associate at hedge fund firm Bridgewater Associates and five years of doctoral studies in artificial intelligence at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya before joining McKinsey in 2008. InnoVentures’ investments include participations in an $80 million Series C round for Palo Alto, California–based mobile operating system company Cyanogen and in a $32 million Series A round for distributed-ledger protocol developer Ripple. Belinky anticipates adding to his seven-member team and expanding coverage to Latin America in the coming year.

The 2015 Fintech Finance 35