< The 2015 Fintech Finance 35

Some 200 companies signed on as sponsors of the fourth annual Money20/20 convention, which lured thousands of financial industry executives, entrepreneurs, cryptocurrency enthusiasts and myriad technologists to Las Vegas in late October. The brands that paid up for the most-prominent positions included Discover, MasterCard, PayPal and Visa — and the decidedly non–household name Financial Technology Partners. The last is a San Francisco–based firm that since its founding in 2002 by former Goldman, Sachs & Co. senior investment banker Steven McLaughlin has billed itself as the only investment bank “focused exclusively on the financial technology sector.” It was the only one participating at Money20/20 from the beginning (though other firms with Wall Street pedigrees have since established presences there), and it hosts a dinner that is reputedly one of the event’s networking highlights, for those lucky enough to be invited. “We are essential to the ecosystem,” boasts McLaughlin, 46. He likens FT Partners to “an exchange, or hub, for buyers and sellers.” Money20/20 represents only part of FT Partners’ territory: The firm’s 60-plus bankers range across all of fintech’s nooks and crannies, from consumer and wholesale payments to capital markets to insurance, on a global scale. “You have to do it a long time to know all these spaces,” McLaughlin says. Evidence of the firm’s accumulated intellectual capital is in its FinTech Transaction Database and monthly market analyses. FT Partners advised alternative lender GreenSky Trade Credit on a $300 million minority investment, business-to-business payments specialist AvidXchange on a $225 million Series E financing and Currencies Direct on its $310 million sale to private equity buyers. “We don’t just represent sellers,” the founder notes. “BlackRock came to us” for assistance with its August purchase of digital wealth management platform FutureAdvisor.

 
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 Advisors and Their Clients Call for New Asset Classes in Model Portfolios Sponsored by BlackRock May 6, 2025 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