SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
EP 622: This FinTech Accelerator Has Helped 60 Companies, Linking Industry with Startups with $17k Investment with Nektarios Liolios
07 Apr 2017
Chapter 1: What is Startup Bootcamp and how does it operate?
This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per top. Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000-unit soul mark.
And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Many of you who I've met in person have seen my unbelievable dashboards that I built. You know, I'm an analytics-like crazy person. I love the data, and I love presenting the data in beautiful dashboards that my team can use on their mobile devices, their phones, and TVs throughout the office.
Now, the way I do this without having to hire a big development team is at nathanlacka.com forward slash analytics. It's using a company called Clipfolio, and I'll tell you more later on in the show how I use them. It's nathanlacka.com forward slash analytics. Nathan Latka here. This is episode 622.
Chapter 2: How many companies have graduated from Startup Bootcamp?
And coming up tomorrow morning, you're going to learn from Richard Brasser. He's the 50-year-old CEO and father of four of a company called R-Factor, which has just raised $9 million and passed $900,000 in monthly recurring revenue, helping 220 customers with social selling. So how does he manage a fast-growing business doing almost a million bucks a month and four kids at home?
Tune in to find out. All right, guys. Good morning. Nathan Latka here. And our guest this morning is Nektarios Leolios. He's the CEO and co-founder of Startup Bootcamp Financial Technology and Insurance Technology, the leading innovation program in the financial and insurance industries, providing funding, mentorship,
office space in the heart of London, Singapore, New York, and Mumbai, and to access to their global network of investors and VCs for up to 10 folks each time they do it. He's really leading the way. Nektaros, are you ready to take us to the top?
Let's do it.
Okay, very good. So tell us first, how does the accelerator work and what are you focused on?
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Chapter 3: What is the funding structure for the accelerator programs?
We're a network of accelerators. We're very traditional in the sense that it's a 13-week program, just like what we've known for years. It's mentor-driven. It's cohort-based, which means the teams have to move to the location where we run the program. But the key thing, and this is where we're different, is the programs we run are very much industry-focused programs.
So they're not so much about, hey, we're going to meet some cool startups and the first thing they'll get out of this when they finish a program will be funding. Funding is a side effect. The key thing here is that these are industries that
heavily regulated and where the startups usually come with a b2b proposition so what they need is access to the right players within a bank within an insurer so they can get their first pilot or the first proof of concept off the ground and that's really what we focus on and so how many companies have gone through your program to date
We've now run about, we've now had about 60 programs in the fintech and insured kind of verticals. But overall, we started bootcamp, we now had 400 companies have graduated.
Wow. So what year did you take your first class?
So I launched fintech in 2014. That was January 2014.
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Chapter 4: What types of startups does Startup Bootcamp focus on?
But startup bootcamp's been around since 2010.
Okay. So let's, well, did they acquire you and now you're leading startup bootcamps? How does that work?
No, it started growing very organically. We started off as a, hey, some people are doing cool stuff in the US. We should bring something like this to Europe. And then it started in Copenhagen. Then it moved to places like Berlin and Amsterdam. And little by little, we started focusing on bringing in a sort of a particular type of theme. So we had a mobile or an NFC program.
But at the end of 2013, the guys who were running this realized that To add real value, you need to be super sharp in your focus. And this is where we started together there. So we've been talking for a while at that point about doing something together for FinTech and in London.
Chapter 5: How does Startup Bootcamp differentiate itself in the FinTech space?
So then I joined to launch the FinTech program in London with that specific focus. So we have a bunch of banks and a few other players funding and supporting the program.
So is there an actual fund behind the program? You're making investments?
No, we don't make investments. We take equity.
Now, Taras, what are the terms? How much do you put into a company and what equity do you take?
No, we need to be very specific. We take 6% equity and the startups pay, give us the equity for the program. We give them cash. We give them 15,000 euros cash, but it's not a reflection on the valuation of the company. So I'm always very keen to make the distinction to not combine the two figures. We don't really see the money as an investment.
We see this really as BN pizza money to survive for the three months.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of mentorship in Startup Bootcamp?
And you're giving them 5-0, 50,000 euros or 15? One fine, one five. Okay, so which comes out right now, what is that, about 17,000 US dollars?
Yeah, give or take, yeah. But this is really, so the conversation we have with the teams that make it into the program is if you really rely on the cash, don't come. Because this is really not about the money. If what you need is that you talk to the right head of innovation at Lloyds Bank or DBS in Singapore or at Deutsche Bank in New York, then that's why you should come to us.
But if you look at this as an opportunity to get your first money, that's not the right program for you.
So I recently I want to ask you about the specific fintech and insurance tech industry. As you know, it's a very, very hot space, right? A combination of the data play there plus the consumer angle. It's very hot. We had recently the Wealthfront CEO on Andy. We've got Betterment coming on shortly. And you're seeing all kinds of different models between both of them.
Chapter 7: What challenges do startups face in the insurance tech industry?
Obviously, they're competing. But have you placed any bets in that space? Has anyone gone through your program that's competing with them?
We have a variety of different wealth kind of solutions in our programs and actually we see a big trend in that space. Anything to do with investment and particularly we have seen a move away from payments and lending as being the key FinTech themes. And we now move increasingly towards investment-related stuff.
But we have a variety of variations on the theme that Wealthfront or Betterment are doing. You know, Nutmeg in the UK has been a great success, which is also kind of... Sorry, Nicaros, what was that company? Nutmeg in the UK. Nothing to do with Startup Bootcamp. But just to illustrate that this is a big thing at the moment where we see people really putting a focus on the investment piece.
We had a team... um in in singapore called um now you put him on the spot i don't remember the name of one of our teams jesus i know the name of the guy uh i need to look this up he's gonna watch this and he's gonna kill you he's gonna go this is a great opportunity for pr and you forgot our name Seriously, I wasn't expecting to hear the names here. But I will come up with this one.
Chapter 8: What advice does Nektarios give to aspiring entrepreneurs?
Just give me a sec. So whilst we're talking. So no, definitely, definitely. We have anything from people coming up with cool algorithms to create a new hedge fund type platform.
as a service tell me tell me about that so so hedge funds are obviously interesting two and twenty can get pretty antiquated and you're i think going to see some economies of scale be built into that industry over time um you know the typical asset managers are there those are being eroded already by you know betterment and wealth front what what company are you invested in that that is really giving the power of a hedge fund returns to the average consumer um
So the team we had in the program was called Walnut Algorithms out of France. Okay.
Walnut Algorithms out of France.
Yeah, so they're a French startup, some cool guys who, all PhD students, who were just looking, they built a self-learning algorithm that they think will revolutionize the hedge fund industry. One of the things we need to be quite clear about in our conversation is that the teams we work with are usually very early stage. They are usually... early stage, pre-seed.
So they come to us with a product that is usually not ready for launch yet. And they use a program to validate the proposition, to do all the customer discovery and all the kind of the least startup essentials that they need to do to be able to actually do something with it.
So the best thing we can expect for the program to deliver is that they leave the program with a validated proposition and then they go on and start developing selling it either to the consumers or launch it or whatever it is that they do in their journey.
So you said since 2014, you've done over 400 companies?
No, since 2014, we've got about 60 companies. 60? That's the fintech focus, yeah.
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