Читать книгу Transactional to Transformational - Christer Holloman - Страница 32

‘Whilst BBVA prefer to invest through Propel, BBVA still retain the option to invest from its balance sheet, e.g. if it is a very large strategic opportunity where they want to take a much bigger ownership stake or doesn't fit the profile of Propel e.g. post Series A.’

Jay Reinemann, General Partner, Propel

In February 2016, Propel was officially launched as a fintech Venture Capital firm with a Small Business Investment Company license. The news was announced by BBVA, which indicated that it had increased its fintech fund to $250 million from $100 million and partnered with Propel Venture Partners to manage the investment independently from its offices in San Francisco. This capital would be invested in two funds, one in the US and the other globally to make investments mainly in Europe and Latin America.

In order to manage this fund, a small team led by Jay Reinemann was spun out of BBVA in San Francisco. The founding team combined executives from BBVA as well as from the startup ecosystem and venture capital and investment banking fields. It was important to have a team that understood the interests of BBVA, had strong fintech knowledge and networks and could build a successful venture fund business.

The team was given authority to form the business to be competitive with the many large established venture fund competitors in Silicon Valley. This traditional venture structure enables the financial alignment to attract great investors to the Propel team and win investments into successful startups.

Propel's focus is on early stage (seed and series A) investment opportunities at the intersection of technology and finance. Areas of focus included payments, lending, insurance, wealth management, digital banking, personal financial management and new digital channels.