Читать книгу Transactional to Transformational - Christer Holloman - Страница 33

The launch of Propel in 2016 was met with a positive industry reaction, if not slight confusion about the difference between Propel and BBVA Ventures, a venture arm wholly owned by BBVA. Multiple outlets, including Bank Innovation, Business Insider, TechCrunch and others, covered the news.

In just four years since the formation of Propel, financial performance has outperformed expectations, with four portfolio companies between the Propel portfolio and BBVA Ventures legacy portfolio that have achieved unicorn status, including two IPO and three exits. The group's portfolio companies have created over 10,000 fintech jobs. The team's portfolio includes over 30 startups of which, in the majority of cases, Propel is a lead investor and Board member. This has led to larger ownership positions and more meaningful roles to help the founders/startups build their businesses.

Looking forward, the expectation for Propel is that it continues to invest in great fintech businesses that provide strategic value and financial returns for BBVA and help the global financial services industry to move forward. Through these investments, BBVA can continue to support the fintech ecosystem, but also learn more about the role technology can play in people's financial lives and how the bank itself can adapt its operating model to deliver on customer's changing expectations.

In terms of strategy, it has been essential for all BBVA areas to have a team located at the centre of the startup ecosystem. Frequent contact with companies and people of interest has provided the bank with a wealth of input for its digital strategy and collaborations between the business areas and the ‘startups’. Propel's creation has also worked for making initial contacts or leveraging certain M&A operations in the digital world carried out directly by BBVA, such as the purchase of Simple in 2014.

Propel has provided BBVA with insights and intelligence on industry trends and external innovation that is relevant to financial services and has had an invaluable contribution helping to drive connections and business opportunities with the Fintech ecosystem. The team played a key role in sourcing new investment opportunities for BBVA. Propel has also helped drive partnership opportunities with startup companies in several countries of the BBVA footprint, such as the US, Spain, Mexico and Colombia. For example, at the end of 2019 BBVA announced a partnership with leading online marketplace lending platform Prosper to offer customers an innovative digital home equity line of credit product.

Four years later, BBVA's ‘venture capital’ model as a sole investor, managed autonomously by Propel to facilitate and expedite investments in ‘fintech’ companies, has become a benchmark for other stakeholders interested in investing in the fintech innovation ecosystem.