Altari Ventures Closes Debut Fund

I am pleased to share that I’ve closed my first fund as a solo manager, Altari Ventures Fund I. You can read more about me, and the fund, in today’s Venture Capital Journal article written by Ryan Hibbison .

For years now, both as a VC and while working within the financial industry, I’ve been thinking about what fintech means and where emerging B2B opportunities for value creation lie for startups and investors. While some conceive of the role technology plays in financial services as linear—one phase after another, each building on the last—I hold a different point of view.?I believe that elements of Fintech 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 are happening concurrently, providing numerous ways to invest in the future of finance.?

In many pockets of financial services, the need for basic workflow automation and product digitization coexists with exploding demand for advanced data management solutions and tools that enable interoperability of traditional financial markets and decentralized infrastructure. This means startups can build large, non-fad businesses solving countless urgent problems for incumbents who are ready to listen as their legacy system maintenance budgets are bursting at the seams. Enterprise fintech, as this segment has become known, is a massive opportunity and a fantastic place to be for early investors like Altari with domain expertise and an eye towards asymmetric return.

It would be an understatement to say this fund was raised in an extremely challenging economic environment. I want to thank all Altari LPs who, like me, understand that down cycles provide some of the most exciting opportunities for investment—and recognize that portfolio managers with the hard-earned wisdom of having lived through difficult market cycles are poised for success at this moment.?

Though the fund officially just closed, Altari portfolio building is well underway. With 15 investments to-date, I have begun to assemble a fantastic group of founders across enterprise fintech, including capital markets and institutional asset management tech, CFO tech stack and B2B payments, and horizontal SaaS solutions serving multiple verticals including financial services. My experience as a dealmaker has also come in handy supporting these incredible CEOs in pulling their rounds together–again, in a tough fundraising climate for all. Thank you to the founders and teams of FinOptSys , inbanx , Micruity , Identifee , Kredit? , Tradewell Technologies Inc , Otonomi , Legal Karma , Sugarwork , CogniCor Technologies , Glide Health, a McKesson Company , bops , Barometer , Agilis and Steady Technologies, Inc for partnering with me and Altari Ventures!?

The Altari Ventures thesis emphasizes that the “fin” is as important as the “tech” when it comes to driving innovation in financial services. The “fin” is an outsized success factor in building must-have industry solutions and productive selling to incumbents. It is also a crucial element of success in creating compliant alternatives to existing industry infrastructure and products. As we navigate the long overdue upgrade of finserv’s tech stack and progress towards a hybrid centralized/decentralized future, I’m interested in connecting with all US and Canadian enterprise fintech founders building in areas aligned with Altari’s investment focus.?

If you’re not already a part of my network, please reach out and share what you are building. And if you are in New York, I’d love to get you on the list for future Capital Markets Founder Coffees, starting again this fall.?

Thanks again to all. Onward!

Joe Proto Divyesh B. Rob K. Steve Burt Elizabeth Sosnov Rotem Trevor Gary Vram Ismailyan David Trotter Dave Hanrahan Alex Reyfman Yann B. Kory Kelly Vanessa Liu Sindhu Joseph Dan Lodder, MBA Jorge Risquez Tamara (Zubatiy) Nelson, PhD Jay Bhatia John Clark Higgins Joel Palathinkal, Ph.D Charlotte Beyer Ned Renzi Marc Michel Caryn Effron Altari Ventures