In the third episode of The Portico Podcast I speak with Monica Brand Engel — a co-founding Partner at Quona Capital, a venture capital firm focused on fintech for inclusion in emerging markets.
If you’ve looked into EM fintech, you’ve probably come across Quona and their portfolio companies.
For example:
I was excited to get Monica on the podcast because she has built a career in two of the most compelling themes around: financial inclusion and financial technology.
Our discussion opens with her walking us through her career trajectory. We then talk about the convergence between philanthropic and commercial investment across emerging markets; the commonalities and idiosyncrasies across the markets in which Quona invests; the quality of fintech entrepreneurship in EM; the prospects for technological and business model innovation to migrate from emerging markets to the United States and Western Europe; and the biggest obstacles fintech startups encounter as they attempt to scale, among other topics.
I hope you enjoy our conversation.
This podcast was recorded in October 2020.