PODCAST · business
Commerce Conversations
by Commerce Ventures
What powers the brands and financial services we love to use? Commerce infrastructure, of course. The more consumers adopt digital products and demand fast, delightful experiences from their brands, the more this space grows. Commerce Conversations is a podcast from Commerce Ventures, where we dive into the most interesting emerging themes across retail tech and FinTech. Tune in for research deep dives, industry conversations, and intimate CEO interviews from our team.
Episodes
-
What Agentic Banking Actually Looks Like, with Drew Sievers
mFoundry was founded in 2003, pre-iPhone, to solve two problems: roughly 400 incompatible handsets and carriers controlling app distribution and billing. The pivot that saved the business: landing Citi as a client convinced Drew to drop every other vertical and focus entirely on banking -- within…
more -
Why Banks Can't Afford to Wait on Tokenized Deposits, with Jon Briggs
Payments are commoditized; the value is in what happens before and after the transaction. This insight drove KeyBank's entire fintech partnership strategy. Speed in banking is relative. Nine months from handshake to product launch was a standout result -- built on 10 years of trial and error...
-
Building Bank-Grade Infrastructure for the Next Generation of FinTechs, with Tom Bianco
In this episode of Commerce Conversations, Ysbrant Marcellus, partner at Commerce Ventures, interviews Tom Bianco, who leads Newline at Fifth Third Bank. The two discuss the evolution of embedded payments, the organizational challenges of building fintech infrastructure within traditional banks,...
-
Fixing First-Party Fraud, with Shanthi Shanmugam
Setting the Stage: What Is First-Party Fraud? First-party fraud = authenticated, fully KYC’d customers who are who they say they are… but “not doing nice things” (abuse, friendly fraud, promo gaming). Shanthi Shanmugam After 2021–2022, banks and deposit-heavy institutions saw a double-digit...
-
What’s Coming in 2026: The Commerce Ventures Predictions Episode
2026 Predictions: Agentic Commerce & Retailer Response Agentic commerce gets real: Transaction volumes from AI agents move from a trickle to “meaningful,” as consumers progress from researching via AI to completing purchases on platforms like ChatGPT connected to Shopify, Etsy, and large…
more -
The New Era of Embedded Payments, with Brandon Lloyd
In this episode, Dan and Brandon cover: Brandon’s founder journey: from building software in college to multiple exits and now leading Forward The pain points of legacy acquiring and why funds-held and outdated tech nearly cost him a business The three 20-year “eras” of payments and why embedded...
-
Tokenized Deposits: The Next Payments Rail, with Tom Brown
This week on Commerce Conversations, Dan is joined by Tom Brown for a candid, operator-level walkthrough of the next big change in payments: tokenized deposits and controllable payment intangibles (CPIs). Instead of shuttling funds across intermediaries, banks can keep value parked and transfer…
more -
Stablecoins and the Legal Tipping Point, with Lindsey Haswell and Mitzi Chang
Stablecoins are moving from the margins of crypto speculation to the center of real-world commerce—and regulation is finally catching up. In this episode of Commerce Conversations, Dan Rosen is joined by two experts on the frontlines of fintech law: Lindsey Haswell, Chief Legal Officer at MoonPay...
-
Why Stablecoins Are the Infrastructure of the Future, with Marco Mahrus
In this episode of the Commerce podcast, Ys chats with longtime friend and payments operator Marco Mahrus—now Head of Revenue at Bridge—about how stablecoins are reshaping the future of global payments. Marco takes us behind the scenes of building payments products at Uber and Brex, including the...
-
Why Stablecoins Are the Future of Global Payments, with Kirill Gertman
In this podcast, Kirill Gurtman, Co-Founder of Conduit, shares his journey from growing up in Ukraine to building one of the leading infrastructure providers for stablecoin-powered cross-border payments. After living in multiple countries and adapting to new cultures, Kirill developed a sense of...
-
Our Big Predictions for 2025
In this episode of Commerce Conversations, the Commerce Ventures partners outline their key predictions for 2025, diving into FinTech, Retail Tech, and broader industry trends. They begin by examining stablecoins, predicting their adoption for cross-border payments due to increased liquidity,...
-
Innovation in Identity Verification, with Johnny Ayers
In this podcast, Johnny Ayers, CEO and Founder of Socure, delves into his journey from a sports-oriented upbringing to becoming the founder of Socure, a leader in identity verification. Growing up in a competitive environment, Johnny developed a strong work ethic and resilience, which were…
more -
Combatting the Retirement Crisis, with Aaron Schumm
1. Introduction Host Julie Verhage Greenberg introduces the Commerce Conversations podcast and the episode’s focus: a conversation between Dan Rosen and Aaron Schum, CEO of Vestwell, discussing Aaron's journey, entrepreneurship, and the U.S. retirement crisis. 2. Aaron’s Background and Early...
-
The Future of Payroll, with Kirti Shenoy
In this episode of Commerce Conversations, Vivek Krishnamurthy, partner at Commerce Ventures, interviews Kirti Shenoy, co-founder and CEO of Zeal. The two discuss the future of payroll technology and how Zeal is pioneering solutions in the space. Here are the key takeaways: Background and...
-
The Promise of Digital Banking, with Melissa Stevens
Melissa's Background Early Life: Melissa was born and raised outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a strong family influence from her mother, a teacher and mathematician, and her father, a Vietnam vet and entrepreneur in tech and education. Career Path: Started in financial services due to her...
-
The Importance of Creativity and Risk-taking, with Sharda Caro Del Castillo
Global Perspective and Resilience: Sharda's upbringing was deeply influenced by her parents' journey from India to the United States and their subsequent global relocations. This nomadic lifestyle instilled in her a sense of global citizenship and adaptability. She learned the importance of...
-
Thought Provoking Highlights From Our Annual Summit
Key Discussions: Future of Sponsor Bank and FinTech Relationships: Banking as a Service (BaaS): The discussion centered on the evolving role of BaaS, especially in light of a major player's public bankruptcy. The consensus was that future models should focus on collaboration between fintechs and...
-
From Rural America to Serial Entrepreneurship, with Madeline Parra, CEO and Co-Founder of PurpleDot
In this interview, Madeline Parra, CEO and Co-Founder of PurpleDot, shared her journey from growing up in North Carolina and being a D1 swimmer at Davidson College to becoming an entrepreneur. Madeline's interest in startups sparked after reading Paul Graham's blog, despite initially lacking…
more -
BaaS, the Four Letter Word, with Dan Rosen and Ysbrant Marcelis
This episode centers on the emergence and development of Banking as a Service (BaaS), tracing its recognition and adoption back to around 2019. It was a period when FinTech platforms began to explore BaaS as a means to expand their offerings without forming direct partnerships with banks. The...
-
Supporting the Caring Class Through Technology, with Melissa Pancoast of The Beans
In this episode of Commerce Conversations, Erika Hull, a Senior Associate at Commerce Ventures, talks with Melissa Pancoast, the CEO and Founder of The Beans—a company dedicated to developing financial tools for what is described as the "caring class." Pancoast shares her entrepreneurial journey,...
-
Innovation in Insurance, with Sean Harper of Kin
Sean Harper, Co-Founder and CEO of Kin, recounts his formative years in Wisconsin, painting a picture of a Midwestern upbringing with a twist: his mother was the principal of his grade school, and his father, a police officer. This unique family dynamic, combined with his early exposure to...
-
Building Purposeful Ventures, with Moov's Wade Arnold
This episode delves into the journey of Wade, a serial entrepreneur with a passion for technology and community building. Growing Up and Early Influences: Wade shares insights into his upbringing in Davenport, Iowa, and how being the third of four boys fueled his drive for entrepreneurship. His...
-
SMB Around the World: Starting with Bill.com
Entrepreneurial Background and Early Experiences: Rene grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. Shared a personal story about being born on a night when his mom was sorting punch cards for a payroll job for a defense contractor. Emphasized the importance of having a "dinner table MBA" by growing up...
-
Our 2024 Predictions
Introduction: Overview of the podcast focusing on Commerce Ventures' annual prediction season. Discussion on examining the outcomes of 2023 predictions and their implications for 2024. Review of 2023 Predictions: Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) Implosion: BNPL usage remains high, defying expectations…
more -
Fast(er) Payments with Rich Clow (BofA)
Rich Clow's Role and Team: Rich Cloud leads payment innovation at Bank of America. Focus on evaluating new technologies and solutions. Assessment of new networks, checkout solutions, and step-function capabilities. Pro-stage gated process for evaluating and validating solutions. 75% of his time...
-
Why Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast with Joe Bayen (Grow Credit)
Background and Early Life: Born in Cameroon, moved to Paris at three. Studied in the United States, as student athlete in track and field. Achieved fifth place at French Junior Nationals in track and field. Represented Cameroon at the World Championships in 2003, faced injuries. Injured before…
more -
Travel Tech: The New Frontier with Scott DeAngelo (Allegiant)
Scott's Background: Transition from payments (Vantiv, now WorldPay ) to travel. Six and a half years in the payments industry during a transformative period. Met founder of Allegiant, recognized it as a platform company, similar to Amazon, and eventually came on as CMO. Industry Trends…
more -
SMB Payments Around the World: LatAm (Clara)
Gerry initially found himself in the Bay Area, started an MBA at Stanford, and worked in tech in SF. Inspired by the evolving mobility landscape, he saw an opportunity for shared bikes and scooters in LATAM with higher density and traffic issues. Gerry founded a micro-mobility startup in LATAM,...
-
SMB Payments Around the World: Africa
Yele's entrepreneurship journey was somewhat planned, driven by his desire to make a big impact on the African continent. He initially studied finance in the UK and worked in a hedge fund in New York before joining the United Nations in Kenya. Yele's motivation for starting his own business was...
-
Venture Recruiting 101 for Students
Understanding Business Models: Recognize the commonalities of strong business models, even if they aren't flashy or consumer-facing. Valuable software products often drive recurring revenue streams on the enterprise side – student often don't know what the B2B side looks like. Framework for…
more -
The Next Generation of Micro-fulfillment with Yegor Achyshkin (Instock)
Micro-fulfillment is a dynamic space that involves automated facilities, usually smaller than 10,000 square feet, for efficient order fulfillment. The landscape of micro-fulfillment solutions includes various goods-to-person systems that aim to optimize storage density and throughput. Instock is…
more -
Why Community is Your Most Underrated Growth Hack with Eric Wei (Karat)
What is Karat? We’re building a better financial system for creators. So if you’re a YouTuber, an Instagram influencer, a TikTok or Twitch streamer, you are a business, albeit a new and different type of one that makes a living from content. Many of these new types of businesses really struggle…
more -
What's Happening in Treasury with Cat Berman (CNote)
Episode Highlights: How did the idea for CNote originate? At the intersection of social responsibility and financial services, CNote was born out of the need to align large institutional investors' values with their cash and fixed income portfolios. Cat, the founder, observed a growing interest...
-
The Future of Fleet with Jay Dearborn (WEX)
What does WEX do? From 30,000 feet, what we're all about is simplifying the business of running a business. In this context, that means our three different product sets: benefits, corporate payments, and fleet payments. What’s happening in payments? A few major things… 1) Digitization of…
more -
Powering the ReCommerce Revolution with Andy Ruben (Trove)
Episode Highlights: Andy and Matt talk about the shift in thinking that Millennials and Gen Z’s catalyze in regards to sustainability and buying preferences Like all of the big name innovators in the space like Rent the Runway and ThredUp, Trove started as a peer-to-peer model but the team…
more -
Building Lean InsurTech SaaS with Chris Barrow (EagleView)
Episode Highlights: Chris began his career in IT at Nintendo before the company itself had a product. As he matured in his career Chris began to refine his expertise across sectors and products to deeply understand how to approach the sales process for different conditions. Chris then walks us...
-
Firsts in FinTech with Betsy Cohen (Cohen Cirle, Bancorp)
Episode Highlights: Growing up with a physician father and social worker mother, a life of service was drilled into her from an early age for Betsy Cohen After absolutely hating philosophy as a major, she changed her focus to law on a whim Then after law school she was awarded a prestigious...
-
What Do Headwinds Mean for Financial Instiutions? with Dima Batsev (Lazard)
Episode Highlights: Since joining Lazard in 2002, Dima has been investing actively in public equities in financial services with long horizons. So, are we in recession? To Dima we either already are or about to experience one. However the real question is about the magnitude of such a recession....
-
Our 2023 Predictions
Episode Highlights: Our Predictions, debated: 1. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) implodes. 2. More than a few challenger banks look for exits, or fold. 3. Private equity rolls up public former D2C retail darlings. 4. Crypto winter will persist through 2023, but not forever. 5. Mass merchants face...
-
The Trailblazer's Path with Pete Kight (CheckFree)
Episode Highlights: Pete grew up in Ohio with 4 other siblings with a serious amount energy, which we later found out was ADD Without a diagnosis, Pete knew that his energy and intention meant he wouldn’t be a great employees, but entrepreneurship could be channel to funnel his drive at his own...
-
Insurance SaaS: The Road Less Travelled with Mike Chen (Guidewire)
Episode Highlights: Guidewire provides a core cloud platform for property and casualty insurance providers, making the providers smarter and faster with technology. In a corp dev perspective, Mike is always looking for the next thing that will make the business more valuable to its provider...
-
Women and the Fight for FinTech with Vrinda Gupta (Sequin)
After seeing her mother show hesitancy in the financial realm, Vrinda grew up deeply understanding that financial literacy and independence were critical to her success. Vrinda was on the Visa Chase Sapphire Reserve product team after her undergraduate study, but when she applied for the card she...
-
Creating Checkout 3.0 with Jordan Gal (Rally) and Brandon Schulz (Violet.io)
Episode Highlights: Brandon Schulz: is the founder of Violet who Jordan Gal: is the founder of Rally. He started out as a merchant himself and jumped into the merchant software side of things. Thinking about one of the last things he bought online, which was in fact on Amazon, Brandon reflects on...
-
Pioneering in Web3 with Bradley Miles (Roll)
Episode Highlights: Bradley defines web3 and what it means to be a driver of the next generation of the internet. If the medium for exchange with a creator and the community is a currency then we are enabling individuals to create their own economies. Social tokens is a reinvention of the term...
-
Understanding the Creator with Josh Constine (SignalFire)
The creator economy is now all about owning the means of distribution, no longer the means of distribution. The means of production or publication are cheaper and easier than ever, but in the creator context that means those with only the most savvy distribution models will succeed financially.…
more -
M&A That Transformed the Industry with Shveta Mujumdar (Intuit)
Episode Highlights: After studying economics at USC, Shveta inadvertently fell into a career in M&A after seeing many of her peers pursue the same path. She started out at Deloitte’s mid-market investment banking practice. She then was able to steer important M&A decisions on the sell side as a...
-
Creator Coins, More than Just Splash? with Kaya Yurieff (the Information)
Episode Highlights: Kaya talks about the transition of individual creators and entertainment personalities as growing business people and enterprises. Kendall and Kaya define what a social token actually is and how it’s used in today’s context, even though the majority of creators haven’t begun...
-
Reflections on Leadership with Shane Evans (MX)
Episode Highlights: How does the leader fit in rest and balance in the c-suite? Blocking time for immersion in nature and being present with his family. Shane broke into technology first in sales and joined MX as chief revenue officer, after resonating with the mission orientation of the company...
-
Why Did We Start Commerce Conversations?
It seems like every VC has a podcast these days... So why did we at Commerce Ventures jump on the train? At Commerce we have the unique advantage of being experts in our sector, and beyond that we’re some of the first investors to recognize the connectivity between spending, shopping, saving, and...
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
What powers the brands and financial services we love to use? Commerce infrastructure, of course. The more consumers adopt digital products and demand fast, delightful experiences from their brands, the more this space grows. Commerce Conversations is a podcast from Commerce Ventures, where we dive into the most interesting emerging themes across retail tech and FinTech. Tune in for research deep dives, industry conversations, and intimate CEO interviews from our team.
HOSTED BY
Commerce Ventures
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Commerce Conversations have?
Commerce Conversations currently has 49 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Commerce Conversations about?
What powers the brands and financial services we love to use? Commerce infrastructure, of course. The more consumers adopt digital products and demand fast, delightful experiences from their brands, the more this space grows. Commerce Conversations is a podcast from Commerce Ventures, where we dive...
How often does Commerce Conversations release new episodes?
Commerce Conversations has 49 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Commerce Conversations?
You can listen to Commerce Conversations on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Commerce Conversations?
Commerce Conversations is created and hosted by Commerce Ventures.
URL copied to clipboard!