In this edition, I speak with Amee Parbhoo, Managing Partner of Accion Venture Lab, a leading global seed-stage investor in inclusive fintech startups. Accion Venture Lab is part of Accion, the pioneering nonprofit that has been investing in financial inclusion for the last six decades.

I was excited to speak with Amee because she’s on the front lines of identifying technologies that expand access to capital and financial services.

In addition to getting an update on the fintech landscape, I was particularly keen to hear Amee’s thoughts on how she sees the sector evolving — from one in which fintechs enabled the provision of traditional financial services, to one where startups are developing vertical-specific solutions with embedded finance.

Amee shares a few of the verticals and themes she’s particularly excited about, as well as a superb book recommendation … one of my favorites, in fact.

Thanks, as always, for listening.

I hope you enjoy this episode — and if you do, you should share it with friends, and if you feel so inclined, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts so that more listeners can discover this type of content.

This podcast was recorded in April 2023.

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Learn more about Accion Venture Lab

Read the Center for Financial Inclusion’s report Green Inclusive Finance

Grab a copy of Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers

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Music credit: Daniel Allan, “Too Close” released on Sound. You can learn more about Daniel’s community-owned DAO that underwrote his latest EP here.

(Disclosure: In addition to the “Too Close” NFT, Portico’s founder Michael Casey owns $OVERSTIM tokens, as well as many other music NFTs; one of his Sound collector profiles is available here).