Ben Narasin Partner Canvas, focused on early-stage venture investments in mobile, fintech, and marketplaces/eCommerce as well as exciting new categories. Ben was an active institutional seed investor for eight years before joining Canvas, during which he personally invested in 75 companies including Lending Club, Check, Kabbage, Realty Mogul, Dropcam, Zenefits, and many more world-class startups. Half of the companies he seeded went on to raise follow-on venture capital. An entrepreneur since the age of twelve, Ben ran startups through high school and college before founding Boston Prepatory Company, a menswear company. He then founded Fashionmall.com in 1993, one of the first e-commerce companies on the Web and the first cost-per-click based business, which he took public in 1999 on the NASDAQ. In the moments when Ben is not spending time with his entrepreneurs and family, he is also a professional freelance writer on food and wine for various print publications as well as writing online about technology and entrepreneurship. His work has appeared in The SF Chronicle, Wine Enthusiast, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Venture Beat, Gentry Wealth, SV and many other consumer and trade publications. Read Ben’s writings at Venture & Venison. Ben earned a B.A. in Entrepreneurial Studies from Babson College
Interviews
Yoshi Yokokawa, CEO/CoFounder Alpaca #fintechwallst
Yoshi Yokokawa CEO/CoFounder Alpaca, a venture backed fintech startup that builds AI and Big Data technology for financial market. Yoshi has an experience of working at investment banks (Lehman and Nomura) structuring various esoteric fixed income products and solution, day-trading full time, and managing an international software development company before starting Alpaca in 2015.
Daya Baran, Founder Stockchats #fintechwallst
Daya Baran Founder StockChats a messaging platform for investors and the investment community. He is a FinTech executive with over 20 years experience developing new technologies, product development, operations and business development. His core expertise is in payments, fund operations and various FinTech technologies. He was a top institutional sales man generating $100 million in sales for a $1 billion fund in 12 months. He was the first and youngest person to launched “performance” based funds generating returns of 100% plus. He is ranked a Top 10 independent analyst on Apple Inc for 5 years. Ranked #2, Ranked #2, Ranked #3, Ranked #6, Ranked #8. He built the world’s first web based fund operation, portfolio management, settlement and pricing system. He built the first worlds’ first web based on-demand music streaming service with the King of Pop, Michael Jackson as a strategic advisor. He was an early investor in Robert Freidland’s, Diamond Fileds which was acquired by Inco for $4.3 billion.
Bharath Rao, Founder CoinPit #fintechwallst
Bharath Rao, Founder CoinPit, is a visionary leader who has successfully developed and launched a diverse portfolio of products. He is known for creating innovative solutions to impossible problems. Bharath wanted to create a platform that’s secure and safe to trade on. He spent 10 years on Wall Street mastering the trading art. And in 2014 he decided to design and build Coinpit – a trustless, private, and transparent bitcoin futures exchange platform. In addition to being a tech savvy entrepreneur, he has an amazing ability to ignite passion in talented people and help them grow into leaders.