Fintech Investor Fiat Ventures Closes Oversubscribed $25M Fund

San Francisco-based Fiat Ventures has closed on its first fund of $25 million to invest in fintech, insurtech and proptech companies. The original target for the fund, which had a first close in 2021, was $15 million.

Its anchor investor is Invesco Private Capital. Other investors include DAHG Capital Partners, Joint Effects, Full Spectrum Capital, Temerity Capital Partners, Now Investments, Mountaineer Capital, Permit Ventures and fintech operators Jonathan Abelmann from Bestow, Kyle Daley at Chime, and Chinedu Eleanya from Mulberry.

Inside Fiat

Fiat’s founding team are former operators at fintech startups. We spoke with co-founder and general partner Alex Harris, previously head of growth and partnerships at Chime.

“You have these pain points that people have with traditional finance, traditional insurance. And technology is solving them and making it better from an experience perspective, from a financial value perspective,” said Harris on the firm’s investment thesis of investing in financial services that focus on those that are underserved.

His co-founders include Drew Glover whom Harris first met on the Berkeley football team where Glover was a player and Harris worked for the team. Glover was previously a vice president at Steady. The third partner at the firm is managing partner Marcos Fernandez, previously at SOFi and Ripple.

The fund opportunity grew organically out of Fiat Growth, which operates as an external CMO to help startups build revenue. As it helped startups raise funding, Harris saw an opportunity to invest.

One of those investments is a Series A the firm led in Seattle-based Copper, a digital bank built for teenagers that includes advice about money management and investing. The metrics were “massively better by multiples compared to anything else in the market,” said Harris on its investment.

The fund’s first check size is between $250,000 and $500,000 at pre-seed, seed or Series A. The firm reserves half of its fund for follow-on funding. So far, over 50% of its investments are in underrepresented founders, said Harris of the 25 investments the firm has already made.

The investment team includes Vice President Caitlin Keep, previously at Forge Global.

Investments from Fiat Ventures’ first fund include fractional vacation ownership startup Here, home equity service Splitero, auto insurance provider Sigo Seguros, and bill management and credit building company StellarFi.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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