Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Elizabeth Davis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Elizabeth thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to start by getting your thoughts on what you are seeing as some the biggest trends emerging in your industry.
Broader VC Market: Venture capital investments dropped across the board in 2022 vs 2021. Globally, $75.2 billion was deployed into the venture capital ecosystem. While that’s significant lower than 2021, its 52% more than the amount raised in 2020. (CB Insights)
Fintech Market: US fintech VC investments fell by 50% in 2022. Most concerning was the quarterly data for Q4 2022 —at $3.9 billion in funding, its the lowest mark since Q1 2018. For comparison, in Q3 2022, fintechs raised a total of $5.9bn, a nearly $13bn decrease QoQ. In line with the broader tech sector, a number of fintech companies revised down valuations, called off acquisitions, postponed listings, or raised extensions. Areas that saw the highest activity were investment platforms, B2C and verticalized payments, business financial management / FinOps, and private markets investing. Consumer finance in particular continues to be an interesting area to stress test the balance between well-priced credit and non-performing loans. Lower valuations, however, invited larger companies to go on buying sprees, which drove acquisitions to spike by 153% in Q3 over the prior quarter.
Financial Health: In line with macroeconomic sentiments, supporting overall financial health of consumers continues to be a theme. From automating debt-payments and alleviating financial stress to solving for inflation-proof investments, emerging solutions are looking to be long-term financial partners for consumers in exchange for fixing short-term pain points.
Verticalized Payments: A host of vertical-focused solutions are aiming to transform legacy payments experiences. From healthcare to real-estate and hospitality, we are seeing vertical- specific use-cases as emerging wedges for larger value chain disruptions. In addition, newer forms of payment (fingerprint-based, airdrop payments, and tipping systems) are combining identity-based infrastructures to support frictionless and real-time distribution.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
While I grew up in a household with two parents in financial services, I never thought I would go into the finance industry. I studied Great Books at the University of Notre Dame and developed a huge passion for sustainability, eventually writing my thesis on public-private partnerships at the nexus of nutrition, agriculture & environmental sustainability. This led me to work at The Coca-Cola Company on their Global Sustainability team where I worked across the world (India, China & Turkey) on their global sustainability strategy focused on water neutrality & empowering 5 million women by 2020. While I was at Coca-Cola I discovered a new passion that changed the trajectory of my entire career: working with founders, and in particular, women founders.
In 2015, I left Coca-Cola to start my own company with two co-founders, On Purpose, to build ESG programs for Fortune 500 companies including Aflac, Staples & LG. I loved starting a company (even with all of the ups and downs of being a founder) but was recruited to join Worn, a mission-driven advertising agency that worked exclusively with women-led companies. Both experiences showed me how challenging it could be for women to raise venture funding so decided to go back to get my MBA and pursue working in VC.
Currently, I work at Anthemis, an early stage venture capital firm committed to cultivating change in financial services on the Female Innovators Lab Fund, a $40mn fund where I invest in early stage female founders in fintech. I am incredibly passionate about driving capital to female founders & underrepresented founders more broadly. Over the past three years, I have had the opportunity to invest in 10 incredible companies across embedded finance, fintech, insurtech & crypto. With the VC industry having on average 12-14% of women in investor roles, I feel fortunate to work at a fund with over 50% of investors being women.
Bio:
Elizabeth Davis is a Principal at Anthemis, an early stage venture capital firm committed to cultivating change in financial services. Elizabeth works on the Female Innovators Lab Fund, a $40mn fund where she invests in early stage female founders in fintech.
Prior to joining Anthemis, Elizabeth served as a Vice President of Worn, a mission-driven creative and digital agency, where she led strategic partnerships working with female founders, was a Co-Founder at ON PURPOSE, a social impact firm working with clients such as Aflac, Staples & LG to build their ESG strategy, and worked at The Coca-Cola Company in Global Sustainability spending time in Turkey, China & India focused on their women’s empowerment programs.
Elizabeth has received numerous awards; most recently she was nominated by Innovate Finance for their Women in Fintech Powerlist in 2022 & by NYC Women in Fintech as an Inspiring Fintech Female in 2021. Elizabeth serves on the Truman Scholars Association Board. Elizabeth has an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and an B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
When I was looking to work in venture capital, I had a very specific criteria of the fund I wanted to work at – one that invested in early stage founders in the US & Europe, one that was a larger fund but had a specific fund focused on female founders (or underrepresented founders more broadly), one that worked closed with the founders, and one that had a great culture and amazing people. When I told my husband what I was looking for he thought that I was crazy with how specific my criteria was to get into an ultra-competitive industry but ultimately found Anthemis, which checked every single box. When I was applying for the role I put together a “Pitch Deck” on myself including my value proposition to the firm, competitive landscape, network market map, business model & references, which ultimately got my foot in the door and ultimately got me the job to work on the Female Innovators Lab Fund with Katie Palencsar, Managing Director & Global Head of our Venture Studio at Anthemis.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I was first starting my career my dream was to work in Global Sustainability at a multi-national corporation. At the time, there were very few jobs in sustainability and was consistently told that I would need 10+ years of experience to get into the industry. Instead of giving up, I decided to email CEO’s & Chief Sustainability Officers at some of my dream companies. And amazingly, I heard back from so many of them. Ultimately I was able to get an internship after my Senior year at the University of Notre Dame (yes, internship) at The Coca-Cola Company on their Global Sustainability team. I remember feeling like I “failed” because everyone had full-time offers in consulting & investment banking and I was starting as an Intern. After 6+ months of being the first in the office, and the last to leave, getting involved in every single project I could, talking to 100+ people at Coca-Cola to learn more about the organization, and putting together a “pitch” for what my role could be, I got a full-time offer to work in our Chief Sustainability Officer’s office in Strategic Initiatives.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @edavis8
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-davis-0028b82b/
- Twitter: @eldavis8
Image Credits
Depending on which photos you use I can send through captions for them :)