The JPMorgan associate-founded fintech hiring banking alumni
In a market where fintech funding is few and far between, intriguing new products stand out. Such is the case with Clair, a payroll infrastructure fintech enabling advanced payments, which raised $25m in a venture round from Thrive Capital this week. The New York based fintech has a number of Wall Street alumni working there and has been hiring more in 2023.
One of Clair's co-founders was a JPMorgan associate, Nico Simko. He joined the bank as a fintech M&A analyst in 2016 after graduating with an economics degree from Harvard. He made associate at the start of 2019 but left before the year's end to found Clair.
Since then, a number of people have joined from US banks. Current head of data Erik Webb, for example, was also a JPMorgan associate, a data scientist in the payments data and analytics team.
Clair's most significant hire has been Pranam Daga, formerly a product manager for Goldman Sachs within its somewhat controversial Marcus team. He left Goldman in late 2021 to join $2.5bn valued digibank Varo before joining Clair in April. It also hired senior software engineer Nicholas Glaviano who worked at both Wells Fargo and Discover Financial Services, but most recently was at InsurTech firm Clearcover.
Clair is still hiring today, although not too many roles are available. Those that are pay handsomely, however; a New York based lead product designer job listing has a salary range between $180k and $220k.
Though the product is a novel concept, it's worth noting that a hostile regulatory environment can severely impact success. The BNPL sector, and what the UK has been doing, should be a cautionary tale. What's happening with crypto in Hong Kong, on the other hand, indicates there could be reasons to be hopeful.
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