Featured Startup: Unbank Ventures

(1) Describe your startup.
We are a FinTech Incubator program. I think of us as a small business that gets to work with startups. We recruit FinTech founders, put them through our process, introduce them to corporate partners/customers and help them fundraise.

(2) What inspired the creation of the startup?
I have always had a passion for helping people grow their business. As a non-technical person I always had challenges building scalable startups. I found that my skill set was better used building a platform to help startups than trying to create product.

(3) What differentiates your startup from the competition?
Our program is vertically focused on the financial services industry. We have expertise and connections in the industry that give our companies a competitive advantage. 

(4) Who is the target market?
There are multiple sides to our company. We target Pre-Seed FinTech founders, financial service partners, and limited partner investors for our fund. We must serve all of these parties synergistically to succeed.

(5) How did you grow your presence in your target market?
Public and private events are a big driver of our business. We put on a series of conferences and roadshow events in 2018 to build our brand throughout North America. We also do a lot of cold outreach. When you are a startup you have to knock on a lot of doors before you have inbound interest.

(6) What stage are you at?
Early stage. We are raising our first fund and onboarding our first bank partners.

(7) What are some of the biggest challenges that your startup have had to overcome?
Building a brand and a reputation from scratch is a daily challenge. It is especially challenging as a bootstrapped company. We strive to over-deliver to our customers and partner with established brands that help us get to the next level.

(8) What is next for the startup?
The next step for us is raising our first fund, writing our first checks and running our first accelerator program. 

(9) Where would you like to be in the next 5 years?
We expect to be running our program in 5 markets globally every year with the goal of becoming the number one Pre-Seed FinTech investment fund in the world.

(10) If you had to give one piece of advice to an up and coming startup what would it be?
Many people are drawn to the startup space because it looks fun and lucrative. The day to day of starting and running a business in reality, is a grind and the probability of success is low. I would only advise someone to start a business if they have deep passion and drive to bring a product, service, and company into existence