Franz Rassman sits down with fintech venture capitalist Howard Mergelkamp. In 2011, Howard Mergelkamp and Miles Kilburn co-founded Mosaik Partners, an expansion-stage venture capital firm investing in commerce-enabling technology companies. Since its founding, Mosaik has invested roughly $150 million in early-stage enterprise fintech companies solving major pain points in large, B2B markets, such as payments, banking, and insurance. We discuss: - Howard’s path to becoming a venture capitalist, which included stops in law, banking, private equity, and operations - Mosaik Partners’ origin story and its investment process - How fintech has changed over the past decade and the changes the next decade will bring - Automatic deal breakers in the due diligence process - And a whole lot more! Howard Mergelkamp Howard Mergelkamp III has over two decades of investment banking, private equity, operating and corporate law experience in financial technology, transaction processing/electronic payments and financial services. Howard has been principal or advisor on over $157 billion of strategic transactions across over 100 completed deals of all types and structures, working with executive management teams and boards at companies with market capitalizations from $1 million to $43 billion. As a founding member of Corporate Ventures and Advisory Services at BlackRock, Inc., Howard managed proprietary investments and third-party mergers and acquisitions in financial technology. As a senior vice president at Regulus Group LLC, he led strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate restructuring. Howard’s advisory experience includes investment banking at Merrill Lynch & Co. – focusing on mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance in electronic payments and financial technology. He practiced corporate law at both Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Cravath, Swaine & Moore — focusing on mergers and acquisitions in banking, asset management, insurance and consumer finance. Howard has a BA, cum laude, in political science and economics from Columbia University, and a JD, magna cum laude, from University of Pennsylvania Law School. About Mosaik Partners Mosaik Partners is an expansion-stage venture capital firm investing in commerce-enabling technology companies. Founded in 2011 by industry veterans Howard Mergelkamp and Miles Kilburn, Mosaik has since deployed $145+ million across roughly 30 investments. To learn more, check out Mosaik Partners. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: https://medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: https://twitter.com/whartonfintech