Episode 13: Fleetcor's remarkable B2B payments business with Charles Freund, Head of Corporate Marketing and Tyler Acree, University of Georgia

Charles Freund, Head of Corporate Marketing for Fleetcor joins Georgia Fintech Academy Executive Director, Tommy Marshall and University of Georgia senior Tyler Acree to talk about the evolution of Fleetcor's business over the past 20 years. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to the Georgia FinTech Academy podcast. The Georgia FinTech Academy is a collaboration between Georgia's FinTech industry and the university system of Georgia. This talent development initiative addresses a massive demand for FinTech professionals and give learners the specialized education experiences needed to enter the FinTech sector.

Speaker 2: 0:28

Hello everybody. And welcome to episode 13 of the Georgia FinTech Academy podcast. This is Tommy Marshall, the executive director of the Georgia FinTech Academy. And it's great to have you all back with us. We have a, another wonderful conversation lined up for today. Charles Freund head of strategy at fleet court is joining Tyler. I'm a Cree from UGA, and we are wanting to get into some great conversation about fleet Corps business what's happening in FinTech, uh, and a variety of related topics as we get towards that. I wanted to Charles welcome you. And, um, tell us about you and tell us about your career in FinTech.

Speaker 3: 1:16

Hey Tommy, uh, thanks so much for having me join you today. Appreciate it. Uh, so for everyone here, Charles, frind on the executive vice president of corporate marketing at fleet Corp. I've been with fleet Corp for almost 20 years now. I came out of undergrad at Rutgers university in New Jersey and, uh, immediately went into consulting. I was a consultant for about six years and during that time had done a number of engagements with Ron Clark, who is the current CEO of fleet Corps. Now, Ron, at the time was the head of marketing at ADP, another business services company that provides payroll and other kinds of HR management, software and services. And so he had somewhat of a, uh, technology type of background, um, and business services, B2B, um, and also handling even the payment side of payroll. And so when fleet Corp was looking for a new CEO and they put out a search, they found Ron. And when Ron joined the company back in the summer of the year, 2000, he then reached out to me at the consulting firm and brought me in a few other people along to, to join him at fleet Corps. Uh, after joining, uh, fleet Corps has been quite a run for 20 years now. So I joined in our corporate MNA group.

Speaker 2: 2:46

Cause that was really the beginning Charles of what has been kind of this incredible growth trajectory of fleet Corps over the last 20, 20 years. Do I have that right?

Speaker 3: 2:57

Indeed. So the company that I joined was about a little less than 30 million in annual revenue. And last year we posted revenues of 2.6 billion. Wow. So it's, it has been quite a journey when I first joined the company was essentially bankrupt. We were, um, like I said, a little less than 30 in revenue, but we were losing a million dollars per month in operating cashflow, just burning through cash. And you're kind of closing the doors. In fact, on two occasions, the controller had to call me personally and say, Charles, I can't pay you today, but I will pay you next week. I promise, please don't make us close the company. And we didn't, we kept it open. We kept pushing forward. And uh, and here we are today.

Speaker 2: 3:47

That's fantastic. Um, well I know I, you know, it's just, FleetCor has been such a remarkable part of the evolution of our own FinTech ecosystem here in Georgia over those 20 years. And, um, I think in, in many ways, it's the it's because of, um, that contribution and how this ecosystems built that, uh, has led rise to this, um, Georgia FinTech Academy, um, across the university system. And Tyler, it's great to have you representing one of our great schools in the system, UGA, go bowl the lungs, uh, tell us about you.

Speaker 4: 4:31

And so, um, my name is Tyler. I agree. I'm a fourth year and coming forward with your finance major, I have a certificate in leadership and FinTech. Um, I'm the president of Terry FinTech society. Uh, this summer I'll be interning as a blockchain business analyst at quality quality. They, a UK based certification company that is putting certifications on blockchain. Um, so I have previous experience, um, acting with consulting and consulting club and Terry, um, also did a finance internship at a local restaurant. I'm really looking forward to the school year. Uh, tell your friends that society is looking to do work with a FinTech certificate within teary, also with the FinTech Academy and fence like Atlanta as well.

Speaker 2: 5:19

Tell us about the Terry FinTech society, cause this is a new, a new LeFort, right?

Speaker 4: 5:27

Sure. So last summer I interned in Scotland and there's a group there called FinTech Scotland. And I really, really developed my love for Vintech there. A local university called Glasgow university has a FinTech society. And I was like, wow, this is really something we could use. Part of the research that I did last summer during my internship was the global impact and also of FinTech and also the impact different tech within Georgia. And so that's when I found out about FinTech, um, and FinTech Atlanta, and so really decided, wow, this is a club we could start. I sat on the, a dot of the idea and kind of brainstormed during fall 2019 and really started it up earlier this year. Um, I basically did interviews for executive board, um, in late January and have really just been starting the club right now, the executive board and I are creating the interview process and education. And we're looking to start up this phone, which is really exciting.

Speaker 2: 6:27

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Congratulations on getting that together and then say a little bit about this FinTech certificate. This is something that we, as the Georgia FinTech Academy at kind of the board of Regents level have been helping to, uh, provide structure around and get set up in various schools, along with the curriculum that we've, um, helped design and deliver. Um, of course, um, Bob Bob Trotter of Gartner's the adjunct professor there at Terry that teaches one of the main FinTech foundations courses, uh, there at UGA, but your class, um, is been the first one that's been, um, able to acquire this FinTech certificate since the, uh, since the university, uh, approved its, um, uh, its use.

Speaker 4: 7:16

Yes, sir. It's looking very forward to it. Uh, professor Trotter is actually our academic advisor for the Terry fence society and has been a lot of help to us. So this past, um, it's a four, the four class certificate. Um, and I actually just got done with the first class intro intro to FinTech. And this summer I'll be doing the internship credit for the class for, for this certificate as well. Um, and really looking forward to it. Um, a lot of students are talking about it and Terry, and it's actually very competitive to get into the class, the intro class because how many people want to do it? Um, so I was able to get in on the last day, actually this past semester, and it was really grateful for the opportunity of actually Terry allowing the certificate to happen.

Speaker 2: 8:03

That's right. I hope some of the UGA administrators are listening to us because, uh, Bob and I have been, uh, trying to convince them that we need more sections of the various FinTech classes because that's what we continue to hear is there's lots of unmet demand, um, uh, amongst the students. So, um, we may clue you in on that, get some real, get some support. Um, great. Thanks for those introductions. Um, let's get into talking about, um, you know, really fleet Corps and its value prop and payments. Um, you know, again, just a, a phenomenal company, 2.6 billion annual revenue a year joined the S and P 500 a couple of years ago. Um, and it, but, but I think throughout my sense has been because it's a B2B company and not, um, a B to C company, it might be one that a lot of our audience just isn't familiar with. Unfortunately. So let's change that. Uh, tell, tell us more about the business of FleetCor.

Speaker 3: 9:16

Sure. So fleet Corp is a business payments company, as you mentioned so B2B and we help companies make payments as opposed to companies that help take payments. So merchant acquirers help companies take credit cards and accept them. We help companies make outbound payments, either suppliers or their employees or on their employee's behalf is what I would mean by that is you have to pay the rent for the building that we're in. You have to pay our utilities. We may have to pay for equipment. Um, all of those types of outbound payments, we have various tools that are specifically designed to enable those payments in a controlled way. And so our, our products tend to span kind of twofold. One, how you pay your suppliers versus then what you were doing on employee's behalf. So our supplier related payment products tend to be more AP automation. So let's say I'm an AP manager and I have lots of invoices coming into my business and I need to then approve those invoices, schedule the payments in accordance with my, my cashflow needs and such, and then ensure that those payments checks basically actually go out well, what our software does is allow you to capture those invoices electronically as workflow, to go through the approval processes in a digital way, and then eliminates the needs to paychecks because we'll add or write checks as we'll actually make all the payments on your behalf, whether the CA the supplier accepts cards for payment, or they prefer an ACH or a wire, or if they still want to receive checks, we have automated solutions to handle all of that on a company's behalf. So this eliminates not only the paper checks, but the manual processes around paper checks and invoices, which in today's COVID environment you can imagine is, is, is quite a value proposition. A lot of offices are closed. And so today, when those invoices arrive at the office who is there to pick them up, are they going to get paid? Are they going to get paid on time or incur late charges and such our solutions through automation allows all that to happen in a work from home environment. That's on the supplier side, on, on the, the employee side, we have kind of two things. One we can help pay employees. And so in some companies where there is high turnover, um, and people don't want to set up direct debit programs or, um, in certain employee groups that are underbanked or unbanked will provide people with payroll cards, essentially a debit card that will load with their payroll funds. They can then use those debit cards to make purchases at point of sale online, or use our ATM network and withdraw the funds for cash. Um, for folks who are unbanked that helps them, and that they don't have to go to a check cashing location or another place again, where there's people interacting. And in some cases, unfortunately, where people, um, can be targeted because folks know they're cashing checks, and therefore they're going to come out with a lot of cash. And so they're not always in the safest places. And so by digitizing that payroll currency, we actually provide financial inclusion to unbanked folks and provide some security. The other thing we do is quite honestly, the largest part of our business is helping with employee related expenses. Think about employees who are out in the field and have to make certain purchases. An example might be a truck driver who needs to fuel his or her vehicle. In that case. There's a couple of things you could do as a business owner. You could hand your driver cash and say, please return it. If my change, that's not highly controlled. And so hopefully you have lots of trust. Another thing is please drive her, pay that on your own and bring me the receipt. And I'll pay you back well in a trucking world where a Philip can be 200 gallons, times$2 per gallon,$400 on average, they'll do two Philips per week. That's a lot to ask an employee to front a that kind of expense. And so what we do is we'll provide cards or other types of purchasing mechanisms that allow companies to make those purchases on the company's behalf. And so the employees don't have to come out of wallet and then the company, because they're digital gets all the related purchasing data. Where was the transaction? When was the transaction for how much, in terms of dollars for how much in terms of gallons, what type of fuel type was purchased? Was it only fuel that was purchased, et cetera. And all of that reporting allows a business to make better decisions about how they manage employees, manage vehicles, um, and basically handle their payments.

Speaker 2: 14:35

Am I right to think that that persona of the, um, of the logistics employee transportation, the truck driver employee, um, has been an important one in the kind of beginning and the history, uh, of fleet Corps. Uh, am I right in thinking about that? And is it mean you've got this great example you're giving about this$200 plus transaction to fill up a, um, a, uh, an 18 Wheeler, but there's, uh, I know multiple different sizes and types of fleets. And then, and then if I do think about that, that, that kind of truck driver persona they're, they're doing these long, long haul or short haul trips, or if they're doing a long haul, I mean, it's very much a lifestyle and there's an entire set of payments related to just them doing their job the way they do it in terms of lodging, eating, taking care of themselves. I mean, all of these different, uh, types of transactions.

Speaker 3: 15:42

Yes. So, um, the first part of your question around kind of the importance of fleet[inaudible] fleet Corps, you can tell from our name, it's really where we started. And so when I joined the company, it was only a fuel card provider, uh, specifically in the Southeast of the United States. And over time, we continue to consolidate the U S market acquiring businesses here and bringing them onto our platform, which provided us great scale and consistency. And we started to build robust distribution channels to sell fleets. These fuel cars that you mentioned, there are various types of fleets. When we started, we were mostly focused on what we call local fleets. These would be van drivers, truck drivers, taxis, local municipalities, things of that nature. Um, not so much 18 wheel trucks going interstate. That was not where we were focused. So we focused on this local fuel business, and we tended to go further down market than some of our competitors. Many times people start at the top. I want to go sell Pepsi. I want to sell are, are better, said Coke here in Atlanta, right? These are the types of businesses I want to sell because they're big. And they brand lots of volume. Um, what we found is we could compete way more effectively. If we focused further down market into the small and mid-sized businesses where other people didn't have the right distribution set up to reach them in a cost effective way, you may say, well, what do you mean when you're selling large folks, a large fleets like Coca-Cola and FedEx and such. It's a lot of face-to-face meetings, lots of decision-makers in a multi month type of sales cycle, selling to small fleets. I can't afford that type of duration or the expensive salesperson out on the street. So what we did is we built other capabilities and channels. So we started with telesales, how do I sell a fleet card and convince someone over the phone, how to take that, how do we build the digital capability? So keeping in mind, when I joined fleet in the year 2000, you know, the.com bubble was, was ready to burst. And so, yes, the internet is here, but how, how do you really market on that platform? And it took us a long time to figure it out. But once we did became an incredibly robust channel or we're circuit, I want to say about 50% of our sales in terms of revenue comes through digital means, wow. So we started in that local business. We have since expanded with, with fuel cars, did then serve the over the road market. Um, but we also, as you mentioned, diversified into other types of business to business payments. So in the year 2009, we acquired a lodging payments company. Now, why, why would we do that? Well, it's the same business model. It's business to business sales requiring a network of merchants, specialized technology, a recurring revenue stream. All of the factors were the same. The only difference was that the merchants instead of being fuel station owners are now hotel operators. And what they're purchasing is not a gallon of fuel, but they're purchasing a hotel nights, everything else, the controls, the reporting, the whole value proposition and economic model, very, very similar. And so we bought that business in 2009 and at the time of our IPO in 2010, we were still 90% fuel cards, 10% lodging since that time. However, we've continued to diversify, um, adding a large toll business, uh, down in Brazil. Uh, we'll use payroll cards here in the U S um, other types of benefit cards throughout Latin America intended to invest in, in fuel. But, um, w in the diversification, it is now only about 45% of fleet Corps, the rest of these other products, including the AP automation products that I mentioned before.

Speaker 2: 19:58

And I guess I was just glad you brought up Brazil because it's, I think just worth mentioning that fleet Corps is very much a, a global business and I'm operating in lot, many parts of Europe. I want to say Russia, Australia, and am I, do I have this right?

Speaker 3: 20:21

Yes. So we serve clients in over 80 countries around, around the world. Um, we have physical operations in Canada, the us, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, um, Czech Republic throughout continental Europe. Um, like you mentioned, Russia, Ukraine, et cetera. So I would say our presence in Asia Pacific is light. It's really Australia, New Zealand. Um, but we're serving clients in a lot of different geographies, uh, either on our own or on behalf of some of our partners. So whether it's in fuel or in our gift card business, where we do processing for major retailers, um, we can serve them. And their portfolio is basically anywhere in the world. They're utilizing our systems to run their own art programs. Right. Tyler, let me get in here with some, some questions,

Speaker 4: 21:24

Something that I've been personally interested in, um, and actually just took a class on, was international finance. Earlier on this spring, I was going to ask what is fleet core strategy? I, when it comes to digital and cryptocurrencies, um, even when it comes to kind of protecting your guys is protecting yourselves from, um, the costs go on between different currencies from your operations in Brazil or other countries, or even just, um, transactions in the United States as well.

Speaker 3: 21:58

So as it relates to cryptocurrency, I'd say we're in the early days that the B to C world has certainly moved much faster than B2B, um, the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies. So the blockchain technology and such is something we are exploring. And so we do have a foreign exchange, cross border payments business called Cambridge global payments. It's based up in Toronto Canada, but serves clients in Canada, the us, the UK, and in Australia, uh, the business does provide hedging solutions. So to the extent that you want to, um, protect your revenue or cost of goods, um, and you want to hedge the currency. So you're not upside down, should, should FX move against you. We do have those products, but a lot of the businesses really just the cross border payment and a spot transaction. Um, I'm actually a client of Cambridge, myself. I own a property in Mexico and I need to pay my property management team down there. And so what I will do is go online and get a spot quote on the FX for the day, and then enable that payment. If I, if I liked the effects that they're offering. And so we do that for a lot of people, and it was actually a nice addition. We bought that business about three years ago. It was a nice addition to our other payments products and that it helped round out the portfolio. If I came to you as, as the, the head of AP for your company and said, look, I'd like to take over all of your payments. Um, prior to owning Cambridge, I could only handle your us domestic payments. If you had any international suppliers, I couldn't really handle it. And so Cambridge helped to round out that capability for our company. Um, but more to your question around blockchain, or you mentioned the cryptocurrencies again, we're slow on that, but looking blockchain and how we can use blockchain to better facilitate, uh, or administer cross border payments. You know, there is a, basically a process that you go through using multiple intermediaries and such in that process and tracking that and providing reporting back to people so they can understand that payment flow better and getting more transparency through the blockchain technology that ripple provides. It's who we partnered with. That's something that we are exploring and about to launch a pilot, which I can't get into more detail on yet, but I hope to have a press release shortly.

Speaker 4: 24:20

Very exciting.

Speaker 2: 24:25

Yeah. I think that mace with, with blockchain, it it's, it's, it's interesting tack it continues to mature in some meaningful ways. I mean, it's, it's remarkable now that, you know, we're, I think we're in the entering the 12th year since Bitcoin first was invented. Uh, and, uh, it's definitely the, of course, Columbia and the kind of first use case of this, um, use of this blockchain digital ledger technology, but it's been, I've been getting into more conversations recently, Charles with, um, retailers, merchants wanting to explore, um, payment networks or creation of payment networks using this, um, distribute ledger tech. And then there's been, you know, press releases here and there, a blind saved well MasterCards and visas, uh, beginning to get into collaborations to, um, maybe also hedge to some extent, um, you know, how that, how that might develop, but, uh, Tyler cut you off.

Speaker 4: 25:35

Oh, no worries. I was just going to the last question I was going to say, just from an operational standpoint, um, really what, what, uh, made you guys, or what was the I'm guessing to drive revenues to really branch outside the U S I know you said basically you guys decided to go lodging. I mean, that sounds like it was a really smart move because you're basically just, um, redoing your current operations that you have, and it wouldn't be too much work. I was just wondering if it wasn't revenue drivers, or were you guys already looking at that before? Whenever you, I know you said you came on later, um, in a company like someone brought you on from the executive board, what that looked like.

Speaker 3: 26:16

Yes. So when I joined fleet Corps, um, again, just in fuel, but we love the business model, right? And so one of the reasons we're able to compete very effectively is because it's a very specialized type of product, the data that you gather at the point of sale in terms of odometer readings and such in the case of trucking hub vomiter readings, because they can't their tires to get overly warm or creates safety issues. There's all kinds of data that will gather at the Palmer at the point of sale that all then flows back through. So it's a very protectable niche versus more generic kind of consumer payments that don't require as much data. So when you talk about blockchain as a disruption, I can very much see that on a consumer side, it's a little more difficult when you have this level of complexity in terms of the data flows and such on the B2B side, which is where a lot of the value is. It's how the controls become enabled. I have to gather the data, check it against my authorization system in terms of what is allowed. And then if those things are allowed, you know, I allow the Trent the transaction to come through. And so in terms of our expansion beyond fleet, when we went public in 2010, um, we went out as the global fleet card company. And at that moment, um, again, we had the lodging business, but it was only a small piece, 10% of the company. Um, we had already, uh, started to expand into the UK and into the Czech Republic. But at the time my CEO said, look, if we want to be global, let's really be global. And so we decided to really push hard and get into other geographies like Mexico and Brazil and Australia and New Zealand, and create a stronger foothold on the continent of Europe. So we were still very, very fleet and fuel focused, um, up until about 2014, I'd say. And that's really when we started to expand our horizons into other types of B2B payments in a big, big way. Um, so in the acquisition of comm data, which is a big, big trucking, uh, payments company, they also had, uh, three other divisions that were springboards for us. So one, they have a, the corporate payments group and what corporate payments provided were virtual cards. These are single use MasterCards that can basically replace a check. We were going to write a check. And instead of doing that, you use this MasterCard and you can only use it once. It must be used within the next seven days. It can only be used exactly for the amount that the check otherwise would have been written for$95 and 24 cents. And it can only be redeemed at Tyler's location. That's it? So it's a very controlled, digitized check in a way. But when I send this MasterCard data to a merchant like you, Tyler, when I send you that, that, that, that MasterCard information, and I'll give you also all the remittance data. So your reconciliation, when you receive the payment, you know exactly what it's for, why am I getting 95 and 24 cents? Many times when people write checks, they won't put their account number on it. They may not include the remittance slip that came with the invoice. So then when you're sitting there and accounting, and you receive this, what do you do with it? What accounts, why apply it to what's it for in many cases, people have a difficult time reconciling. And so that's the power of a virtual card is one, it digitizes the payment, but in doing that, you also get all of that remittance information. And so it makes your reconciliation and accountant way easier. Um, so they had the big fleet business, they had this corporate payments, virtual card business. They had a gift card processing business called stored value systems or solutions, um, worked with major, major retailers and processing their gift card programs. And then they had this other division, um, where they have basically payroll processing, which we then subsequently bought other businesses in that too, again, you know, scale that, so that provided basically a springboard that combat acquisitions that, okay, now we're in a bunch of other segments now, what are we going to do? And one thing about fleet Corps is we don't like to own a corns. If we're going to be in something, we want to be in something in a big way and be a market leader. And so we continued then to acquire and build our capabilities and strength in the various geographies and the different product categories. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 31:13

I, um, one last question for you. So, um, on top of that, I just took a May-mester class and it was mergers and acquisitions. And so a lot of the things we talked about were like synergies and the real reasons why you do an acquisition. Um, is there anything specific that drives the acquisitions that you guys have done in the past? Was it synergies, um, on, Oh, you know, logic and you're basically just reciprocating what you've done before. So it's pretty simple in that instance. I don't know if he can speak on any other instances.

Speaker 3: 31:43

Sure. So, um, in my past, I worked in our corporate M and a group. And so I have a lot of experience with our acquisition strategy. And so we we've completed rough over 80 acquisitions of either portfolios or companies, um, in my tenure here at FleetCor and, uh, sitting here today, we look to deploy a billion dollars of capital every year in M and a. And so we're highly, highly acquisitive, uh, what we look for our strategy. So one, we like things that we understand we don't want to get into new businesses. Um, we don't make things that have similar business models, business to business sales and service, um, a technology component. We like things that have network components, where you can make revenue from both the customer and the merchant in that type of an environment. Um, so we'll look for things that are similar. They don't have to be the, exactly the same, but similar. And then we generally will not complete a transaction unless we have, uh, a believable thesis that we can double the profitability of the company within two to three years, if I can't do that, I can't do that. Then I won't generate the right level of return for my investors. So I could of course buy lots of things with a billion dollars a year, but the point is not to buy it, it's printed into something. And so you made the point around synergies, what do you look for? There are two types of synergies or cost synergies. I buy an identical type of company, and then I just let people go shut down systems, whatever it might be. We generally don't look for those types of opportunities. We core is a very high margin business. We have about 55% EBITDA margins globally. Um, yeah, and so cost not so much a factor for us. We tend to focus on revenue synergies where one plus one equals three. So let me give you a simple example. We'll buy a, we bought a company, uh, many say probably 15 years ago, we bought this company. It had about, Hm, I wanna say five, 6 million in revenue. And what this company did was it basically provided fuel cards to, to, to various fleets around the country and had a lot of, a lot of volume, but their network was only 2000 locations around the country. To give you some context. There are roughly 160,000 gas stations in the United States. So they would go to these 2000. Now these were specialized sites and there, they provided diesel fuel. A lot of these vehicles use diesel fuel and not every site has diesel. We FleetCor already had a network of 50,000 locations, almost all of which had diesel fuel. So all we had to do was turn their cards on to our network. And what did that do? The customers were happier. They had more convenience. They could go to more places. We got more share of wallet. We had less customer attrition because of that. And all of that led to way more revenue. Now I bought an identical business to that one, putting the two together. Um, now that those two things are roughly 80 million in revenue, right assets. And what I'd say is there were basically, um, a couple of ways to think about it. One its products or its distribution. And so in this case, I had a product type of synergy. I add my network to your product and I get great value, right. Or benefits. The other thing that to look at would be distribution. Do you have a great product that I can take and sell through my channels? So FleetCor invest$250 million every year in sales and marketing through multiple channels, partnership, channels, digital telesales, field sales. If there's a channel that's out there, we've got some flavor of it. And so can we find innovative products that we can then cross sell back to our base or bundle, sell, which one helps distribute the product, but also makes our Salesforce even more effective and better value for that investment.

Speaker 2: 36:27

I love it. These are just phenomenal stories and it helps to just think, uh, put a line under how and why to some extent clean core has been such a successful business over these years. I want to move towards just big news we've, um, hit on and or caught up on over the last week in FinTech. Um, one, uh, you'd mentioned virtual cards. Um, there a moment ago, Charles, uh, Markeda is a kind of virtual card related company that, uh, is, um, relatively new, I think, two or three years old. Um, there was news last week that they had raised an additional$150 million bringing in their total, um, valuation to around 4.3 billion. The, um, the rumor is that 150 million came from a single source, which was the capital group out of Los Angeles. Um, so I'm interested to see if that proves out, but a kind of meaningful financing for Markeda. Um, Tyler, how about you, any news that, uh, caught your eye on FinTech in the last week?

Speaker 4: 37:39

Yes. Um, actually last time during my internship, Facebook released Libra and we saw Bitcoin, um, go pretty high at the time. I was still learning about FinTech. Didn't know how big of a deal that was, uh, looking back now I've realized how big of a deal Facebook has, how they would do that was announcing. Now they've basically turned this wallet into, I think it's called Novi or Novi, um, recently. So some pretty big news come out with, come out with that. And I'm really looking forward to seeing government wise and regulation what that looks like around the world. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 38:16

I think that's a good point. I think my sense of that name change that Facebook made kind of had to do with the government in some ways, cause, uh, there's this, you know, network that's being built called Libra, um, that received quite a bit of re uh, tremendous regulatory pushback when it was announced. And, uh, but there's this separate wallet that is separate from the network that they want to use in the, um, in the context of some other, other, uh, assets like WhatsApp. And, uh, so the, I think it makes sense for them to rebrand, uh, to know the, um, so that there's maybe less confusion between, um, uh, the wallet and the network. Um, and then Charles, how about you, any news catch your eye in the last a week

Speaker 3: 39:06

I heard ups was, was raising a new VC fund, um, to help kind of early stage companies where they were looking to invest kind of 10 million up to 10 million per company, generally it's little, little low for, for fleet core level of investment. But, but I love to hear about these things cause you know, it just continues to fuel innovation in our space, you know, and these are the companies of the future that, that leaker will then be able to put, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars into at some point. So very, very excited to see continued interest in an investment in, in the FinTech category. Um, and, and your point on the Marketa deal, you know, I, I love those kinds of valuations, so, uh, keep, keep pushing them.

Speaker 2: 39:48

Yeah, I love it. Well, good. Well, I want to thank you both for being part of the Georgia Fanatec Academy podcast. Uh, I hope you'll both, uh, come back and I know you're gonna engage with us in all sorts of different ways as we continue to evolve our, um, our FinTech Academy across the university system. Uh, so Charles, thank you very much for being with us and, uh, Tyler, you as well.

Speaker 3: 40:16

Thanks Tommy. Really appreciate the invite Avonex today. And Tyler was a pleasure meeting you and chatting with you today. Yes. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 40:24

The Georgia FinTech Academy podcasts are available on iTunes and Spotify to obtain additional information about the Georgia FinTech Academy. Please visit our website@georgiafintechacademy.org.