Vestigo Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on making investments in transformative fintech companies, announced today it has successfully closed Vestigo Ventures Fund I with $58.9 million.
Founded by David Blundin, Founder and Chairman of Cogo Labs; Mark Casady, former CEO and Chairman of LPL Financial; and Managing Director Ian Sheridan, the firm is grounded in the certainty that digitization will bring great change to financial services. They are joined by Mike Nugent and Frazer Anderson who are focused on finding and supporting startups.
Addressing the fintech market opportunity, Casady said, "My partners and I firmly believe incumbents in financial services need to drive down costs and vastly improve the customer experience in order to remain relevant and prosper amidst this wave of change. We back entrepreneurs who have the passion, ideas and ability to ride this wave."
To date, Vestigo Ventures has invested in eight companies, including Digital Assets Data, LifeYield, Micronotes, Mirador, Netcapital, Student Loan Genius, TowerIQ and Vestmark. The firm invests in companies that are applying technology – i.e. blockchain, artificial intelligence and big data – to improve market structures, provide operational solutions, enhance worksite management and/or support personal wealth strategies.
Vestigo Ventures Fund I is comprised of strategic limited partners (LPs) who are corporate investors from the insurance industry and asset management (51 percent), family offices (28 percent) that recognize the power of fintech and want a stake in companies that are transforming financial services, as well as individual investors (21 percent) who represent a "who's who" of the financial services industry.
"Combine Vestigo's strategic LPs with our advisory board and access to resources from Cogo Labs, a data-driven startup incubator, and the firm is poised to offer early-stage fintech players with more access to data, financial industry expertise and operational experience to help them win," said Blundin.
About Vestigo Vestigo Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts that invests in financial technology (fintech) companies. The firm was founded by David Blundin, founder and chairman of Cogo Labs, Mark Casady, former CEO and chairman of LPL Financial, and Managing Director Ian Sheridan. Mike Nugent also serves as a Managing Director. Vestigo has identified four areas of concentration: market structure, operations solutions, worksite management and personal wealth. Learn more at www.vestigoventures.com.
