Page 70 - Forbes - USA (March 2020)

T H E FO R B E S F I N T EC H 5 0

A $150,000 capital infusion from Y Combinator,
source of seed funding to Airbnb and many oth- CARTA C O I N BA S E
er illustrious startups, answered that question
SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO
in 2012. Fred Ehrsam, a Goldman Sachs alum,
WALL STREET & ENTERPRISE BLOCKCHAIN & BITCOIN
joined the venture and gave Coinbase credibility
Tracks capital tables (shares, After making its mark as a
with the banks that would be wiring money to it.
ownership, value, dilution and safe, regulatory-compliant
Venture capitalists, led by Andreessen Horow-
options) for private companies, crypto exchange, Coinbase
itz, have showered half a billion dollars on Coin-
their investors and employees. has branched out to offer a
68 base. “It’s like if Google made Gmail for bitcoin,” variety of additional services.
FUNDING: $448 million; latest
says Chris Dixon, an Andreessen partner who valuation of $1.7 billion (See story, p. 60.)
serves on the Coinbase board. “And that’s literal-
T BONA FIDES: Now managing cap FUNDING: $525 million; latest
S ly the way they described it.” tables for 13,000 companies (in- valuation of $8.1 billion
I
L Its last round of funding valued Coinbase at cluding most valuable fintech,
BONA FIDES: Coinbase Custody
E Stripe) worth a collective $575
H $8.1 billion. Ehrsam, 31, has since left Coinbase billion, with 800,000 investors holds $8 billion in assets for 200
T but retains a stake; he keeps busy arranging ven- institutional clients

• COFOUNDER & CEO:
ture capital for startups that aim to use crypto- COFOUNDERS: Brian Armstrong,
E Henry Ward, 44 37; Fred Ehrsam, 31
D currencies and blockchains to build transaction
I
U networks for corporations.
G
C H A I N A LYS I S
T C R E D I T K A R M A
N NEW YORK CITY
E SAN FRANCISCO
M he essence of what Armstrong BLOCKCHAIN & BITCOIN
T has in mind can be captured in PERSONAL FINANCE
S T Builds tools to help enforcers
E the word defi, which stands for The original free credit-mon-
V track down criminals, and fi-
N decentralized finance or, if you nancial institutions comply with itoring and credit-score ser-
I vice has expanded its offerings
prefer, defiance of authority. Defi regulations, in crypto space.
is supposed to reach into all aspects of wealth; to include free online tax fil-
FUNDING: $45 million; latest ing and high-yield savings ac-
someday, supposedly, blockchains will support valuation of $266 million 1 counts. Earns fat referral fees
trading, peer-to-peer lending and loan collater- BONA FIDES: 250 customers, when users bite on its recom-
alization without the usual financial institutions including the U.S. government, mendations for credit cards,
Barclays and Bittrex
as intermediaries. Intriguingly, Coinbase has a loans or auto insurance.
broker/dealer license. Could it someday end-run COFOUNDER & CEO:
Michael Gronager, 49 FUNDING: $869 million; latest
stock exchanges? Maybe. valuation of $4 billion
If the grand vision for Coinbase is to be a gate- BONA FIDES: More than 100
way to decentralized finance of all sorts, the rev- million users in the U.S., Canada
and the U.K.
enue for now is coming from more mundane
COFOUNDERS: CEO Ken Lin, 44;
things like trading commissions. Coinbase allows
CRO Nichole Mustard, 47; CTO
amateurs to go in and out of crypto, or swap one Ryan Graciano, 38
crypto for another, for fees and spreads that come
to 2% or so. At archrival Binance, these small-
DAVE
CHRIS BRITT Ì
LOS ANGELES

PERSONAL FINANCE
C H I M E This $1-a-month mobile app
Money Moves 2020 offers users checking accounts
SAN FRANCISCO with no minimums or over-
BUY CREDIT BLUE-CHIPS PERSONAL FINANCE draft fees, cash advances of
Credit tracker Fair Isaac is an excellent way to play the Digital-only bank offers no-fee up to $100, automated budget-
digitization of credit. The company’s credit-scoring checking accounts with free ing and the ability to build
technology currently underlies a vast majority of all up their credit score through
credit-card issuance decisions. It’s also beginning to overdraft protection of up to
use artificial intelligence with psychometric and finan- $100, access to paychecks up reporting of rent and utility
cial data to create ultra-reliable profiles of consumer to two days early and option to payments to credit bureaus.
behavior. Relatedly, duopoly Mastercard is a great play round up debit purchases and
on the growth of e-commerce. Within a decade, Mas- FUNDING: $76 million; latest
tercard projects, machines will begin transacting digi- move extra pennies into savings. valuation of $1.2 billion
tal payments as, for example, gas pumps hook up with FUNDING: $805 million; latest BONA FIDES: 2019 revenue of
computers in cars. Everything will share a connection valuation of $5.8 billion $90 million; 5 million–plus users
with encrypted personal financial information stored
in the cloud, and Mastercard is a natural gatekeeper. BONA FIDES: Exceeded 7 million COFOUNDERS: CEO Jason Wilk,
Both Fair Isaac and Mastercard are brisk growers with accounts in January 34; CTO Paras Chitrakar, 41;
high P/Es, but they’re worth it, considering their 10-year COFOUNDERS: CEO Chris Britt, chief design officer John
Wolanin, 37
47; CTO Ryan King, 43
annual returns of about 30% each. —Jon D. Markman

F O R B E S . C O M Ì NEW TO LIST M A R C H 2 0 2 0
1 According to PitchBook