Embedded finance is a hot buzzword in business because its applications are limitless. It involves integrating financial services—such as payments, lending, or insurance—into non-financial apps, websites, and business processes to create a seamless user experience. It’s how your Uber driver gets paid.
Emmanuel Vallod joined GSR Ventures (gsrventures.com), a global investment firm, to seek opportunities in financial technology, especially embedded finance. The big question he’s seeking to solve: “If you put financial services into a commerce, media, or healthcare platform, can you facilitate business transactions, growth, and user satisfaction?” he says.
Vallod spearheaded GSR’s recent investment in jaris, a Burlingame, California- based company that embeds banking services into the software that small and medium-size businesses use to conduct retail transactions. It gives companies next-day access to loans based on those transactions and other information residing in the software.
He’s also looking for ways embedded finance could make U.S. healthcare more accessible and affordable for consumers. This could be finding cheaper ways to finance elective surgery, which is typically not covered by insurance, or the out-of-pocket costs in high-deductible health plans, which are used by about half the U.S. workforce. Perhaps the most promising application of embedded finance for consumers: finding an efficient way to shop for medical procedures based on price and patients’ feedback.
Vallod says his MFE combined with previous work at traditional firms such as BlackRock gave him a deep understanding of financial and capital markets. “That knowledge makes a critical difference in working with founders on building huge businesses,” he says.