Sheel Mohnot says the fintech market is ‘hot again’

Equity

TechCrunch

Founders, Silicon Valley, Finance, Ipo, Vc, Technology, Business News, Startups, Business, Venture Capital, News, Stock Market, Entrepreneurship, Techcrunch

4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“The fintech market is hot again,” said Sheel Mohnot, fintech investor and founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV). “And we are going to see some more exits in the near future.” According to recent reports, fintech funding is on the rise, with global investment hitting $60 billion in the first half of the year alone, marking a significant rebound from the previous year’s dip. Mohnot – whose X account you’ve likely come across if you follow fintech – has invested in over 100 deals throughout the years, primarily in fintech, and co-founded the accelerator program The Mint. On today’s episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Mary Ann Azevedo is catching up with Mohnot to discuss why he thinks fintech is “poised to have a lot of outcomes in the near future,” the potential of AI in fintech, particularly in accounting and underwriting, and highlights the impact of DeepSeek on the AI landscape. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: Mohnot’s journey from founder to investor after co-founding companies like FeeFighters, which sold to Groupon in 2012. Who’s getting it right in 2025? Mohnot highlights players in the accounting automation space such as Basis, Layer, and InScope The optimistic outlook for fintech, with potential IPOs from companies like Chime, Klarna, and Stripe. How Sheel built his impressive online following, and what a Taco Bell metaverse wedding and Justin Bieber have to do with it. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. We’d also like to thank TechCrunch’s audience development team. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is presented by Invest Puerto Rico.
0:03.4	If you believe your business can go anywhere, Puerto Rico is the place.
0:19.4	Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.
0:25.1	I'm Mary Ann Acevedo, and this is the episode where we bring on industry experts to help us hone in on a trend in the tech world and dive deep.
0:33.0	It's my first episode back after being away for a few months.
0:35.9	I'm super excited to be back conducting interviews for equity. months. I'm super excited to be back conducting
0:37.9	interviews for equity. And today, I'm especially excited to be talking to my friend and investor
0:44.6	Sheel and Sheel, I should have asked you this before the recording. It's always tough.
0:50.5	Manat. Easy. Sheel Manat. Yes, thank you. Founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures, FinTech Investor and startup founder.
0:58.7	Shil, welcome to the show. Very excited to have you on. How are you?
1:02.3	I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
1:04.6	Yeah, of course, of course. So last time I saw you was at Disrupt in 2022.
1:09.5	I think we were sitting beside each other at one of those
1:12.1	dinners. Yeah. So it's been a little while, but of course, we've talked plenty since then.
1:16.9	We have lots to cover. We're going to talk about your very interesting background, what you're doing
1:22.0	as an investor, and get your take on AI, among other things. So let's start. You built and sold a company called
1:29.4	Fee Fighters, which I love because I keep thinking of the band Foo Fighters. And that sold to Groupon
1:36.3	in 2012 after only being around for about three years. Yep. Kind of interesting. And then is that
1:43.5	when you became an investor after that?
1:45.8	Yeah, I started investing my own capital after that, but I ended up starting another company
1:49.4	in between called Innovative Auctions. So it was fee fighters, innovative auctions, and then
1:55.0	full-time investing. But I had a little bit of capital after the first exit of fee fighters.
	...

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