Jeff Bussgang is General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners, an early-stage VC firm with offices in Boston and New York. Jeff is currently a board member at FinTech startups Plastiq and SimpleTuition, as well as at AdTech firm DataXu. He is also a board observer at ZestFinance. He blogs at Seeing Both Sides.
A few quick answers from Jeff:
Q. At Flybridge, you have a good number of FinTech firms in the portfolio. Is this explicitly an area of emphasis for Flybridge and for you personally going forward?
A. Yes. See: http://bostonvcblog.typepad.com/vc/2012/06/are-banks-simply-too-big-to-innovate.html.
Q. What does Flybridge bring to the table for financial services and financial technology startups?
A. Deep expertise as an entrepreneur (from my Open Market and Upromise background) and investor. Strong network with major industry players.
Q. What stage or stages are you looking to invest in, and how much do you typically invest?
A. Seed ($500k-$1m) and Series A ($2-5m). See: http://www.slideshare.net/flybridgecapital/flybridge-overview.
Q. What trends are you seeing in financial services and financial technology that entrepreneurs can take advantage of? Which sectors are you avoiding?
A. See my blog post: http://www.inc.com/jeff-bussgang/disrupting-the-banking-industry.html.
Q. Flybridge passed on a few algorithmically-driven online investment firms in the past few years. What are your thoughts on this space today? Some of the leading firms have recently attracted significant expansion capital.
A. Don’t love the space.
Q. Do you think the Boston ecosystem could support a dedicated FinTech accelerator?
A. Yes. And one is forming, as you probably know!
