Fintech One-on-One: Jacob Haar, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Community Investment Management (CIM)

11/14/23 • 37 min

There has been endless talk in fintech over the past year and a half about the pullback from equity investors and how difficult it is to raise money in this environment. Less is being talked about the debt investment landscape.

So, I wanted to bring Jacob Haar, Founder and Managing Partner of Community Investment Management (CIM), back on the show (he was previously a guest in 2015 and 2020). He has been a debt investor in fintech for almost a decade now and he has deep experience with fintech lending not just in the United States but increasingly around the world.

In this podcast you will learn:

How he describes CIM today.
How the pandemic played out for them.
What areas of fintech he finds most interesting today.
What countries he is focused on.
Examples of some recent deals CIM has closed.
The size of the typical debt facilities they provide.
The factors CIM considers today when making an investment decision.
Why they decided to move outside small business lending.
How their investors view impact versus a financial return.
How the deal between Camino Financial (podcast here) and Fundation (podcast here) came together.
Jacob's thoughts on transparency in small business lending and the regulatory movement there.
Some of the key milestones that fintech lending has reached in the past 10 years.
Why he is optimistic about the next decade.

Connect with Jacob on LinkedIn
Connect with Community Investment Management on LinkedIn

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

Tweet me @PeterRenton
Connect with me on LinkedIn
Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

In this podcast you will learn:

How he describes CIM today.
How the pandemic played out for them.
What areas of fintech he finds most interesting today.
What countries he is focused on.
Examples of some recent deals CIM has closed.
The size of the typical debt facilities they provide.
The factors CIM considers today when making an investment decision.
Why they decided to move outside small business lending.
How their investors view impact versus a financial return.
How the deal between Camino Financial (podcast here) and Fundation (podcast here) came together.
Jacob's thoughts on transparency in small business lending and the regulatory movement there.
Some of the key milestones that fintech lending has reached in the past 10 years.
Why he is optimistic about the next decade.

Connect with Jacob on LinkedIn
Connect with Community Investment Management on LinkedIn

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

Tweet me @PeterRenton
Connect with me on LinkedIn
Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Previous Episode

Fintech One-on-One: Eric Shoykhet, Founder & CEO of Link Money

Trillions of dollars is spent on credit and debit cards every year in the US. These payments are all processed on one of the most expensive card processing networks in the world, costing merchants tens of billions of dollars. Account-to-account payments, otherwise known as pay-by-bank, is yet to take off in this country but it does have the potential to put some of these card processing dollars back in merchants' pockets.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Eric Shoykhet, the founder and CEO of Link Money. His company has built the infrastructure needed to bring scale to pay-by-bank in this country. After we recorded this conversation there were several big announcements in this space, so it looks like 2024 could be a big year for pay-by-bank.

In this podcast you will learn:

The founding story of Link Money.
Why the US has the highest card processing costs in the world.
How Link Money's pay-by-bank offering works.
The data access partners they are using.
Why this is not an established payment option in the US yet?
The different components that Link Money needed to develop.
The coverage they have of the total number of deposit accounts.
How you get consumers to adopt this new payment method.
Where this makes the most sense for potential merchants.
How Eric looks at the competitive payments rails in the U.S.
Why pay-by-bank will be part of digital wallets.
The challenges Link Money needs to overcome to be successful.
His vision for the future of retail payments.

Connect with Eric on LinkedIn
Connect with Link Money on LinkedIn

Connect with Fintech One-on-One:

Tweet me @PeterRenton
Connect with me on LinkedIn
Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Next Episode

Fintech One-on-One: Laura Kornhauser, Co-Founder & CEO of Stratyfy

The use of machine learning models in underwriting for consumer loans has been around for more than a decade. While fintech clearly took the lead here it has really only been the last couple of years where traditional lenders are engaging with this technology. While these AI/ML models are different from the Generative AI craze that has embraced the business world in the past year, this phenomenon has certainly helped with awareness.

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Laura Kornhauser, the CEO and Co-Founder of Stratyfy. Her company is on a mission to enable greater financial inclusion for people while also helping financial institutions better manage and mitigate risk. They do that by implementing their advanced AI models and, of course, through the dedication of their people.

In this podcast you will learn: