116: All These Funds | Brian McNulty and FAC

This episode of MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by PAT Fintech, the training partner that demystifies fintech and digital finance for financial services professionals.

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

FAC is a network for launching, distributing and trading digital investment funds, connecting investors, fund managers, and their service providers in a distributed digital ecosystem. Brian just completed the first half of raising FAC’s seed round, and although the fundraising round will stay open until February, Pete Townsend wanted to crystallize this moment in time by capturing it in this episode. For the sake of transparency, Pete is also an advisor to Brian and FAC.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On the core proposition: “We're facilitating the more forward-thinking incumbents to digitalize what they do, improve their services and pass those benefits on to their customers and the end investors.”

On one of the influences for founding FAC: “At R3, we were bringing the buyside into the office, and looking at how the funds industry is still quite antiquated and extremely busy with many layers and intermediaries, but all doing an important job in the current state and all playing necessary roles.”

On the opportunity: “With DLT, we could see the opportunity to collapse those layers, and if everyone shared the same data, then we don't need all the reconciliations and oversight teams. This means we can drive out some of the costs, risks and data lags.”

On the reason for a comprehensive approach: “We know this takes a blend of business, technical and regulatory considerations not only to ensure that it's a real business problem we’re solving, but also that the business model itself stacks up.”

On the context of collaboration: “You’ve got to make sure that you are listening to what the individuals and organizations want and that it’s the right time for them. There may be a time when you need to pull back on the collaboration, and other times you’ll want to push for it.”

On raising capital: “Everyone tells you how much work it is and how it's another job and you hear those words, but you don't really know what it's like until you're close to closing.”

On finding initial investors: “We spent a lot of time sitting up late at night trying to find investors.  I’ve always held the belief that if you can do another 0.001% effort, then do it, and we got an investor from that extra 0.001%, which was a LinkedIn message.  I’m not saying that should be your whole strategy, but I don’t fully buy into the view that you only get investors from warm intros.”

On the guiding forces: “We want to improve the industry – this is not a gimmicky thing - and we want to see that improvement passed on to the end investor and revolutionize the way that the funds industry operates.”

On the team effort: “Fundamentally, it's been a phenomenal journey so far with FAC as a result of the phenomenal team we've got and also some great organizations we're working with, so I’m looking forward to the next phase.”

For more detail on FAC's ongoing seed round, see their recent press release here.

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