Is fintech getting AI wrong? - A conversation with stealth founder Anouk Moll
After joining Merantix as a founder-in-residence, Anouk recently launched her stealth AI venture working in capital markets.
Anouk Moll joined Merantix as a founder-in-residence last year and quickly began exploring opportunities at the intersection of fintech and AI.
With her intellect, drive, and dynamic background as an entrepreneur and venture builder within ABN AMRO, the large Dutch bank, Anouk impressed us. She has continued to do so as the founder of a stealth fintech venture working in capital markets.
Originally from the Netherlands, Anouk set up shop in the UK but recently stopped by the Merantix AI Campus in Berlin. We sat down for a brief chat about how AI will change the future of banking and how to find the right co-founder (she recently paired up with Richin Kabra as her co-founder and CTO). Check out our edited conversation below.
Can you introduce your background a little bit?
I'm a second-time founder. I started my first company while I was still in University, which was a roller coaster to say the least. Lots of learning, lots of mistakes, and a lot of mistakes I wouldn't make again. After about four years that business, I then ended up in banking for some reason (as one does), working at the internal ventures department of one of the largest banks in the Netherlands and was building out tokenized identity and payment infrastructure within the bank, which was exciting because it exposed me to a whole new set of corporate venture building that I wasn't exposed to before. So it was a great learning curve, but after a couple years I started to get a bit bored. I wanted to build again.
What’s the difference between being a second-time founder and a first-time founder? What have you learned?
The other day I compared it to having a baby. The birthing process is horrible, but you forget how horrible it was so you start doing it over again after a few years. It's quite similar when starting a business. There are ups and downs, but it's almost better that you forget that and that you go in completely naively, full with conviction.
I think the biggest learning was that a co-founder is probably the most important thing. Secondly, getting the right investors on board, because they can make or break your business. You want them to be in your corner. You want them to be as helpful as they can possibly be — or as hands-off as they can possibly be — depending on what the profile is. Thirdly, just having a lot of traction on your product.
What opportunity did you see that drew you to using AI within fintech? What does AI unlock that wasn’t previously possible within our existing financial structures?
The funny thing is that in finance you see a lot of developments in the low-hanging fruit sections, which is like ChatGPT or chatbot automations. The whole customer service-facing side of it, which is relatively easy. The big fish to fry in financial markets and financial services is using the wealth of data that is there and using AI to automate actual core banking processes, core risk processes, and automation flows when it comes to onboarding. The core areas of the business where you have the data stored, but it's not leveraged.
I think there are two sides of the coin why that maybe hasn't happened fully. The biggest one is leaking data pipelines. If you look at the biggest players in the market — the large banks — they don't have centralized data pipelines. As much as they sit on the data, they haven't connected the dots yet to actually use that to the full extent. On the other side, you have fintechs who are very keen to do that, but don't have access to the data.
It's this funny sort of chicken and egg situation. You see a couple of successful examples of people getting access to the data and building an entire product on top of it. I think we are building the infrastructure itself to then get access to the data, and eventually use it to our advantage.
How do you see this evolving in five to ten years, in terms of AI permeating the financial sector?
I think it should have a much bigger role. Already there are so many cumbersome processes in financial markets that can be replaced so easily — “Know Your Business,” “Know Your Customer,” risk checks, anti-money laundering checks, compliance checks — that currently are still being done manually. It's not automated even though the data is there to automate it, but it's also a regulatory question. The regulator needs to get comfortable with deploying AI models in this space.
Fintech is complicated, competitive, and, as you said, a highly-regulated space. How do you successfully break into that world as a startup?
It helps if you have a network. That's something my cofounder and I have realized very early on with the venture that we are building. We both have a really strong network in the space, so you can build on top of those relationships that you already have to build your product out, to build commercial relationships, to do your first hires. That's definitely one of the biggest pieces of advice: start building your network very early on because that will have a huge effect on your early-stage success.
Also, understanding the regulatory environment really well and understanding which regulatory environment you should be in and for what specific product.
How are you thinking about AI regulation itself these days?
For us it's not even the general AI regulations, it's more, “How does a financial regulator look at AI?” I think if you look at the UK financial regulator, they have an AI sandbox so they allow companies to test some of their AI models in a controlled environment with oversight, so the regulator can get comfortable with the idea of what it looks like and how it works.
That’s a really good way to develop something into the market because it's controlled, so you still don't give everyone sort of free reign but at the same time it's not a “no.” It stimulates innovation.
What are exciting applications of AI that you’re seeing in fintech right now, either at the startup or institutional level?
There are a lot of startups in the space around open banking. I think the one thing that open banking gave us was access to a lot of data. Data that used to be locked in within banks.
You recently teamed up with your CTO and cofounder, Richin. He has a really interesting background as a former quantitative trader on Wall Street as well as a senior data scientist at Meta. How did you know it was a match made in heaven?
There are many things where you try to accelerate as much as possible, but that's one where I really took my time. I think it took me five or six months to find the right person. I spoke with close to 100 people. I had a very specific profile in mind of a topic expertise, exposure to different tech ecosystems, but also regulatory ecosystems. More importantly [I mapped out] what I want the person to be like and what cultural mindset they had.
Specifically in fintech there's a lot of toxic work environments. It’s not the most diverse in terms of workforce or accessibility. I think what I wanted to do with my company was very intentionally build a culture around openness, collaboration, and diversity. It was really important having a co-founder with a similar mindset, similar ethical considerations, and a similar way of treating human beings right and with dignity.
When I met Richin back in March, I very early on realized that he was the one I wanted to build this with, but we took our time to explore whether it would work. Across those couple of months we forged a relationship where we’re like, “OK, let’s do this. Let’s go all in and let’s do it.”
You joined Merantix as a founder-in-residence and built your venture with us, and we are very proud to be your partner in this journey. At the risk of being overly self-promotional… Can you say why you decided to work with us and how that has evolved as your venture matures?
It would have been really hard to be where we are today if it wasn't because of Merantix. I don't say that lightly. I think it's because what we're building is particularly hard. It's not easy. It requires a lot of conviction of people backing it, because it's a huge build out. The time to market is really long compared to other maybe easier low-hanging fruit ventures.
What I really like about Merantix is that they're very conviction-driven at an early stage and once they're convinced, they help you in any way possible. It's almost like having a third co-founder when you need a third co-founder. A lot of VCs claim to be that, but they're actually not.
Being part of that network of people who have different levels of expertise in different areas and are trying to excel your business, be next to you, instead of making your life harder. Having that platform to jump off on is I think incredibly valuable.
They're all fun people, so it's nice being part of a fun group of people when you're building so you're not alone.
Thanks for the kind words, Anouk — and thanks for chat!