XA Podcast 027 | Two Sides Of The Startup Investing Table

In this episode, a little reminiscent of a Shark Tank investing recap, we bring together a founder and their investor to hear both sides of the investment story. Why did the founder, Damien, choose the XA Network and what value did he get from it? And what did Keemin, the investor, see in iPiD to make him want to invest? Plus, get a peek into the problem that they are solving and how it’s going so far.

Discussion Topics: Two sides of the startup investing table

• iPiD and how it is making cross-border payments easier and more fool-proof for institutions.
• Genesis of the idea and why they are the best people to solve it.
• Their journey so far.
• Fundraising and the value of the XA Network beyond money.
• The way forward.
• Keemin’s journey as a long-time angel investor in Singapore.
• How he sources deals and his portfolio allocation to angel investing.
• How he selects deals and the reasons he joined the XA Network.
• Why he invested in iPiD and how he is able to help them.

Transcript: Two sides of the startup investing table

Michele Ferrario: Okay, Damien. So iPiD is making global payments simple, secure, and seamless. What does that mean?

Damien Dugauquier: So first, let me start by explaining what does the name means iPiD. So iPiD stands for International Payments Identity. And our vision, mission at iPiD is to make international payments, cross border payments, as easy, as simple, as secure and as seamless as domestic payments in short, I’ll go more into the details later. But that’s essentially what we do.

Michele Ferrario: So I understand the problem you’re trying to solve. How are we trying to solve it?

Damien Dugauquier: Great question. And let me try to make it quite simple. Even though it’s about technology, it’s in the background. But let me try to explain quite simply. First of all, let me say what we don’t do. We don’t move money. We’re not another payment company that tries to make payments faster and cheaper. That’s not what we do. We focus on those overlays services, the value added services. And we basically interconnect them on a global basis. How do we do that? We do that through essentially two API’s. One that is a validated API. So it’s a bank account validation API. And the second one that we call a Fetch API it’s an API to do the proxy resolution. So essentially, to call our API with a mobile number, and we respond with the banking details. And the way that those API’s work is that we have a platform with two sides. On the one side, we have data providers. So these are partners that we work with so that they can respond to our API calls. So we call a partner with banking details, they can say, yes, the banking details are correct, or no, these are not correct, or it looks like it’s correct, but maybe the name is not the perfect match. So on the one side, the supply side, the data partners, the other side, all the data consumers, so institutions, we don’t work directly with individuals. So if you are involved in cross border payment, as a corporate, as a FinTech, as a bank, and you want to improve your customer experience, you want to reduce failed payments, and you want to reduce fraud risks then you should be calling us Yes.

Michele Ferrario: Sounds good. And so if I think about what, for instance, the Singapore government has done for local payments, where there is something called PayNow where the fact that I can send you money, by simply knowing your phone number, is the vision to do something like that on a global scale?

Damien Dugauquier: Exactly and more, I would say, and that’s essentially what we want to enable. But so let me take first a step back on the payment landscape in general, to see really where we fit in that global payment landscape. So when we looked at iPiD, at the payment space, we felt that actually 90% of the innovation has already happened. So the pieces of the puzzle exist, in terms of what constitutes a good payment experience. So as a customer, what is a good payment experience, we believe that all the innovation has already been invented somewhere in the world. So it’s all about adoption, now creating more adoption, and making sure that all those solutions are being rolled out everywhere and available to everyone everywhere. So what is a good payment experience. And let me first mention that when I talk about payments, I’m not talking about credit card transactions, I’m really focusing on what we call push payments. So let’s say I want to pay you Michele, or I want to pay a supplier as a business. So I’m talking about those kinds of things. So push payments. So what makes a good experience, essentially, are two things, two components for a good payment experience. Number one, the money the payment must move fast and cheap, from my account to your account, for instance, the first problem to solve. And that must happen domestically and cross borders. And that problem has been solved domestically, in most markets with the new generation of instant payment systems and cross border, it is being solved by a lot of existing players and new actors that are really focusing on that problem moving money faster and cheaper. That’s the first component.

The second component of what makes a good payment experience is everything that comes on top of fast and cheap payments. So it’s all the value added services, which we also call Overlay Services on a payment system. One value added service that we all know is PayNow. So this ability to pay based on the mobile number, but that’s not the only one, actually is our four overlay services that have really transformed our experience as customers. So one is this one proxy addressing or paying through a mobile number. Second, is Bank Account Validation. So simply being able to when you put an account number, so you still pay to an account number, especially B2B payments are still paying based on account numbers. But then having this ability to confirm to verify that the account number is correct, the account is open and the account actually belongs to the person that you want to pay. So that’s another overlay service, a value added service that exists in many markets. It is also growing in adoption, it is still missing in countries like Singapore, that’s probably something that we should think about as the Singapore payment system. And so that’s the second example of overlay service. The third one is QR payments. And the last one is a request to pay. And so these four Overlay Services that are not about moving money, but moving data, the problem is that they’ve transformed the domestic payment experience. But as soon as you go cross border, you don’t enjoy it anymore.

Michele Ferrario: Yeah, it becomes costly and it becomes expensive and it becomes complex. And actually, you mentioned the ability to make sure you’re paying the right account. So there is a secure topic, or there is an issue of fraud, I guess, or mistakes, simply speaking, is that also an area of attention for you guys?

Damien Dugauquier: Absolutely. So maybe I can use two example two customer stories. So one example of paying through mobile number is, so here in Singapore, I’m receiving payments based on mobile number every day. But if my mom in Belgium wants to send me money for my birthday, she cannot just put my Singapore mobile number in her banking app in Belgium to send a payment. So that’s the first problem that we want to solve is to enable that it is the same experience for my mom when she’s in Belgium, and she uses her whatever app and she wants to pay me in Singapore. So first problem to solve. And that’s really about the customer experience, making sure for her giving her the confidence that she’s paying the right account, so preventing failed payments, and so forth. So first problem to solve. Second big problem to solve is, indeed, around Account Validation like you’ve mentioned. I was talking to someone, actually, last week, who moved from Indonesia to Singapore, in Indonesia, there is an Account Validation solution, meaning that when you go on your bank app, you put an account number, and then it will show you the name of the recipient, which is great in terms of confidence. So you know that you’re paying the right person, you know that you’re not a victim of fraud. If you pay an invoice, you’re sure that you will actually pay your supplier and not someone else, because the invoice has been intercepted and someone has changed it.

Michele Ferrario: I’ve always had that worry when I type the account number or in the European you know, there is the long iban and I’m like, am I missing at 0 7, here a 6 there, I’m sending the money to somebody else. So I know that feeling.

Damien Dugauquier: And so there’s two things here. One is a mistake. An iban is such a long string of characters, you might make a mistake, and then the money might go somewhere else. Because you might not know and most people don’t know, domestic payments are purely credited based on the account number. What I mean with that is, there is no name check. So if you want to pay John Doe, but by mistake, you put the iban of Caroline, the payment will go to Caroline even though the bank will receive a payment instruction with the name of John Doe. So there is no name check. In domestic environments, there is no name check so the payments can actually go to the wrong account. And that might just be a mistake. But there is also fraud and fraud is increasing which is why in Europe, there is a pre regulation that aims to mandate that account validation to protect customers. So to avoid that, indeed, someone into certain invoice just changes, the account number still needs the right name of the supplier, but then again, the payment goes to the wrong person.

Michele Ferrario: Make sense. So let me take a step back where the idea came from?

Damien Dugauquier: So for me, my entrepreneur journey is maybe a bit different from others, meaning that it didn’t start from an idea. It started from me as I would say an individual wanting to be an entrepreneur and wanting to move out from my corporate life. And so I sort of followed the sequential approach. I say, Okay, I want to be an entrepreneur, because I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Step two is I don’t want to do it alone. I need to have a team with me. So then I brought together my co-founders, essentially, people with a lot of experience in the payment space, cross border payments space, as well as people with entrepreneurial experience. Then with the team, we started to brainstorm so what are the gaps still in the payment space? And that’s where we have identified this idea.

Michele Ferrario: You obviously know a lot about payments. So can you tell me briefly where your experience comes from? I mean, I know you spend a lot of time with Swift but maybe where you and your team experience come from?

Damien Dugauquier: So indeed, we spent probably collectively as a founding team around the century, several 100 years in cross border payments, and mostly at Swift, Thomson Reuters as well. And that’s where actually we gain a pretty good understanding of how payments work and sort of what are the missing links in the payment space. So myself, around 15 years at Swift, a couple of years in Europe, covering Europe, Middle East and Africa, then I moved around 10 years ago to Singapore and I’ve covered the region here. I was always wondering about the data side. So I have a decent knowledge about the data requirements to make payments work. So we have one of our co-founder, Geertjan Van Bochove, who spent a couple of years at Swift but then also became an entrepreneur. So he’s bringing that experience of building and running and growing a company based in the Netherlands. So we’re a very global team, which is important for what we are building. So Geertjan is one of the co-founder, we had as well, Eddie Haddad. Eddie spent many years in the cross border payment space at Swift. And then prior to that he was the managing director for Thomson Reuters in APEX, also experienced in the FX space. And lastly, Suhaila who was our founding partner who joined us very early on. And so he used to run, basically, Business Development globally for Swift, more than 10 years in the executive committee at Swift. So really long experience in space.

Michele Ferrario: You started the company in November 2021. How was the journey so far?

Damien Dugauquier: Exciting. I would say the funny thing about starting a business is that it starts with nothing, which is a big difference with a corporate life where you typically take a job and something already exists, and then you’re in charge of running it, of growing it. But there is something as an entrepreneur, you start with nothing. So for us, the first step was really validating the idea and finding the right path to go in life. And I would say the first problem, or the biggest problem that we had to solve is, as we call it in the industry, solving the cold start problem, because our business is essentially a platform business. We’re a network business where we need data consumers, so we need institutions on one side. And then we also need data responders. So we need partners on the other side, to make the platform work. And the big challenge to make platform business work is to start the platform, to start the network. So solving the cold start problem was the main challenge that we had. And I would say that’s also the biggest success of what I probably take the most pride in is that we found a way to solve that cold start problem by working with aggregators, who can then through one single integration give us a very wide coverage in terms of first actually a bank account validation service. So we’ll be able to validate around 1 billion bank accounts by the end of the year and through a couple of aggregators.

Michele Ferrario: Amazing. And so, how big is the team now? And what are those people doing? I mean, what do you think about it?

Damien Dugauquier: So we have around a bit more than 15. In the company, we have a pretty large sales team, business development team, because, as I mentioned, it’s all about the platform. So we need to bring people on the platform. We also have a pretty big IT team, a tech team and then the other functions are product management, support, communication and so forth.

Michele Ferrario: Fantastic. And so one of the things that obviously entrepreneurs have to go through in the early phase of the life of the company, and actually even later is fundraising, you know, how do you find the, how you do make sure that you have enough money to start building the product and then starting to commercialise it. So obviously, we are talking because as XA and StashAway, we have invested in your company, but maybe can you tell us a little bit who you raise money from? What do you think about it, and kind of where are you on that journey?

Damien Dugauquier: I mean, fundraising was probably the thing that I was the least familiar with starting as an entrepreneur, and running a business building a business I think we’ve been there before as well. We have some guesses. But raising money is a very new thing, completely new thing. Thankfully, I never had to really ask for contacts. It was always people coming to us, saying are we interested, can we have a conversation? So that made I think things easier. On the other hand, what made things much more complicated was the macro environment. So we did a small round in Q1 of 2022. The climate was good at that time. And then we were doing a second round or seed round in Q3 so June, July, essentially. And that’s when the market turned really. And probably a second success that I feel quite proud of is that we’ve managed to close a sizable round in this environment where very few FinTechs were able to close around. So for that last round, the seed round, that’s the round where the XA Network and StashAway participated in. So we have investors that we’re proud of investors like Jungle Ventures, here in Singapore, investors, like Rapid Ventures so a payment FinTech that invests in you is always a testimonial that we’re solving a meaningful problem, I guess. And Resolution Venture 1982 Ventures. So really, investors that focus on FinTech and know the space well, and that’s what we were looking for. So Smart Capital, not just money, but people who can help afterwards.

Michele Ferrario: So let me actually double down on that. So obviously, again, an amazing feat actually you are raising money this year. I know it was a difficult year for everyone. But I also know that you had multiple parties that wanted to invest, and you had to pick and choose, which is a great place to be. So why did you decide to accept XA’s interest and accept XA’s money? I know, it’s an Angel Network so it is obviously writing smaller cheques than maybe some of the other names you mentioned. But you still decided to allow XA to come in. Why was that?

Damien Dugauquier: So it’s true, we weren’t in that fortunate position where we had to say no, or we could say no, it’s never fun to say no, but it’s better than not being able to invest. So why do we accept the XA network? I think there are two reasons. One is, it’s really a network of angels. And to be honest, I love working with angels, we have several angels in the companies that are probably the most useful investors, very genuinely wanting to help a lot of empathy, usually coming from angels as well. And I felt that through the XA network, so when we had that meeting, where we were pitching, which was actually more than a pitch, it was a discussion with those founders, and almost half of the conversation was more about them asking how can we help you, which is really the kind of conversation you want to have. So small capital, and having people who genuinely want to help was definitely a plus. The second element is the partnership with StashAway. And I’m not saying that because you’re obviously the CEO of StashAway, but I am a StashAway customer. And I actually find that a really good proposition that as a small investor, I can invest in startups and I don’t have to do all the work of finding the startups and I don’t have to put all my eggs in one basket. So I think that that’s great. So I like that as well.

Michele Ferrario: Thank you for that. And actually, you know, iPiD has been one of the first time angel investments we’ve done with the StashAway program as part of the kind of collaboration with XA network, and I’m very proud of that as well. So maybe let’s fast forward to today and maybe look a little bit ahead. So where are you in practice, if I understand correctly, you have built the kind of the initial product, you have built the team, you have a tech and engineering team, you have a business development team, you’ve been kind of able to solve some of the initial issues, you’ve raised some money that kind of enables you to keep building and keep running. What’s going to happen in the next three to six months?

Damien Dugauquier: What is next, really, in the coming weeks is that we will be live with our first partners. And when I say partners, I mean these institutions that are able to validate for us banking details in specific countries. And so through those partners, as I mentioned, we’ll be able to validate around 1 billion bank accounts worldwide. So we’ll go live with that side of the platform in the coming weeks. And then in Q1 so we already have our first customers who will essentially have signed expressive commitments to go live as data consumers. And so that’s for early Q1 of next year. So that’s what’s next going live with both sides of the platform.

Michele Ferrario: Amazing. Maybe one last question. Fast forward five years, what’s your vision?

Damien Dugauquier: So coming back to what’s the problem that we’re solving, as I mentioned, we feel that 90% of the innovation is already there. And it’s all about usage, essentially. And so those four services that I mentioned, so proxy addressing, paying through a mobile number, bank account validation, and request to pay QR payments. So what we want to enable is that these four services are available everywhere, domestically, and cross border. And so we want to be that platform that connects all those Overlay Services, without moving money, so we partner with all the banks, the payment companies, because we don’t move funds. So we provide that platform that interconnects those value added services globally. And then we can do even more things on the back of that. Fast forward, we want to be that API call that any payment FinTech or bank does before doing a transaction to get the data, validate the data, identify the most efficient route, and so forth. So we want to be almost like booking.com, if you wish for cross border transactions, where we offer all those services without moving money, like booking.com doesn’t operate hotels. But I use booking.com every time I travel.

Michele Ferrario: Make sense. That sounds like a very big vision. And to be honest, I’m obviously an angel investor through as the client and not independently. And now the more I talk to you, the more I think that I wish I invested more. Well, it is early days, I’m happy to be a small shareholder, and hopefully it will be part of a successful journey. Thank you so much. So Keemin, fantastic having you here. So you are a lawyer. You’ve been kind of in a mature tech company Netflix for quite a bit of time. How did you go into angel investing?

Keemin Ngiam: Yeah, so the angel investing part of my life started before Netflix. So before Netflix, I was a large international law firm, first in Los Angeles and then I moved to Singapore about 10 years ago. And what happened was that I found myself working with clients who are institutional investors, PE funds, VCs, and also ultra-high net worth individuals, as well. And by working with them working on their deals is how I kind of got exposed to the startup ecosystem, venture capital. And I find it really, really interesting, because a lot of times, especially about the early stage deals, it was an investment based on a little bit of diligence, but really a lot of conviction, and I found it really interesting to kind of talk to these founders understand their product, and I kind of see how they were trying to change the world, and trying to solve a problem. So that’s kind of what was my first exposure. It took me a while before I started making my own investments separately. But I probably started that 15 plus years ago, maybe.

Michele Ferrario: And how did you source your deals? You know, everybody I talked to said, hey, it’s impossible to find a good deal. So this is gonna be early days, how did you find deals?

Keemin Ngiam: This was early days, this was before there were like, significant angel investing that works in Southeast Asia, a lot of it was just word of mouth, you know, so you know, someone who’s a founder, who is looking for some money, they make an introduction, you have a phone call, but it was very, very tedious, and honestly, when you’re working a full time job, but you’re trying to do this, as a passion project, you only have so much time that you can devote to it. So I would maybe meet three founders a year, and I would do like one investment. So it was just really, really tiny, and honestly, it was not really a great way to do angel investing, I’ll be honest with you, just because ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, what you want to do is you want to diversify your bets across a larger portfolio. If you just make three investments, your success rate is probably not going to be very high, it is definitely not going to be 33%.

Michele Ferrario: Absolutely, that’s exactly what I say in our especially Academy course, on angel investing Hey, you want diversification, so 100% aligned on it. Now, let me maybe ask you one more question, taking a few steps back. So angel investing is obviously only one part I’m assuming of your overall investment exposure, I hope.

Keemin Ngiam: Absolutely.

Michele Ferrario: How’d you think about it as part you know, is it you have like a percentage target what X percent of your money to be exposed to Angel investing?

Keemin Ngiam: Yeah. So I think anyone who is considering angel investing, who is the startup you have to recognize and know that like, this is high risk. I can’t read the latest figures are but the reality is that maybe like one in 10 startups will succeed, like, you don’t really get the Ubers and the Googles every single day, they happen every now and then but they are really, really small or they’re really, really in the minority. Most startups actually fail. And so it’s very high risk. I think one thing that anyone’s angel investing needs to recognize is that your money could go to zero, all of your angel investing money could go to zero, and you have to be prepared to accept that. So for that reason, I personally don’t put in more than 5 to 10%, 10% tops. And it gets a bit hard, because like, when I hit that, as I have to stop here. I love these companies. In terms of the bigger picture diversification, you know, just sound financial thinking, I have to stop here, which can be quite hard. I did it for a couple of reasons. Number one is because I just love helping founders, so I am really excited when I find people who have a dream, and they’re chasing, like, yeah, that’s great. And when I can add some value, and I would love to be a part of that story, I’d love to get to know these people and get to work with them. So that’s one. The other thing honestly, is that because the payoff is higher, or potentially it could be higher, the failure rate is much higher. But if you had one Uber in your portfolio, or if you were an early investor in Facebook, or Google, depending how much you put in, your return could be 1000 or more. And so, if that is an appropriate size of your portfolio, it can make a statistically significant difference to your overall wealth. That being said, you should never they come to the pie in the sky, like, oh, it’s all going to work out great. Let me put all my money in, right? I think it’s very important to diversify, just put in some percentage that you can accept losing.

Michele Ferrario: Yeah. And as always, I like the way you frame it. So 5 to 10%, max, very diversified. And kind of swinging for the fences, meaning that you need that outliers and your portfolios are the ones that actually will make the difference. Fantastic. So now, at a certain point in the last few years, you join XA network, it’s a network of tech leaders that operate in Southeast Asia. Why did you join them? And how did that change the way you think about angel investing?

Keemin Ngiam: So I joined XA Network, probably the year before the pandemic. So was it 2019 around there or so or maybe early 2020. I don’t remember the exact date. But I joined XA because it solved the problem for me, which was how do I find these angel investment opportunities. And the great thing about the XA network is that it’s all tech leaders, tech execs across Southeast Asia, lots of experience, they know what they’re doing. And they’re very, very extensive network. So as a single person, you can only know so many people, you never know who’s only so large, but when you join an angel investment network like XA, you multiply that by like 100, let’s say, and then suddenly, your network basically spreads across all of Southeast Asia, in fact, sometimes even beyond right to AIPAC in the larger world, and you’re able to just have a much larger pipeline. The other thing as well is that XA actually has people who will actually do those initial sit down conversations with the founders of due diligence. And then they’ll put it forward to the network. So there’s really a bit of a filter built in. So it’s not like, you’ve got 100 opportunities a year that you need to go talk to them individually. It’s like, you’ve got 100 opportunities a year that I’ve already been vetted by a couple of XA people XA members, and employees who say, okay, look, you know, here is everything to know, we have a call, or here’s a video interview with the founders. If there are any questions together, they’ll pass them on, give you the answers. And so it just really kind of simplifies things, for the angel investors really makes it a lot easier. The other thing as well is that honestly, when you’re looking for angel investments, the founders hate fundraising, founders hate talking to people over and over again, explaining the problem, how they’re going to solve it, who the team is. And it gets really, really complicated and a headache for them and a distraction, honestly, they have to manage too many investors. And so, as an angel investor, the beauty of XA is that when there’s a pool of you, number one, your overall average ticket size can be a bit larger, which makes them more willing to talk to you. Second is, like, you have this concentration of experience of expertise, connections to large tech companies. So, throughout the region, people who’ve done it before other founders. And that makes it also easier for the doors to open for them to sometimes even be willing to take a smaller minimum commitment than they would for any other investor. So that put together I think, like some of the benefits of XA, I could go on, but.

Michele Ferrario: No, no, absolutely not. I understand it. And look, I’ve gone through a similar journey myself, you know, I’m also an XA member, and I also was doing some angel investing before that. And so your pipeline of deals kind of, I guess, increases significantly once you join the network. I mean, that’s also what happened to me. So how do you now think about selection? So now you’re exposed to many more deals, but I’m assuming that you’re kind of the minimum ticket have just reduced a little bit meaning either instead of having a ticket of 25, 30 $50,000, or maybe 10 to 20, if you want to, but still, it’s not obvious that you can afford to invest in every deal or it may be 20 a year or something like that. So how do you decide which ones to invest in?

Keemin Ngiam: So I think the basic criteria for I can say, for all angel investors, I think for many angel investors are number one, like, do you understand the problem, and do you agree with the problem statement, do you think yes, this actually is a problem that’s worth solving, do you think that the founders, the startup actually has the potentially a right solution for it, do you believe in the problem and the solution that they’re proposing. So conviction around that. I think, is also conviction around the founders, because you can have a very clear problem statement, a good attempt to try and solve it. But the founding team may not be right. They don’t have the right experience; they may not have the right temperament. I guess it’s hard being a startup founder. And so the other thing about that is just like, okay, like, do I believe in the problem trying to solve and this solution that they’re proposing, and then do I believe in founders, those to me are probably the two biggest ones.

Michele Ferrario: And as part of this, you mentioned earlier that in practice, as a member, you get access to usually a call with the founders, or a video recording of that. And there is a little bit of a number of XA members to gather are looking at an opportunity. Do you find it helpful to have a different perspective? Can you give us an example how you think about it, and the input from other members how that influences your thinking?

Keemin Ngiam: Absolutely. It’s a huge help. So I think for every angel investor, who comes to an opportunity, you work with, what data you have you personally have, or whatever experiences and knowledge that you have. And for me, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know everything. I have not encountered every problem out there. And there’s a lot that I don’t know. But I think the benefit of something like the XA network is that it brings you together with other people with different backgrounds, different experiences, different companies, and different industries. And then what happens a lot of times is that we’ll get together after we’ve kind of reviewed the recording or the interview of a founder, and then we’ll discuss the opportunity, what do we think about the problem statement, with the solution, the people, who else do we know is in the space, what do we think the prospects are? And this really good, rich discussion and sometimes it’s validating, like, people would be like, they agree with the way that you think about it. And sometimes it’s challenging, because actually, I disagree. And I believe that this actually, is a 10X kind of thing. I think it is even bigger than they think. And so it’s really interesting to get all these diverse perspectives from people. And I think, to me, when I’m making a decision, that’s a way to get more data, more perspectives, and ultimately, I’m still the decision maker, I need to decide like, Okay, well, am I going to do it or not? But I think having all of this other high quality data, I will call it that is really helpful. Because you know, this data comes from people who are angel investors themselves. They’ve been in tech, they’ve been in startups, they’ve been founders, they know what they’re talking about. And so when you get together, it appears like that. I think, ultimately, it does make my decisions better.

Michele Ferrario: That’s good and similar to my experience, to be honest, and kind of being able to leverage some of the collective knowledge, for instance, you having a legal background, I’m sure there is a number of discussions where people look at you and say, hey, there might be some legal complications in this journey. What do you think about it? So how do you apply everything you said so you’re an investor in iPiD. And how did you apply some of your screening criteria to the iPiD opportunity, and why did you ultimately decide to invest?

Keemin Ngiam: So iPiD, it’s a really good luck, because for me, I immediately identified with the problem that they’re trying to solve, because if you have ever tried to make a Wire or money transfer across borders, and you have to deal with banking interfaces that were built in the 1990s, you just know how painful they can be. You have to put in the ISBN number and the account number, and then you have the validation. A lot of times, the bank will call me back and say, like, we just need to further confirm. It’s so, so painful, and when Damien and GJ, the two of the founder’s kind of presented the problem, I was like, yes, that is the problem. I agree, I have experienced that problem, and then I propose the solution. I said imagine a world where like, it’s as easy as putting someone’s phone number and you know that the iPiD system does all the lookup for you, it validates the account details and you’re done. You don’t need to know the person’s bank number to make a wire transfer, their mobile number will do or conversely, it could be an email, it could be any kind of unique identifier tied to that person that exists in one of their financial institution systems that iPiD can call it can verify that yes, this is the person You know, they’ll come back to you and say, hey, you’re about to make a transfer to Michele, do you want to proceed? And I say, Yes, that was so much easier. They ask you, what’s your bank? And what’s your correspondence address, and, you know, like, six or seven different fields, there it just takes so much time, and it’s so inefficient. So, for me, it was like, I got the problem. I love the solution. And I heard the founders are great. They were people who have been in the industry, they are longtime veterans, they put together a phenomenal team. So they know what I’m talking about. They have the experience to solve it. And I really appreciate it, how they kind of talk to and present it, their strategy for going to market, they’re not going to try and concrete all at once, but a little bit at a time. And so for me, I saw the problem, I love the solution. So I had conviction around that. I think it’s going to be a great product when it launches. And I agree conviction on the founders as far as I’m willing to put my money and bet on these people. They have lots of experience in what you’re talking about. They’re very down to earth and grounded, they know what they need to do. And it’s like, okay, good. I’m going to back them.

Michele Ferrario: Fantastic. And so probably understand the solution that you like, and also you’re going to be like the steps, a team that you think can actually get it done from a number of perspectives. I agree that’s also the way I thought about it. Now, maybe let me flip the topic for a second. You know, I’ve also had an interview with Damien, and I was asking him, you had multiple people that wanted to invest in a company, and why did you decide to accept XA money? And one of his answers was, because I think I can get some more help. And you know, this is not just money. It’s more than that. How did you help iPiD in any way?

Keemin Ngiam: So I think with Damien, I think, number one, he’s a great guy. I really love working with him. He’s a first time founder. So he’s never found a company before. And he’s extremely smart. He’s done a lot of his diligence and his research. But I think the value that we were able to add in XA, and it’s not just me, but it’s a network as a whole, because we did tap other people in the network to help with certain specific things. But as a whole, we’re able to bring strategic advice to him into the company. And I’ll give you a few examples. So one is as he was trying to close out the seed round, so we made a commitment. Statuary came in as well. It was great. But it wasn’t enough, they were looking to raise more funds and so he was talking to different funds and different angels out there. And he will come to me and say, what do you think about such and such, what’s your reputation in the market. And we will talk about, like, how to negotiate and position things, and also to think not just about the seed round, but also Okay, well, what would this impact be on your series A or your series B, if you’re going to give them these rights now, do they understand that these are going to go away when a large investor comes in later. And so kind of helping him navigate that based on the experience that I have, as you know, relatively seasoned and experienced angel investor, and lawyer, I was able to say, okay, like, these are the things that you want to think about. And honestly, he could have gone to any one of the top law firms in town and got in there, but they charged him maybe half of our combined commitment and ticket as FCA and statuary. So he wanted me to give a lot of good strategic advice when he really needed that, like in the midst of that fundraising round, even beyond that, though, operationally, we’ve been able to make introductions. So they want introductions to a couple of FinTechs, who may be potential clients or data providers for them. And so we’re able to help with those introductions just because of the network that we have. And then, I’ve also been able to help them with some of their legal work as well. So you know, I’m a lawyer by training, they needed help like drafting commercial contracts, and figuring out how to structure the relationships. And so that’s where I said, Okay, well, these are skill sets that I have, I’m happy to do it. And so I came in and kind of advised them, have them put the contracts together, and others think strategically about what they were trying to achieve and how best to do it.

Michele Ferrario: Every time I listen to these stories, I’m more and more proud of how we bring this to statutory clients that are now able to kind of follow your investment and kind of informally a kind of leverage your advice to the founders and leverage the fact that you were able to kind of convince founders to accept your investment and therefore stature with investment. Thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed the conversation as I learned quite a few things. And I’m even more excited about the Hey angel program, given the ability to invest with people like you. So, thank you so much once again.

Keemin Ngiam: Yeah. Thank you, Michele.

Our Guest : Damien Dugauquier & Keemin Ngiam 

Damien Dugauquier is the co-founder and CEO of iPiD, a first-of-its-kind service that makes cross-border payments easy by needing only a simple proxy for the payee’s identity. Prior to founding iPiD, he worked at SWIFT and various financial institutions.

Keemin Ngiam is Head of Legal at Netease and was previously Director, Legal at Netflix. He is a long-time angel investor and is one of the investors in iPiD, where he is also serving as a legal advisor.