EP6: Jim Brusstar, founder Treasury Prime ($31.5m Series B), on being early to fintech, how banks work under the covers, building APIs to connect banks to fintechs, and why fintech has tons of headroom to grow

Paradigm Shift

Conversation with Jim Brusstar, co-founder of Treasury Prime, which is building APIs to connect a network of banks to fintechs. They make it easy for fintechs to partner with the right bank, and reduce the time to market for a neo bank or embedded banking product from years to months.

We cover so many interesting topics in this conversation — starting with being early at Sidecar and lessons learnt from competing with Uber and Lyft, being early to fintech with Standard Treasury which built banking APIs and sold to Silicon Valley Bank, how banks work under the covers, and why he decided to found Treasury Prime (with same mission as Standard Treasury).

We also talk about why Jim is excited about fintech and how most people underestimate how early we are in fintech overall— with lots of headroom for innovation and growth.
Episode Highlights:

1. Why Jim decided to start a company
2. Early days at Sidecar — and inventing ride sharing
3. Sidecar — getting out executed by Lyft and Uber
4. Thanksgiving 2012 — cease and desist to all ride sharing companies
5. Early fintech — building "Banking in a box" APIs at Standard Treasury and being too early
6. Acquisition by Silicon Valley Bank and how banks work under the covers
7. Banking business model (incentives) — buying deposits and selling loans
8. Starting Treasury Prime — with same mission as Standard Treasury
9. Building a network of banks — infra layer with modern APIs + match Fintechs with right bank
10. How infra layers and APIs unlock innovation — reducing time to market from years to months
11. Use cases and business models on top of Banking APIs
12. Benefits of using Treasury Prime to connect with a network of banks
13. Why Fintech is super early — less than 1% of all deposits today and where next gen will bank
14. Thoughts on crypto use cases — international remittences and programatic settlement

Links:

• Read more about Treasury Prime Use Cases and Banking APIs
• Follow Jim on Twitter at @JimBru

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