Venture capital group Team8 has launched Team8 Fintech, a practice focused on founding and scaling startups in the sector.

It will be led by former Leumi Group chief executive Rakefet Russak-Aminoach, Payoneer founder Yuval Tal, and eToro founder Ronen Assia. Galia Beer-Gabel, a former head of business development for PayPal, is also joining Team8 Fintech as part of the founding team.

Team8 Fintech will create both business-to-business and business-to-consumer companies "that empower industry players with new technologies and new business offerings to ensure they stay relevant and gain a competitive advantage".

For established FinTechs, typically offering niche solutions, Team8 Fintech promised to create companies that enhance their value propositions with more diverse and robust capabilities and broaden their business models.

The practice will also target non-financial companies with significant customer bases and relevant customer touch points where a financial service offering may be beneficial.

It will leverage Team8’s 'foundry model' of company building, partnering with entrepreneurs to co-found new companies, bringing together its domain expertise to mitigate the complexity of building companies within highly regulated and fragmented market. It will also have access to the group’s in-house team of researchers, marketers, business developers and talent recruiters based in New York and Tel Aviv.

“The financial industry is facing a perfect storm, with inevitable changes and advancements already underway - understanding the challenges and complexities of incumbents or other enterprises to innovate from within, my passion is to build the type of companies I would have wanted to collaborate with in my previous role as CEO of a bank," commented said Rakefet Russak-Aminoach, managing partner of Team8 Fintech.

Nadav Zafrir, managing partner of the Team8 Platform, added: “Assembling this all-star team is a rare event and is gearing us with the talent, gravitas and exceptional leadership skills to build transformative FinTech companies."

Team8 Group currently operates Team8 Enterprise, a foundry vehicle that builds cyber and data companies, and Team8 Capital, an investment vehicle that funds existing startups across Team8’s areas of expertise.

Share Story: