Aneesh Varma

Last updated
Aneesh Varma
Born(1984-01-14)January 14, 1984
Education Lehigh University
Occupations
  • Entrepreneur
  • Campaigner
  • Inventor
Parent Yogeshwar Varma

Aneesh Varma is a British-American inventor and known as a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He is best known as the founder of Aire - a fintech company that pioneered the safe usage of machine learning in credit scoring and underwriting. He previously co-founded FabriQate, which went on to be an HSBC Startup Star 2008 & 2009, LDA KC Award 2009, British Council YCE in 2009 and CF500 in 2010. He was featured on the Business Insider 35 under 35 Fintech list in 2018 [1]

Contents

Varma has been a vocal campaigner for financial inclusion. He was educated at Lehigh University, USA studying Engineering and Quantitative Finance. He was recognised by the European Commission as one of 12 Entrepreneur of the Year nominees in 2014 [2] and by the British Council as a Young Entrepreneur 2009 [3] in the technology sector. In 2020 he was named the Technology Innovator of the Year in the Credit Sector [4]

Life

Varma is considered a mathematical prodigy, at age 15 having achieved a perfect score on the Cambridge University course for Advanced Mathematics. [5] He continued his mathematical focus at university, completing the entire PhD coursework during his bachelor's degree.[ citation needed ]

Varma is a Lehigh University Martindale Scholar from 2005, publishing his research on Europe's transition to a market-based Financial System. [6]

Career

Varma started his first business at 16 and was involved with startups in his university days. At age 21 he was hired into JPMorgan in New York working on transactions for Financial Technology industry including Visa, Synovus and other consumer finance lenders. He has since built 3 technology companies in the United Kingdom that have scaled overseas including accolades for their work in improving financial inclusion [7]

Varma also serves on the Lehigh University Alumni Association (LUAA) board amongst other non-profit commitments.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accion International</span> International nonprofit organization

Accion is an international nonprofit. Founded as a community development initiative serving the poor in Venezuela, Accion is known as a pioneer in the fields of microfinance and fintech impact investing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen Mills</span> US businesswoman and administrator

Karen Gordon Mills is an American businessperson and former government official who served as the 23rd Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). She was nominated by President-elect Barack Obama on December 19, 2008, confirmed unanimously by the Senate on April 2, 2009, and sworn in on April 6, 2009. During her tenure, her office was elevated to the rank of Cabinet-level officer, expanding her power on policy decisions and granting her inclusion in the President's cabinet meetings. On February 11, 2013, she announced her resignation as Administrator and left the post on September 1, 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aneesh Chopra</span> American executive

Aneesh Paul Chopra is an American executive who served as the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States. He was appointed in 2009 by President Barack Obama and was at the White House through 2012. Chopra previously served as Virginia's Secretary of Technology under Governor Tim Kaine. Chopra was a candidate in 2013 for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. He is the author of Innovative State: How New Technologies Can Transform Government (2014) and co-founder and president of CareJourney. In 2015 he joined Albright Stonebridge Group as a senior advisor.

DueDil is a company intelligence platform covering the SME economy. In August 2021 DueDil merged with Artesian Solutions and subsequently rebranded as FullCircl.

OurCrowd is an online global venture investing platform that empowers institutions and individual accredited investors to invest and engage in emerging technology companies at an early stage while still privately held. Based in Jerusalem, the company launched in February 2013, and has since opened overseas branches in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Spain, Singapore, Brazil, and the UAE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fintech</span> Subset of technologies used in finance

Fintech, a portmanteau of "financial technology", refers to firms using new technology to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services. Artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, and big data are regarded as the "ABCD" of fintech. The use of smartphones for mobile banking, investing, borrowing services, and cryptocurrency are examples of technologies designed to make financial services more accessible to the general public. Fintech companies consist of both startups and established financial institutions and technology companies trying to replace or enhance the usage of financial services provided by existing financial companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">State Fund for Development of IT</span>

The State Fund for Development of İnformation Technologies, operating under the Ministry of Communications and High Technologies of the Republic of Azerbaijan, is an Azerbaijan state organization that stimulates and finances innovation and development in the field of information and communication technology (ICT).

Alastair David Lukies CBE is a British entrepreneur who is involved in mobile communications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cross River Bank</span> American financial services corporation

Cross River is an American financial services organization that provides technology infrastructure to fintech and technology companies. Based in Fort Lee, New Jersey, Cross River services its clients with embedded payments, cards, lending, and cryptocurrency solutions, and is an FDIC member. Cross River is noted for its embrace of the trend in the financial services sector towards API-based payment platform services.

Financial technology is an industry composed of companies that use technology to offer financial services. These companies operate in insurance, asset management and payment, and numerous other industries. FinTech has emerged as a relatively new industry in India in the past few years. The Indian market has witnessed massive investments in various sectors adopting FinTech, which has been driven partly by the robust and effective government reforms that are pushing the country towards a digital economy. It has also been aided by the growing internet and smartphone penetration, leading to the adoption of digital technologies and the rise of FinTech in the country

FinTech Awards are several award ceremonies, most of them unrelated, which are held worldwide to recognize excellence in financial technology as assessed by either a public vote or panels of judges. There are typically many categories, winners and prizes. Hundreds of companies, mostly startups, participate as candidates.

Regulatory technology, Abrv: RegTech, is the use of information technology to enhance regulatory and compliance processes. RegTech is most usefully applied to heavily regulated industries and activities such as financial services, gaming, healthcare, pharmaceutical, energy and aviation. RegTech puts a particular emphasis on regulatory monitoring, reporting and compliance and aims to enhance transparency as well as consistency and to standardize regulatory processes, to remove ambiguity from regulations and provide higher quality outcomes at a lower cost.

Jirnexu Sdn Bhd (Jirnexu) is a Southeast Asian financial technology startup headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The company provides technology to help financial institutions manage different stages of the customer journey: marketing, acquisition, fulfilment and retention. It currently has business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) operations in Malaysia and Indonesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Blomfield</span> British entrepreneur

Thomas Benjamin Blomfield is a British entrepreneur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brandon Timinsky</span> American entrepreneur and public speaker (born 1991)

Brandon Timinsky is an American entrepreneur and public speaker. Brandon co-founded GasNinjas, a fuel delivery startup acquired by Silicon Valley-based Exajoule. Timinsky's previous projects include a digital agency, social media marketing services, two real estate technology platforms, wearables, and an automotive focused e-commerce business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venture capital in Poland</span> Overview of venture capital in Poland

Venture capital in Poland is a segment of the private equity market that finances early-stage high-risk companies based in Poland, with the potential for fast growth. As of March 2019, there is a total of 130 active VC firms in Poland, including local offices of international VC firms, and VC firms with mainly Polish management teams. Between 2009–2019, these entities have invested locally in over 750 companies, which gives an average of around 9 companies per portfolio. The Polish venture market accounts for 3% of the entire European ecosystem of VC investments, mainly in the digital space.

ComplyAdvantage, founded in 2014, is a RegTech company that provides software to help detect and manage risks associated with AML and Fraud. The company uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing to help regulated organisations manage risk obligations and counteract financial crime.

Sir Rohinton Minoo "Ron" Kalifa is a British entrepreneur. He is the chairman of Network International, and formerly served as the chief executive officer of Worldpay Group from 2002 to 2013, continuing as vice chairman. Kalifa was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2018 New Year Honours for his work in financial services and technology. He was later knighted in the 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CIIE.CO</span> Indian startup accelerator

CIIE.CO is an Indian startup accelerator and incubator that supports early-stage startups located at IIM Ahmedabad in Ahmedabad, India. It was founded in 2002 to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in India. It is a Center of excellence set up at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad with support from the Government of India's Department of Science and Technology and the Government of Gujarat.

Fintech in Australia is the evolving intersection of financial services and advanced technology in the Australian market. It involves innovations in banking, investment, insurance, and personal finance, facilitated by technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence.

References

  1. BusinessInsider. "Bio". BusinessInsider. BI. Retrieved 11 June 2018.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  2. "Europioneers2014". European Commission. Europioneers. Archived from the original on 7 November 2014. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  3. "Creative Economy". British Council. British Council. Archived from the original on 7 September 2011. Retrieved 12 September 2011.
  4. 2020 awards. "Awards" (PDF). CreditCollections. CC. Retrieved 11 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. Visiting Executives profile Martindale https://business.lehigh.edu/centers/martindale-center/programs/visiting-scholars-and-executives/
  6. Varma, Aneesh, "Hungary's Transition to a Capital-Market-Based Financial System: Problems and Solutions" (2006). Volume 24 - Transformation in Post-Communist Hungary (2006). https://preserve.lehigh.edu/perspectives-v24/10/
  7. InnovateFinance Profile on Varma. "Bio". InnovateFinance. IF. Retrieved 13 May 2021.