Fintech (and Baseball) @MotivateVC
Chicago, IL
Joined August 2016
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I dug into the Chicago tech scene going back ~50 years. How many successful tech companies were founded here? Who is behind them? How much value have they generated? I struggled to find good data, so I did some research...
Chicago Tech’s $100M List: docs.google.com/spreadsheets…
Jackson retweeted
🚀 Mesh × Visa. 175 MILLION merchants. One giant leap for the future of money!
Six years ago, I started Mesh with a simple belief: Money should move freely. Anywhere. Anytime.
Today, we’re turning that vision into reality.
Through our groundbreaking partnership with Visa, crypto and stablecoin balances can now become spendable at 175 million merchants worldwide.
No separate card. No cash-out. Just tap and pay.
This isn’t just crypto going mainstream. It’s blockchain and tokenization going mainstream! 🌎
Six years in the making. And this is just the end of the beginning. 🚀
🎤 Unveiling it LIVE on the main stage at Money20/20 today at 10:40am PST!
Mesh and @Visa are partnering to make crypto and stablecoin balances spendable anywhere Visa is accepted: 175M+ merchant locations, straight from the wallet apps people already use.
No separate card. No cash-out. Nothing for merchants to change.
na2.hubs.ly/H08sd-G0
Jackson retweeted
Warehouse robots are here!
Introducing Flexport's newest automated fulfillment center just outside of Chicago.
Jackson retweeted
My most active group chat by a mile is the @btv_vc WhatsApp w/ @iamjakestream, @pitdesi + @nbobba 😅
For the last 12-18 months it's been one long debate about the state of VC, the pre-seed + seed market, and what we should do about it
Sharing some of our thoughts below!
better-tomorrow-ventures.gho…
Jackson retweeted
BTW. If you're in Chicago, right now is a great time to buy tickets to our LIVE show on October 15 events.bloombergevents.com/e…
Jackson retweeted
It's now very obvious that AI assistant companies are fintech companies
Instinct fintech use cases mentioned in this pod:
- subscription audit + cancellation
- set + hit savings goals
- travel booking
- online shopping (fashion)
- smb back office (eg inventory mgmt)
Sick get by @patrick_oshag + cool to hear from @noahrshinn
Got to learn more about Instinct:
- $1B+ in annualized transaction volume while still invite-only, growing 10% a day w/ $0 on marketing (apparently people selling their invites on eBay for $300)
- 50% of that is travel
- 40% of users hand the agent a credit card w/in 3 weeks, + those who share anything sensitive retain at 80%
- Goal is to stay free for life + monetize via a blanket take rate on txns, paid by merchants for distribution
- Compute needs are effectively 2xing every week, new capacity takes months to come online + buying on short notice costs 3-4x, so Noah spends ~40% of his time on compute 🤯
Jackson retweeted
Introducing @Supertake, a new platform that transforms your unique takes on the world into real, shareable investment portfolios using frontier AI and trading agents.
Supertake makes it easy for anyone to invest in their ideas, even if they know nothing about investing.
1/
🤖 Made with AI
Congrats to @Hello_GoAI on their $85M Series A led by @UpdataPartners with participation from existing investors @LAUNCH.
This brings the Chicago Tech $100M Club to 155 companies.
List: docs.google.com/spreadsheets…
I dug into the Chicago tech scene going back ~50 years. How many successful tech companies were founded here? Who is behind them? How much value have they generated? I struggled to find good data, so I did some research...
Chicago Tech’s $100M List: docs.google.com/spreadsheets…
👀
The Chicago startup said it will establish financial indexes based on the performance of the Cubs, White Sox and 28 other MLB teams using in-game statistics provided by the league. chicago.suntimes.com/technol…
Jackson retweeted
I'm hiring 2 full time folks in Chicago in office.
Accounting
Operations
The amount of diff ops our 120 person company has is incredible
The amount of diff work we see
The opportunity to work with an incredibly fast moving and talented organization. If anyone knows anyone pls lmk – at Chicago, IL
Jackson retweeted
I know he was a hothead and certainly left a bad taste in the mouths of some teammates and fans. But as a non-Cubs fan, it’ll never sit right with me that Carlos Zambrano didn’t make the Cubs’ 150 team. It felt like he defined an era of Cubs baseball when I was growing up.
Jackson retweeted
i’m hopeful AI makes the internet a little weirder and a lot more fun.
i’ve always wanted to turn Hidden’s logo into a mini golf course. so i finally did.
9 holes: hidden.golf
Jackson retweeted
hahah maybe for the pure workflow / saas stuff
but to get good at fraud you kind of need to eat fraud losses first lol
and on payments, you can't prompt your way to MTLs + coordination w/ regulatory authorities
