Meredith Moss – Finomial’s Founder, CEO and chief salesperson
How often do you think about hedge funds?
If you’re as removed from the world of finance as I am, chances are the images these two words conjure in your mind have a lot to do with bespoke suits, incessant complexities and (of course) an unfathomable amount of money. However, if you’ve grown up in this industry, you probably can’t stop thinking of the nitty-gritty details behind it and spend every waking moment thinking how you can make it better.
Such is the case of Meredith Moss, the Founder and CEO of Finomial – a financial services startup that deals precisely with the un-sexy problems of hedge funds. Having spent her career managing software for financial services, Moss secretly dreamed of starting a company of her own, but it wasn’t until she switched to alternative investments (investments that don’t fit the three traditional asset types, namely stocks, bonds and cash) that she got the idea of the exact problem she could fix. While serving as Vice President at Credit Suisse Alternative Investments, she was incredibly surprised that alternatives were still in “the dark ages” when it came to the way they process investments from institutional investors, as everything was still done in pen and paper. Needless to say, this generated a lot of mistakes which is not exactly what you want when dealing with large sums of money.
Tired of the incessant problems this caused, Moss decided to fix the problem herself, and in the spring of 2011 she founded Finomial – a financial services startup that aims to elevate alternatives to the 21st century. The company focuses on the subscription process, enabling investors to seamlessly put capital to work into hedge funds. It might sound complicated but they do it all by providing a platform for Fund Administrators, who provide back office services to hedge funds. Finomial helps mediate between the fund administrator, the investor and the hedge fund employees, handling subscription to the fund (investments), supporting the tax processes, allowing real-time communication with investors and providing them with essential information on their money based on performance reports. This way the company provides a necessary solution to a very un-sexy problem. As the sole entity that attempts to solve it – yes, that’s right, they have no competition at all – Finomial has managed to generate trust among the biggest banks and hedge funds in the world, and do so with minimal investment and a single salesperson – Moss herself! Impressive? Not compared to their long-term plans. The company currently has a team of 30 headquartered in the beautiful WeWork office near South Station, and is putting its efforts into rapid scaling. According to Moss, Finomial will start its expansion by building its engineering team and acquiring new clients, with a focus on foreign markets, such as Europe and Asia. All of this would be made possible with a new round of investment the company is planning to raise in the end of this year – something that probably won’t be that difficult considering their success so far.
Beantown Innovation 