Investors have been backing fintech startups at a rapid clip, with more than ten deals worth more than $100 million in the first two weeks of 2021, according to an article on Pitchbook.

The article cited data points that indicate momentum is continuing from last year, when VC-backed companies in the sector saw investment of $41.7 billion. Many segments in the fintech area are growing, including technology that allows banks to better analyze financial data and digital payments.

The investment is following deals last year that showed investment had a direct impact on financial institutions that were able to augment their services by partnering with fintech providers.

Fresnel Portfolio companies are active in the fintech segment. Emergent International Payment Systems is growing payment systems in emerging economic areas by delivering electronic payments capabilities to unbanked and underbanked populations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Emergent encourages financial growth by identifying problems in a regional economy and targeting area-specific issues that delay funds as they flow through the economy. Figuring out such challenges as cross-border transactions and enabling electronic payments for delivery drivers and utility bills helps commerce thrive where it can make a major impact on quality of life.

Another Fresnel company in the fintech space is Torus Global, which facilitates the integration of the proprietary networks of financial institutions to make it easier for customers to spend the money and value they hold in accounts across platforms. Torus Rails simplifies the flow of value in a world where commodities, crypto, and currency all need to play in the same arena.

To read more about VC-backed fintech investment, read the Pitchbook article here.

Digital technologies are finding their way into the health and wellness industries and venture capital investment is leading the charge, according to Pitchbook. Pharmaceutical companies, medical practices, drugstores, and even gyms and spas are looking to accommodate the demands of patient-driven care with better patient-engagement solutions, data-driven decision-making through software that provides data collection and analysis, and improved records management. Digitization yields benefits such as helping organizations comply with regulations, reduce costs, improve care delivery, and reach new markets. Fresnel Growth Capital is exploring some interesting possibilities in this expanding sector—contact us to learn more.

Cited in the Pitchbook report are VCs’ increased investment, to $2.1 billion in Q3 2020. The activity is mostly taking place in North America, where more than 80 percent of the VC funding is concentrated. The sector has closed 263 deals totaling $5.2 billion YTD, beating last year’s value and approaching the number of deals.

Read the report preview from Pitchbook here.

Scott Murray is President and Co-Founder of Digital Latitude Solutions, and he uses his more than two decades of experience delivering services and solutions for consumer brands and retailers. We asked him about his thoughts on business, including creating value through relationships and coordination among his partners and clients.

What does Digital Latitude Solutions do, and how does it fit in with the Fresnel Companies philosophy of enterprise optimization?

We fit into the Fresnel Companies by lending our perspective to anything that really touches a retailer or a consumer directly—those are really the kind of connections that we bring to the businesses in the portfolio. We work with both emerging brands, and those brands could be anything from the technology side to consumer products to concepts that folks are looking to bring to market, as well as consulting with Fortune 500 companies to help them work with retailers. For manufacturers, we help bridge a gap in knowledge base so we can help with communication as well as strategy to help those folks succeed at what they’re trying to do.

We work with companies to build that infrastructure and to help them get their ideas to market. A lot of these people are either entrepreneurs or have been in business and worked in an industry for a period of time, but they’re trying to make a leap into another segment of that business. We help our clients generate data-driven product sales through our consumer-centric go-to-market strategy.

Can you share an example of your solutions for a client?

From a product perspective, one of our past clients was a hydroponic lettuce company. They had a vision, which was, “We’re going to build a greenhouse, and we’re going to grow hydroponic lettuce.” But as we worked with this group, one of the things that we conveyed very quickly is that if you’re growing something, it’s not the field of dreams—If you build it, they will come doesn’t work in that space. Once you start growing, you need to have an outlet where your products will go. We worked with them to build a strategy from a brand perspective. The marketing team got them to a certain point in that journey. We took it from there and brought it to a customer, and we worked with them from an operational perspective to say, “Here’s your demand cycle that you have for a product. Here’s your consumer. How does that fit into a growth cycle so that you can take product to market and do that successfully and profitably?”

How do you apply your unique perspective?

One client we have been talking to now is a long-established company looking for growth strategies in areas outside its core business. We connected them with Fresnel’s full-service marketing services agency, Blue Creative Group, which developed a consumer-facing website. Now that the site is launched, we’re creating a strategy to help build that business. Throughout the process, we ask some core questions to get to the heart of what their business is, and what it is not—but could be. After we look at all of these different components, we can put together a strategy and action steps.

It sounds like some of these questions may be complicated for a business to answer. How do you distill the strategy into action steps?

As we go through the process, there’s one thing that we pride ourselves on: Everything we do is based on fact. We make decisions based on metrics. We try to understand all the details of what’s driving a process. We’re driving the business forward and understand as we pull these different levers, we’re always asking, What’s the value proposition behind it? Because something may look like it’s working and being very successful, but when you start measuring and understanding it, it might not be very profitable. There may be a segment of the business that is growing or not growing and it’s a flat line. A segment of the business may have been around for a long period of time, but it’s the most profitable segment of the business, but the company is just not investing in that piece or that product. We work with those retailers, those manufacturers, all of those folks, to find those pieces and adapt them to the marketplace.

Consumers see a lot of “cool” businesses out there, for example, a standup paddleboard company, and their product is one of a hundred or more in crowded market. And yet, their marketing is very polished, carving out their niche. Can you help a company like that?

A lot of entrepreneurs who built these businesses are super successful and super smart, and they’re very good at chasing that dream. They get that dream to a certain level. And then once they get to that level, the question is, how do you make that next step? And in the case of that paddleboard company, it could be somebody that designed the paddleboard in their garage and started to bring it to market, and, just doesn’t know how to take those next steps. We can help them.

Some companies use their resources to hire folks to help them do that. But others are at a stage in their growth and they can’t afford to do that, so they outsource some of the marketing. They can engage us in the same tactics. From a strategy perspective, you know, we help them to find what that is. So, for example, a paddleboard company comes to us. We ask, How many paddleboards can you make in a week? What’s your capacity to ship all the different pieces? We can look at the business and say, “Okay, your target is you want to get Bass Pro Shops as a client. To do that, you need to be at this level, producing and shipping this many pieces.”

So you can help them check off the boxes to meet the requirements for major retailers, but a big part of it must be finding the right fit for their brand.

A lot of our clients work with our partnerships and our members. That referral network really helps us grow from a business perspective. We also have the referrals from our own client base that we’ve worked with in the past, because a lot of these folks form our network.

We’ve got a company we’re working with right now, a coffee company that came to us through a friend that I’ve worked with in the past. They were looking for help launching this brand into retail and didn’t know what to do. And they hear through their network, Hey, you need to talk to these guys. We specialize in the smaller boutique-type brands that that are emerging.

The question becomes, “What is the strategy?” A lot of these folks that we’re seeing right now are online retailers, and they want to take that next step. “I have a website. I sell a product on my own website. How do I sell product somewhere else? And then how do I drive my overall brand?”

Now, ecommerce sales are growing, obviously, at a huge clip. But retail is going to give you more awareness and presence—there are a lot of brands out there you may have not have ever heard of.

A good retail strategy includes understanding how consumers use the retail outlets available to them, but with DLS it seems to go beyond that.

It does. For example, we work with NCR (National Cash Register) in a contract with DeCA, serving the military for supermarkets on bases all across the country and around the world. We work with them to develop that organization in their category management, their pricing strategies so that they act and can adapt more as a retailer, but still provide the benefit that they’re charged with from Congress for the service members. So it’s really working with within those organizations and adapting systems and strategy to still provide the need and the core business.

As we work with retailers to bring those ideas and strategies together, we help them grow and succeed, and also our company grows and succeeds as our customers do. Because our customers are our partners, they’re driving sales and value, then we take the next step and also encourage the connections between our customers.

The European Commission is drafting legislation pertaining to digital assets, particularly crypto-assets and blockchain fintech, according to reports. An article on the website crowdfundinsider.com notes that the European policymakers seek to set out terms that will be friendly to innovation in the burgeoning sector of digital assets. While legislation is expected to appear this month, the commission has sought comment from European Securities and Markets Authority and the European Banking Authority to determine how current financial services regulatory framework applies to crypto-assets. The European authorities are seeking to ready their regulations for the emergence of stablecoins, the name given to crypto-assets that tend to be based on fiat currency, which are expect to increase utilization of crypto-assets.

Fresnel Companies portfolio companies Torus Global, Emergent International Payment Systems, and Cipherium all work with digital assets. Torus Global links disparate transaction infrastructure through a unified rail system that creates a seamless worldwide network. Emergent International Payments Systems launched the suite of Brand Banking™ solutions specifically for unbanked and under-banked workers and their communities in Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean regions, using customized solutions to eliminate the resistance to brick-and-mortar banking within these key markets. Cipherium holds proprietary applications suited for blockchain, cryptocurrency, network security, and all point-to-point payments applications, including fraud prevention.

Read the crowdfundinsider.com article.