EFA

Emerging Fintech Advisors LLC (EFA) is a global advisory and investment firm founded in 2015 which drives innovation and disruption in the financial services industry through the application of next generation technologies, business models, and products. Its clients include start-up companies as well as large, incumbent institutions. EFA advises on business strategy and development, organizational development, talent acquisition, and capital raising for enterprises in the US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific with a focus on modern, cutting-edge solutions. EFA also invests in private and listed technology companies.

EFA founder Benedict Perez leverages over three decades of experience across a broad spectrum of the financial services industry in the US and Asia-Pacific region. He held senior management positions in traditional finance roles including equity sales and investment banking at global financial institutions including Credit Suisse, Standard Chartered, Société Générale, and HSBC. As transformational shifts jolted the industry in the past decade, Benedict magnified his focus on emerging technologies and platforms such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, unstructured data application, independent research platforms, digital payments, microfinance, private equity marketplaces, digital assets, and blockchain technology. The application of these and other tools are core elements of the client solutions EFA helps implement to drive growth and create value for financial institutions and their millions of customers worldwide.

EFA is on the forefront of financial innovation and disruption. It solves problems for its clients and helps guide them into a new era of global finance. Recent projects have centered on many of the most topical emerging themes in the industry:

In 2015, EFA was hired to help build out Aliya Financial Technology, one of the first AI-powered consumer lending platforms initially helping in talent acquisition and evolved into full-time roles for Benedict as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Revenue Officer. Aliya has successfully underwritten nearly US$3 billion of unsecured personal loans for 200,000 Americans by employing its proprietary credit model at two top ten US financial institutions. These banks were able to lend to existing customers who normally would not have had access to such credit using FICO scores. FICO scores consider past payment history while Aliya’s solution analyzes unstructured data to gauge the ability of an individual to handle credit in the future much more accurately than previous methods. The deployment of the Aliya scoring process has helped drive a meaningful improvement in the lending growth and credit quality of the client banks.

Ayannah is a digital financial services OMNI platform focused on microfinancing and payments needs of the underbanked, emerging middle class in Asia, with scaled operations in the Philippines and Indonesia (currently has 2.3 million users). Benedict sits on the board of Ayannah and is advising them to finalize a go-to-market strategy for further expansion into Southeast Asia and India and EFA is also advising them with launching a Web3 project called JUST Finance in partnership with some of the world’s leading fintech and digital asset companies.

Benedict possesses deep experience in building global equity sales teams at large financial institutions, and consequently was tasked to build a sales, trading, and research team to launch an emerging digital assets sales and capital raising platform at Enigma Securities. He placed particular emphasis on financing blockchain companies seeking solutions to problems with global impact, including financial inclusion, global remittances, carbon credits, independent contractor payments, supplier receivables, music royalties, and others. He is the Managing Partner of Emerging 1kx SPV, which wholly invests in 1kx Capital, a US$500 million early stage, blockchain/ETH-focused token fund.

EFA advised and invested in InvestX, a Canadian-based trading platform designed to create liquidity for employees of late-stage, pre-IPO companies. This solution helps employees monetize their illiquid equity options and allows new investors to participate without the traditional multi-million-dollar investment minimums that PE funds require of their LPs. The company has democratized the investor bases of many late state, pre-IPO unicorns like Spotify, Pinterest, Lyft, Instacart, Uber, Docusign, SpaceX, AirBnB, Palantir, and Impossible Foods. EFA advised the founder with the company’s US roll-out strategy.

EFA advised independent research providers SmartKarma, Electronic Research Interchange (ERIC), and enquire.ai and introduced them to institutional investors who are increasingly demanding objective research uncompromised by potential capital markets conflicts of interest.

EFA also advised Cherre, a data-centric real estate platform, on the monetization of its enormous commercial and residential real estate data pool, and introduced them to financial institutions which could use the data set to mitigate risks and make prudent investment decisions.

EFA created comprehensive business plans for large, traditional financial institutions to avoid disruption amid a rapidly-shifting financial services landscape. It prescribed to the institutions their own adoption of various disruptive technologies to prevent disintermediation, protect margins, and ultimately extend their incumbent status.

Contract Wrangler is a leading-edge, machine-learning-driven contract management life cycle platform. EFA advised and marketed the company’s cost-saving and contract risk management benefits to large global financial services firms. It has since been acquired by Conga in 2021.

EFA has been engaged in these cutting-edge financial themes and technologies since their early stages, and Benedict has emerged as a leading global voice in the advancement of these trends. He is a founding member of one of the largest fintech networks in the world, Fintech Connector, and is a member of the Global Blockchain Business Council.

Lastly, because of EFA’s expertise in emerging financial technologies, EFA was asked to be an advisor to Quidnet Ventures, a New Zealand-focused deep tech venture capital fund and Benedict was selected to be an International Fellow at the Edmund Hillary Fellowship, a unique community of changemakers, innovators, investors and entreprenuers committed to making New Zealand a basecamp for global impact.

EFA has extensive experience in late-stage private investing and was an early investor in Alibaba, Spotify, Uber, Palantir Technologies, Airbnb, and SoFi Technologies.