In 2015, Rex Salisbury was working as a software program engineer at now-defunct mortgage startup Sindeo the place he constructed out the again finish for absolutely automated on-line mortgage pre-approval.
On the time, he was working for Andy Carra, who served as that firm’s CTO after co-founding SoFi.
It was Salisbury’s first foray into fintech, and excessive on the thrill of getting a brand new product reside in a extremely regulated business, he admittedly received bit by the fintech bug. At the moment, the sector was nowhere close to the power that it’s right this moment, simply “rising as a significant and sizable class,” Salisbury recollects.
“This meant there have been many different software program engineers, product managers and founders doing what I used to be – bringing new applied sciences to bear on an business that was painfully old-fashioned,” he mentioned. “I wished to satisfy these folks.”
After quite a lot of espresso dates and meetups, Salisbury decided that one thing extra formal was required. So in 2016, he began his personal neighborhood, Cambrian. His aim with Cambrian was to domesticate a neighborhood centered on founders and builders in fintech.
Quickly after the group was born, Salisbury started holding month-to-month occasions in San Francisco and New York, internet hosting an annual product summit and inclusion summit, together with quarterly job gala’s. Audio system included the likes of Credit score Karma’s Ken Lin, Deel’s Shuo Wang, Betterment’s Jon Stein and Plaid’s William Hockey & Zach Perret, amongst others. His work caught the eye of enterprise agency Andreessen Horowitz.
“After they reached out, it turned obvious that it could possibly be a really attention-grabbing alternative – lots of the issues I had been fascinated with scaling close to Cambrian had been much like the work at a16z,” Salisbury recollects.
His neighborhood constructing had unintentionally led him into the world of enterprise, as Salisbury finally turned a founding member of a16z’s fintech observe alongside normal companions Anish Acharya and Angela Unusual earlier than turning into a accomplice in 2019.
Throughout his two years on the agency, Salisbury went on to again the likes of now-decacorn Deel and Tally, two corporations he had gotten to know via the Cambrian neighborhood. Whereas at a16z, he began the agency’s e-newsletter, which nonetheless publishes right this moment.
In the meantime, Cambrian had surged to fifteen,000 e-newsletter subscribers and an 1,100+-member Slack neighborhood completely for founders.
In 2021, Salisbury got here to the conclusion that layering on a fund was a pure extension of the neighborhood he’d grown. So he started the method of elevating capital for his personal enterprise agency, Cambrian Ventures.
“The enterprise panorama shifted dramatically throughout my time at a16z and fintech was no exception,” Salisbury mentioned. “Fintech had exploded, which is each daunting and thrilling for potential entrepreneurs. I noticed that the networks I’d constructed via Cambrian may assist the subsequent technology of entrepreneurs navigate the ever-expanding ecosystem.”
He managed to draw a who’s who in fintech group of LPs that features founders from corporations akin to NerdWallet, Plaid, Easy, Alloy, Modus, SentiLink, Jeeves, Betterment, Mix, Routable, Trim, LendUp, One, SoFi, Moonpay, LoanPro, Altruist, Melio, and extra.
And right this moment, he’s asserting Cambrian’s inaugural $20 million fund “to again the subsequent technology of fintech founders” on the angel, pre-seed and seed ranges with checks as much as $500,000.
“Our mission is to offer our founders with entry to the most effective networks in fintech,” Salisbury mentioned. “The fund itself displays a neighborhood ethos with a number of the high fintech founders who’re each buyers within the fund and sources for the businesses we again.”
As a neighborhood, Cambrian helped folks join via its co-founder matching and rent via its expertise and jobs board. Now, it will likely be in a position to present funding capital, as properly.
As a small fund writing non-lead checks, Cambrian is concentrated completely on the earliest stage of firm formation. Salisbury needs to be “the very first verify” right into a startup, and intends to be hands-on and collaborative as an investor, looping in different founders (significantly from the fund’s investor base), seed funds and multi-stage funds to co-invest or lead future rounds.
“The great factor about being a solo capitalist is I might be very versatile, like working with founders beginning off and who simply need to increase a really small angel spherical and say ‘we don’t really need any bigger establishments concerned as a result of we would like the flexibleness to ideate and pivot,’ ” Salisbury advised Fintech.
Picture Credit: Rex Salisbury, founding father of Cambrian Ventures
With Salisbury serving as a solo GP, Cambrian plans to again 30 corporations, with investments of as much as $500,000. Thus far, the agency has made 5 investments over the previous couple of months, together with Hold Financial’s latest seed spherical. Salisbury expects the capital shall be absolutely deployed over 24 months.
Typically, he plans to again U.S.primarily based corporations with U.S.-oriented go-to-markets.
“My key aim is, ‘how do I establish, after which additionally assist, the subsequent technology of fintech founders?” Salisbury mentioned. “And on the earliest stage, you’re actually investing in folks.”
There have been no exhausting emotions on the a part of his former colleagues at a16z.
“Rex’s affect, attain, and skill to establish the subsequent nice entrepreneurs in fintech are spectacular and made him a worthwhile asset at a16z,” mentioned Acharya. “We’re delighted to see how he and Cambrian will proceed to assist the fintech ecosystem with the launch of this fund.”
Carra, a SoFi co-founder who Salisbury labored with early in his profession, recollects first assembly him after the engineer had accomplished a coding boot camp.
Though he was nonetheless early in his profession, Carra describes Salisbury of being the particular person “who requested the incisive ‘exhausting’ questions in all-hands conferences,” to a degree the place different members of the administration crew thought Carra was feeding him queries.
“The case was merely that Rex is wise, understands each finance and tech, has a eager analytical thoughts, and is keen to ask the exhausting questions in good religion,” he mentioned. “It was a operating dialog amongst these of us who labored with him that we seemed ahead to investing in his startup — we assumed he’d be a founder subsequent time round.”
It seems that Salisbury’s “startup” was Cambrian, and Carra is now an LP within the new fund.
“I actually just like the neighborhood that he’s constructed and refer aspiring founders to it after I can,” he advised Fintech through e-mail. “I like that he’s taken time to know the house as an operator in a number of roles, and I like Cambrian’s mannequin and danger profile.”
Betterment Founder Jon Stein described Salisbury as a “nice investor.”
“I invested with him as a result of he’s among the many finest builders of community and neighborhood that I’ve ever seen,” he mentioned through e-mail.
Salisbury shouldn’t be the one unintended VC within the fintech house. Earlier this 12 months, Nik Milanovic — who had additionally began out with a e-newsletter and meetups — launched his personal enterprise fund to again early-stage startups.
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