Digital Wealth News is pleased to bring you our “Fintech Luminaries” series – featuring thought leaders within the digital wealth and blockchain ecosystems. For the next feature in this series, we’d like you to meet Michael Creadon, Managing Director of Inveniam, a software-as-a-service company that uses data and blockchain to derive third-party marks on private assets like commercial real estate, private equity and private credit.
NAME: Michael Creadon
TITLE: Managing Director
COMPANY: Inveniam
WEB ADDRESS: https://inveniam.io/
How did you personally become involved in fintech?
After I left trading in 2017, I caught the bitcoin bug and started a website to report on and research cryptocurrencies. The website, called 4Rev, was a bit of a bust, but I kept writing on LinkedIn and continue to do so to this day and enjoy that very much.
What does your firm do/offer within the fintech sector?
We are a software company and we’ve built an operating system to collect better data on illiquid assets and to verify those transactions on the blockchain. We talk daily with some of the largest financial institutions in the world, and they like our value proposition because we have tools – with patents – that no one else has built. We’re bringing liquidity to the multi-trillion dollar private market asset space, and there’s plenty to be done.
What is your role within your firm and what do you do there on any given day?
I am involved with the firm in three areas: institutional sales, capital raising and marketing. When you’re with a small firm, you learn many skills. On any given day, I’m on ten to fifteen Zoom calls telling the Inveniam story to everyone who will listen.
What area/s of fintech do you believe will grow the most in the coming 5 years?
I think blockchain technology will grow, perhaps exponentially. I am a believer in bitcoin, as central banks have lost the plot with endless spending and no plan to restrain deficits. Lehman brought bitcoin to life, and Covid brought BTC to maturity.
What do you believe the next major innovation in financial technology will be and why?
Bitcoin will be a global currency in 3-5 years whether people realize it or not. For international transactions, bitcoin already makes more sense than wire transfers, which are ludicrously slow and expensive.
What are the biggest problems facing the fintech industry in the future?
We need more engineers in this country. It’s a shame we’re forced to export so many programming projects overseas. And that’s not a criticism, just an observation that schools here should emphasize computer coding early and often to schoolkids.
What has been the biggest success in your firm to date?
Our firm’s culture is the source of my biggest pride in Inveniam. Aside from that, we have some major announcements with some household names in the financial inndustry we will be going public with in coming months. This is going to be a big year for us.
What has been the biggest failure in your firm and how did you adapt?
We were decentralized before Covid with team members all around the country. Not being able to see clients in person has been a drawback for us, but this challenge is for every company in the world – not just us. We’ve adapted by working doubly hard on our messaging to try communicate to the marketplace who we are.
What fintech leader do you admire the most and why?
I’m a big fan of the Winklevoss brothers. Gemini is a great firm, built on compliance and regulation, and they treat clients very well. That’s a polished team and a company I wouldn’t bet against.
How do you feel consumers (or if more relevant for your firm – businesses) are adapting to the facet of fintech that your company operates within?
Key financial intermediaries love what we bring to the market, which is better accounting treatment for clients, which translates into massive capital relief. We have a lot of important friends in the financial sector now proselytizing about Inveniam – and that’s a very good thing.
If you were to personally invest in just one fintech firm (other than yours), which one would it be and why?
Definitely DrawBridge Lending (recently aquired by Galaxy Digital). But they’re a former employer, so we can’t count them. I’d invest with Arca, a crypto hedge fund in Los Angeles. Great team and market knowledge.
Michael Creadon is former CEO of Traditum, a Chicago-based proprietary trading firm, and worked as a journalist earlier in his career at Bloomberg and Time. Today, he serves Managing Director at Inveniam, a blockchain data company for private market assets.
