Fintech Meetup is a new event being held on June 15-17, and it’s quickly gaining a huge following. The event will be held online, but there won’t be any speakers or sessions. Instead, the 2,000 fintech industry professionals that are participating will engage in 15,000 virtual meetings. It’s all about networking with the who’s who of fintech. The event had expected 1,000 people to join, and is now getting ready to sell out as it nears 2,000.
Anil Aggarwal is the creative mastermind behind this innovative event, but it isn’t his first rodeo. Ten years ago, Aggarwal founded Money20/20, fintech’s premier content, sales and networking platform. He ran Money20/20 as CEO with his wife and co-founder, Simran Aggarwal, until 2017, then the pair launched the leading ecommerce event, Shoptalk. They exited Shoptalk in 2019 for $150 million, returning to fintech events this January.
“Our goal with Fintech Meetup is to build the largest U.S. fintech event,” said Aggarwal. “We’re starting online in June and will take Fintech Meetup offline starting in 2022. We’ve been blown away by the level of interest in the June event—not only will there be 2,000 participants, but one-third are C-level executives and two-thirds are VP and above. We’re excited for June, and we’re also excited to announce the dates and location for our 2022 in-person event right afterwards.”
What makes Fintech Meetup different? In one word: Technology. Fintech Meetup will be an entirely tech-enabled experience—both for the June online launch, and for offline events following that. Aggarwal drew on his 10+ years of experience as a tech entrepreneur in fintech to build an entirely proprietary event tech platform for Fintech Meetup.
Aggarwal compares Fintech Meetup’s tech-enabled experience to the experience of hailing a taxi versus calling an Uber. While getting a taxi is a manual process which requires the customer to physically flag down a ride, Uber digitally connects its users with drivers, offering profiles, optimizing scheduling, and facilitating interactions and feedback. “We’ve essentially taken a very similar model of profiles, workflows, scheduling, etc., and we’ve applied it to events.”
Fintech Meetup participants will complete comprehensive profiles for themselves based on more than 150 data points. Then, they will be able to view the profiles of all other participants, and request meetings with anyone, which have to be opted-in to for the meeting (15 minutes in length) to be scheduled. The software handles absolutely everything.
“Meetings are the heart of industry events and the groundbreaking technology brought to market by the Fintech Meetup team is truly a game-changing improvement over more ‘traditional’ events,” said Robert Misasi, Founder and President of Mercator Advisory Group.
Based on previous events conducted by the Aggarwals, most attendees will secure between 8 and 12 meetings each, resulting in more than 15,000 meetings overall as part of the June event.
Interested in participating in Fintech Meetup? You better act fast, because tickets are about to sell out. Visit the Fintech Meetup event site for more information and to lock in your tickets!