UrbanGeekz 50 2024: Fintech

Yonas Fisseha: Co-Founder, Juniper Square

Yonas Fisseha is the Co-Founder and Vice President of Engineering at Juniper Square. Before joining this company, he worked with companies like Huddler.com, Fanbase.com, Shopping.com, Motorola, and others. He holds a BS degree from Michigan State University.

Juniper Square builds software that helps real estate investors raise, manage, and deploy capital more efficiently. San Francisco-based Juniper Square operates an investment management platform for commercial real estate, private equity, and venture capital companies. 

It was founded by Adam Ginsburg, Alex Robinson, and Yonas Fisseha in 2014. Juniper Square has now raised $241M in total equity funding and is backed by Precursor Ventures, Fifth Wall, Owl Rock Capital, Redpoint, Pappy Capital, Ribbit Capital, and Felicis.

Michael Broughton: CEO, Altro

Broughton is an entrepreneur who uses his business to impact those neglected by the financial system. He is the chief executive officer of Altro, a company breaking the barriers to credit access in the United States. 

Broughton leads the organization in its vision to bring financial power to all and demystify the world of credit, especially for disadvantaged communities. He is passionate about breaking financial stereotypes and providing opportunities for underrepresented communities to build wealth.

The Altro app helps people build their credit by enabling them to earn credit with recurring payments— rent and subscription services. The app allows members to easily link these recurring payments to leverage unseen and uncounted payments to build their credit score. 

He founded the startup in 2020 alongside Ayush Jain, whom he met as an undergraduate at the University of South California. Jay-Z’s Marcy Ventures, The Citi Impact Fund, Chris Paul, and Y Combinator are some investors supporting Altro, which has raised $20 million.

Broughton is a Thiel Fellow and was featured on Forbes in 2023, Black Enterprise Magazine, and PitchBook.

Joe Beard: Co-Founder and CEO, CollateralEdge

Joe Beard is a veteran entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and former investment banker. His diverse career in the military, technology, investment banking, and venture capital prepared him for entrepreneurship. 

Beard is the Co-Founder and CEO of CollateralEdge, a fintech platform that provides banks with a flexible, automated sales enablement solution to efficiently increase lending capacity without compromising credit quality. 

As a former Partner at Perot Jain, a Dallas-based venture capital firm, he led 40+ investments in five years, including Booster Fuels, Pickup, Abundant Robotics, Bioz, Spacee, Bestmile, Jobiak, Shiftsmart, and Hypergiant. 

He spent eight years as an investment banker, working at Bank of America, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, MHT Partners, and others, executing approximately $10 billion in transactions across M&A, debt, and equity.

Beard is also a Founder and Board Member of Venture Dallas, the premier venture capital conference in the DFW region, and a recipient of the Tech Titans Investment Catalyst Award. 

Trevor Rozier-Byrd: Founder and CEO, Stackwell Capital

Trevor Rozier-Byrd is working on the age-old problem of racial inequality by closing the wealth gap between Black and white Americans. He has over fifteen years of experience in corporate development, business strategy, and corporate transactional legal, focusing on the asset management industry. 

Trevor was the Head of Strategy and Business Development for the State Street Alpha Platform, State Street Bank and Trust Company’s captive fintech business. During his tenure with State Street, Trevor held senior sales, strategy, corporate development, and legal positions. 

Before joining State Street, Trevor was a Senior Associate at WilmerHale, where he focused on domestic and international corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, venture capital financings, and public and private capital markets transactions. 

He is the founder and CEO of Stackwell Capital, Inc., a fintech startup that seeks to eliminate the racial wealth gap by addressing Black underinvestment in America. The app provides the Black community with the financial investment tools and guidance necessary to help build lasting wealth, equity, and equal opportunity.

Founded in 2020, Stackwell has raised $3.5M in two rounds from investors such as Michael Gordon, The Kraft Group, and Shea Ventures.

Trevor is a Boston University School of Law Alumni Executive Committee member and the Boston College Board of Regents. Trevor is a 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival Fellow, Boston Business Journal’s “Power 50 Movement Makers,” and was named to PitchBook’s Black Founders to Watch list.