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PaceUp Invest Helps Women to Create and Manage Wealth — Founded by a Woman
90% of the clients of robo advisors in Germany are still men. This has not changed. The interfaces look all the same. They are not targeting women properly.Rukayyat Kolawole, Founder and CEO PaceUP Investment
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The Founder
Rakuyyat Kalowole (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rukayyat-modupe-kolawole-cfa/) is originally from Nigeria but had already very interesting life. Since her regular visits to her grandmother, who was an active trader, she is fascinated with the fast pace of trading in capital markets. She studied at Georgetown University in the US, Tongji University in China, as well as Mannheim Business School in Germany. Being fascinated by capital markets all her life, it comes as no surprise, that she joined Goldman Sachs in London, as well as Bloomberg in Reuters in London as well.
When she relocated to Germany, to study in Mannheim, she also set up a shop there with her hybrid Robo advisor for women.
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On our platform there will be a lot of impact investing, so women can choose how they want to invest according to their values and needs.Rukayyat Kolawole, Founder and CEO PaceUP Investment
The Startup
PaceUp Investment (https://www.paceupinvest.com/) is a hybrid Robo advisor headquartered in Mannheim Germany. We have talked about Mannheim before, but a short wrap-up: It is the only city in Germany set up in squares. Mannheim is the first city in the world, where a car drove (Carl Benz lived close by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Benz) and the place where the world’s first electric elevator was installed here in 1880 (Werner von Siemens).
Rakuyyat set up her company PaceUP here to help women build wealth with a hybrid approach, combining remote investment advice with a Robo advisor. PaceUp provides women the tools to understand the basics. Then they offer advisory and coaching, before investing with their Robo advisor.
Full service with a License
PaceUp will be able to offer its full service only after regulatory approval. They are currently looking at Q4 2021 or Q1 2022 to go live.
PaceUp on Social Media
Venture Capital Funding
PaceUp is currently funded by an angel investment in combination with a government grant of the state of Baden Wurttemberg. They will start their next fundraising soon, looking at 900k €.
When I got in a bank to get a mortgage to buy my first apartment, my bank advisor asked me “where is your husband”. … other women had similar experiencesRukayyat Kolawole, Founder and CEO PaceUP Investment
The Video Interview is set to go live on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021 17.00 CET (Frankfurt/Zurich/Paris)
The Audio Interview
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Further Readings / Additional Resources
Capital Markets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_market
Derivatives: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/derivative.asp
Impact investments: https://thegiin.org/impact-investing/need-to-know/
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The Interviewer
This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
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Transcript
Intro
[0:00] Music.
[0:08] That I owe you were podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startups.With News interviews and Live Events.
[0:22] Hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from startupradio die all your startup podcast and YouTube blog from Germany as well as the world’s first,24/7 internet radio station dedicatedtwo startups and tech companies wherever you watching this or listening to this make sure you hit the like And subscribethis time I finally have a very nice guest here we try to get an interview scheduled for sometime but nonetheless I’m very happy to have her here hello required how you doingtell her I’m good thank you and how are you I’m doing great thank you we are here to talk about your interesting life.What do you do for a living and how to make a rubber adviser for women but let us first get started with you as always your LinkedIn profile with the link down here in the show notes so.I’ve been looking a little bit through and what I found very interesting is basically you travel the world you studied in the world I see like tongji University in China Georgetown University Mannheim Business School.
[1:39] You’ve been credit Analyst at Goldman you have been.At a Bloomberg at Thomson Reuters so basically you have been a very much.Capital markets and finance focused person how did this happen what how did he start up.
[2:01] In capital markets in trading in Asset Management okay.
Rakuyyat’s Fasciantion With Capital Markets
[2:05] So it’s all went back to when I was growing up actually so I grew up in Nigeria so I’m from Nigeria even though I’m British citizen as well live in a Germany.
[2:15] And I remembered every time I on Fridays when I visited my grandmother in the township she was a gold Trader I chose a power within the community.And she used to have lots of women around her and they would donate money and give the money to handful of people.
[2:34] She taught me the basics of empowering people or women particularly using money to build wealth and also the power of communities.And I start learning about money when I was very young and this picks my interest into going into investment banking so when I moved to the UK to study.And I started out at school my socks I did my summer internship.They I was a Davidson’s analyst summer intern and after I did Internship I was I was invited to.Come on to the graduates program so I joined again after my summer internship and I spent nearly three years ago my socks yeah that that was how we started it was basically from.From my upbringing and watching my grandmother as an intrapreneur handling money and also my mother as well and that was I was really really interested in going into investment banking.
[3:30] Did you start Investment Banking like.With the perspective like doing big deals or have you ever been fascinated more with the trading side with a very fast pace of capital markets what was more interest.It was more of the vast the the fast-paced of capital markets basically so I was looking at some David see so that what’s it called are relatives is an asset that derives its value from another asset and it wasmainly on that day affects so foreign exchange aspects of derivative that I was involved with when I was in Goldman Sachs and was very much fast-pacedmoving billions of dollars every day and it was just fascinating and amazing and,yeah I enjoyed every much parts of it and I continued with in that line and also learning more about investing as well looking at Big deals in that respect and once I move to Bloomberg I move to Bloomberg asan advanced specialist.
[4:31] We then again derivatives covering effects fixed income and commodities as well very interesting fast paced moving to.Voices as well it was amazing because it gained was just dealing with a lot of money daily movements of money within the Capital Market.
[4:50] I’m finally I moved to be MCE BMC Bank in Londonso I would always walk to big companies and this this was not big compared to the goldmans the the Bloomberg and the Reuters it was a French American Bank so it’sI think about the second biggest bank in Morocco but they had a presence in London so I went there to to as a vice presidentlooking at the capital markets and the treasure sauce made into managing the treasury of the company and also dealing with the capital markets of trading and FX inequities and and fixed income so it’swhat can the financial markets has always been so interesting and just very.Amazing on what you can do with money and value you can get for money and also the value that money gives them that respect and how you can use that to invest so.Yeah it’s always been very much fast-paced and also looking at the investment aspects of religion are big deals in that aspect so it’s more of mirroring the to.Aspects of things here and we may add for everybody who’s not.
[6:04] If he’s not in capital markets FX refers to Foreign Exchange so basically that’s most of the time.Either speculation or.Actual transactions for example somebody sells Goods to the u.s. gets paid at US Dollars and has to convert it into Euro all these conversion that is going on in the capital markets.When you look at the capital market prices they liketiny tiny differences in the exchange rate between let’s say US dollar and Euro each day but if you have large enough amounts thatthat makes a big difference each day so basically you’ve been dealing with FX as well.As derivatives like options like.Like Futures swaps and stuff like this and for everybody you would like to learn more you can go down here in the show notes,obviously a lot of links to explain all this stuff we will not get into that otherwise we’ll be here talking still tomorrow right.
[7:12] Let me get this straight you you you came to London you study it you you had some very good jobs in.
[7:21] Related to trading especially for an exchange like currencies so when.
[7:28] What did happen to you that you want to be an entrepreneur.That you want you to see something different to to move to Germany what triggered you there.
Rakuyyat’s Way To A Startup In Germany
[7:43] So what I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur I guess because of the bloodline of having intrapreneurs and watching my grandmother my mother been successful entrepreneurs.
[7:54] What was the turning point for me was the fact that when you look at the Investments industry itsit’s very much dominated by men you don’t really see a lot of women and even back then when I was working and financial industry as an employee an employee it was a lot of men and.I’m I remember I put Scala example I went into my bank and wanted to talk to my financial advisor regarding gets in a baggage so so to buy my first apartment.And what he said was like oh so where he’s at where’s your husband oh why why do I need a husband before I could get a mortgage and it was more of a.
[8:36] He he was a con artist in the way like there has to be a man with you in order to get a mortgage and I was thinking what you can seekind of like my savings my salary and what not why do I need this for it just popped in my mind that I do not want to.Actually engaged with someone like that that has that kind of thinking and it’s it was very disheartening and I spoke to other women and they kind of mentioned they had the similar experiences well in the sense that.
[9:09] They were not taken seriously when they when they saw its Financial
advice or when they have when they had specific needs not just only buying a house maybe it’s something totally different.And I started looking into more in two days so I started coaching.Some colleagues my friends and developing portfolios for them investing and whatnot on the side it was just more of like a hobby.When I moved to Germany I’m actually moved to Germany because we decided to raise our daughter here in Germany my husband lives in Germany I was in Germany already so I moved here and it’s became even more obvious that.The Gap is huge compared to the UK and when we look at not only the there’s also the pension Gap as well there’s also the the wage Gap writes about 21% in Germany.And before I came out thinking.Germany so it’s going to be so different because I have a female Chancellor and what nerves and little did I know it wasn’t going to be like that so.
[10:14] I decided okay perhaps it’s actually now for me to look into this passion of mine to start impact more women to invest according to their goals and needs and people that would actually listen to them.That was why I started on this journey and I purposely looked for Business Schools.So my business school and is sick Business Schools and looked at both of them their rankings and how they help entrepreneurs because.I was coming in new from another country from the UK right into Germany I needed to know what to do in order to be successful as a foreigner and as a not German as well.And it’s was very supportive they were very supportive due to Business Schools andit was part of the strategy project place of invest which is the name of the of the of the startup was part of the strategy projects we worked on it for like a year to develop the business idea and the concept and now it’s a proper business nowso I guess it’s more of feeling frustrated and listening to all the problems that needed to be solved when it comes to money and investing and also having a properIndependence advicegiven to women in order to ensure that they’re being listened to and also making sure that investing according to their specific goals and lids and they feel they can trust,the person that they’re talking to in that regard.
[11:39] Like that that could be like life-changing or life dominating decisions women and men make their like.Buying a car what can I afford what is too expensive how can I finance it likeyes he said a mortgage department but also like retirement savings it’s also as you said there is a wage Gapwomen tend to stay longer at home and work less so they have to save more and have to save better than men in order to get a comfortable retirement and.
[12:12] That is something,I think a lot of women don’t think about it yet they should by now they should now but until now they didn’t do that and there is something.You’re out to change yes definitely it’s something that ought to change and because like you mentioned.
[12:35] Women are not doing enough when it comes to that and it’s all boils down towe have different Financial knowledge we have different financial behavior and we have different financial needsdifferent life cycles basically we live longer and we end less so we have to start looking at all this aspect and most of the time we are the ones that end up caring for the older ones and when we have kids as wellwe took time off work on average seven years that’s seven years of not putting any moneyinto the pension pot so it’s all about planning and getting women to start planning earlier.I’m not thinking that investing is only for men it’s not it’s not that way it should be for everyone and also we need to be more open when we come to when it’s time to close,stop talking about money because the way we have the relationship with money is very important on how we then spend it.For how we consider how we consume it or how we save in that sense.
[13:36] All this aspects as well and as well as the money scripts that we’ve been taught when we were younger on where that money is the root of all evil orwhen you when you have to have money in order to be something so it’s all this aspects of money scriptures or that we need to start thinking aboutwhen I talk about financial knowledge we’ve seen time and time again that even when going to the financial knowledge there is a huge gap between men and womenand it’s globally there is a very low financial literacy globally in in the aspect away they break it up with some men and women.Way to look at different countries is still is to is to start growing in Germany for example is about 11 percent and obviously the more the less developed the country is the wider it.
[14:24] And regarding Financial knowledge we need to know what we’re doing when it comes when we want to start investing basically this the basics,so the basics such as simple interest compounding how we’re going to use compounding into our favor to make sure we’re investment on the longer-term because when we invest on the longer termit’s actually compiled into a higher return andwhen we start to know more about this than we can apply it on a day-to-day activities when it comes to expenses when you consider our budgeting making sure that we pay down the interestthat has a high interest first and then gradually work downon the other aspects of maybe loans or debts that we have that have lower interest rates on it and in addition to that as well as I also mentionedbut I shop Behavior it’s very differentmen are very much spontaneous when you come see invest in so they talk to their friends they are higher risk takers on the other hand women are more like especially with risk-averse for whisk away.
[15:28] And when I service car where is mini they’re aware of the risk when it comes to investing but then once they get that education and that confidence and someone that actually.He knows and this is again needs,there are better investors than men and research has shown this severally so the tend to hold their Investments on the longer period and that means is grows it goes higher compared to men that tend to,spontaneously trait in and out out of that investment so again one of those things that we have to look at is our different Financial behaviors and when you come to the different financial needs again it’s more ofwe go on we go on maternity leave we go on sabbatical or we have kids we have to stay at home we have all the all the planes we have to look after so all this involvesplanning early the ELA we start planning for this life events then we kind of have something some some form of contingencies and place,whenthis time arrives and they were able to plan properly and so can we plant this way and this is how this is going to look like and when it when that time comes for us to take a maternity leave or what not.
[16:42] So basically what are you what are you saying is.
How Paceup Helps Women
[16:48] You’re good there to help women start as early as possible to save and prepare for Life event and how does you start.Paceup.Come into play my understanding is it’s a robot visor for women but how do you do robot visor for women don’t tell me it’s just all pink.No it’s not all pink so I at the end of the day it’s the plan is for it to be a group of advisors so we arein different phases at the moment just to make sure it’s goes accordingly so how we are doing it is we.It’s a holistic solution that provides the tools for the women too.
[17:31] So learn about financial topics that’s applicable to them so it’s a give them the basic knowledge first and then we move them into.If they need coaching or advisory and this incorporates investment strategies as well because we’ve seen time and time again that a lot of people have fear of investingand excited and coaching helps them to overcome this before they actually act inputs it down when it into any type of investment platform or robot visor in that sense.So the plan is we’re not going to make this it’s not going to be pink but what were Incorporated in needs is the fact that.Like operating a hybrid model into it so both digital and human because we’ve seen time and time again that.
[18:18] Human aspects of investing is very important so it’s not just only digital that is delivered to the person to sort it out but then give them the knowledge give them the knowledge that they needand that’s to make the proper informed decisions for them to that move from thinking about investing to then going on to invest in in that aspect,and then like I mentioned we look at what’s differentiates men from women so we look at so obviously the financial knowledge aspects of weights with tackling it with,having different courses and different are learning models on there as well when it comes to financial behavior will be incorporating a behavioral Finance aspects of it so that it captures,essentially when we’re looking at the risk assessment of the individual will also look at how the individual will behave.Once they start investing because it’s very very important to capture these because how we behave will determine how we’re what type of Behavioral biases we have we determine how long were most likely to hold on to our portfolio.So this is one of the aspects were bringing it onto that piece of invest robot visor and also the fact that there will be,lots of impact investing has also the woman be able to choose how they want to invest according to their values.
[19:42] And how they want to invest according to their needs and it’s going to be very personalized to them so it is not bunching.People together into one type of portfolio because we all have different needs we have different circumstances where our different time Horizon,so this is going to look into all these aspects and make sure we gave the woman the right tools to help them to achieve a certain goal that are trying to achieve in the future so this is all going to be into,be embedded into the robot Vice or want to abide by so it’s ready,well right now the first phase that we are in is the learning phase and the coaching phase to get them ready because,we see that this part is really really important because this is what is missing a lot of wealth management platform the the learning and the coaching faces is missing that’s what most of the time they don’t tend to move this womanfrom from thinking into acting.
[20:43] So if I give an example not in Germany nights of percent of the users of about viruses in Germany are men.Right and this has a really change because everything just looks the same and they’re not targeting women properlyand perhaps perhaps I don’t know and when I talk to most women as to what your bad vibes are you using this etiquette I’ve gone on to this one,I really don’t like it the service is not good I don’t understand the jargon there’s so many things out there.So what piss off is trying to do is to simplify it so that wealth management is brought out the mass is are not just for.The rich basically in that aspect so that’s how we’re differentiating ourselves on you come through to boob advisory for paceup invest.And for those that don’t know robot why so mean it just means that there is no human interaction so that it’s they the platform the algorithmwhat other kids your money into different asset classes but we are looking at a hybrid model whereby if there is any issue you have an in human interaction that will help you with the asset allocation and whatnot.So first question would be are you mostly working with low-cost ETFs so at the moment what when.
[22:01] When a client comes regarding what they’re looking for.So what’s I do is I look at them on the holistic basis right so it depends on what.
[22:13] What the financial goals are and also what their risk profiling is,and then I take into consideration what their constraints are so what is that time provides on their liquidity needs the legal and regulatory requirements or constraints as well as their unique circumstances.So it depends on all these that can all say okay this is what you need to invest in to either low cost 80s or mutual funds,all potentially some stocks again it depends on the width risk profiling of the individual of what we currently working with.So what then when they were bad visor becomes available we’re going to have a mixture of low-cost ATF of mutual funds as well as the ability to trade and structures work.The platform will make sure that only those that can trade in stocks actually trading stocks because trading is individual stock is very risky as opposed to,trading in a basket of Securities whereby the risk is reduced because they have a bunch of other stocks in there,so it minimizes the way so what we what we do is we look at individual Basics and then we advise accordingly on where they should.Trade in so where did you put your money into.
[23:32] According to that portfolio hmm and basically my understanding is that.
[23:40] You measure you first train the women then you measure their risk tolerance they risktaking capability in terms of like total assets life situation and stuff like that and then you help them with your Robo advisor to invest with like hybrid model combiningumHuman interaction and the actual robot how would this human interaction worked will you have something like a call center where.Customers I assume most of the customers will be women but they’ll also be some men so you customers will then just call somebody up in a call center in the home office one of your advisors and they will talk it through.
[24:26] Yes so depending on the on the package that you have.Then you have access to advisors for those that need more hand like hand hand hold and hold holding in that in that aspect so if they need more information or want to know more about something that they can.Already contact someone so an advisor will be able to walk them through with help them with their planning if there any specificsfor example if it’s involves estate planning you can’t really do estate planning on the robo advice also it has to have human interaction on there if you’re looking at it’s a generational work transfer planningyou have to have a human dare to hope you will all the the complex intricacies in that aspect.So it depends on what the individual is looking for and how how much they currently have and what the complexity is of their portfolio is like so for example someone that is just starting now starts.That has a bit of a knowledge and whatnot can go on the robot Vice so and start trading and stop buying.
[25:34] But as soon as I start accumulating more money then they have to look at getting a proper,strategies in place on the property portfolio in place whereby it cannot be really don’t know but why so but you need a proper advisor that has all the knowledgeso happy to put your money into the right asset classes but also using the right technology Tools in in that in that in that regard so this is what we’re mirroring together a paceupthat’s enough obviously first with this with the learning and the coaching and then ultimately onto the robot Vice all aspects of things.I see we were recording this now approximately mid of February when will you robot visor or when will.Like the second part of robot visor and the the.Let’s call it in person promote advisor when will this go live my understanding is some parts are already life you can see it on the website of course go down here in the show notes and you’ll find it,when will when will you have like the full service available for the 4/7 available were licking Us by end of the year.
[26:48] Early next year because in order to have the full service available we need to have the the back fin 32 license,so which is the big license or we need to have that so that is what we started to work on now to get that in parallel then we’ll build the they were brought by so wealth management aspect of it so we’re looking at end of the year,beginning of next year 2022 we may add that Baffin is the Germanput the sun 15 Tons of staged its the oversight body for financial services here in Germany like 80% of our audiences not from Germany so they say a buffing what is this can I eat thisand just just final question before we wrap this interview uphow are you guys right now Finance are you looking for external investors so we’re however Finance now so we are financed by.The state so the states are living is called butter Wittenberg.So we financed via the precede funding that we got from there after going through an accelerator program we got some funding and that aspect and then there is a quote investor with the States government.
[28:05] As an angel investor so we have an angel investor as well who is a very good friend of mine actually we grew up together we knew each other since we were 10.So the next funding round we’re going to start the next one be around very shortly to for the next phase of.Of the platform in total we looking for 900,000 euros.So it’s quite just below the 1 million Mark at the put why not your small million where we’ve done our numbers and this is the amount that we need.So yes the so yeah so we will start the next funding round but right now how we’re finances from from the States government.By a proceed program and also from a business Angel well only thing left for me to say iskeep us up-to-date will share any news of course on our social media channels of course you’ll find them down here in the show notes as welland I am sure you share all the social media channels of paceup with us so that we can also put them down herein the show notes and well as well and everybody would like to learn more can learn more only thing left for me to say is.Thank you very much and best of luck with your robot visor thank you very much.
[29:25] Music.
[29:32] Www dot start a friend that I oh remember sharing is caring.
[29:39] Music.
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