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April 19, 2022

QED Investors organizes to scale into fintech opportunities

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- QED Investors, a leading global venture capital firm focused on investing in disruptive financial services companies, today announced a series of internal moves to facilitate the scaling of its unique business model.

Founding Partner Frank Rotman, formerly head of domestic investments, will take on an expanded role as Chief Investment Officer. In this position, he will provide oversight on investment portfolio composition and concentration as well as direction on the dynamics relative to the external markets and funding environment. Furthermore, he will lead the firm’s efforts in Web3 and the development of a dedicated venture studio.

Frank will also serve as a trusted mentor and advocate for QED’s investment team while continuing to cultivate strong relationships across the fintech ecosystem to build preference for QED globally.

In a corresponding move, Bill Cilluffo has been elevated from head of international investments to lead all of QED’s early-stage investments domestically and abroad, with a focus on pre-seed, seed and Series A investments.

QED Partner Chuckie Reddy has the role focused on growth-stage investments, now reporting to Managing Partner Nigel Morris. Chief Operating Officer Tommy Blanchard will continue to build out the platform function within the QED operations team and Jamie Loving will continue to serve as QED’s Chief Financial Officer.

“I’m really excited that Frank and Bill are taking on these critical roles, and I’m looking forward to working closely with Chuckie as we build our growth fund,” said Morris. “These roles play to their unique superpowers and will allow QED to grow seamlessly and to continue to produce exceptional returns for our investors. For our portfolio companies, these moves will allow us to double down on our brand promise of providing the best advice you can get anywhere in fintech.”

Founded in 2007, QED Investors has invested in more than 170 companies, including 25 unicorns, and has more than $4.6 billion under management. In September 2021, QED announced it had closed a substantially oversubscribed $1.05 billion fund, including $550 million in QED Fund VII for early stage investments and $500 million in a new Growth Fund.

Contact

Ashley Marshall
Director, PR and Communications
QED Investors
ashley@qedinvestors.com
(518) 577-9984

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- QED Investors, a leading global venture capital firm focused on investing in disruptive financial services companies, today announced a series of internal moves to facilitate the scaling of its unique business model.

Founding Partner Frank Rotman, formerly head of domestic investments, will take on an expanded role as Chief Investment Officer. In this position, he will provide oversight on investment portfolio composition and concentration as well as direction on the dynamics relative to the external markets and funding environment. Furthermore, he will lead the firm’s efforts in Web3 and the development of a dedicated venture studio.

Frank will also serve as a trusted mentor and advocate for QED’s investment team while continuing to cultivate strong relationships across the fintech ecosystem to build preference for QED globally.

In a corresponding move, Bill Cilluffo has been elevated from head of international investments to lead all of QED’s early-stage investments domestically and abroad, with a focus on pre-seed, seed and Series A investments.

QED Partner Chuckie Reddy has the role focused on growth-stage investments, now reporting to Managing Partner Nigel Morris. Chief Operating Officer Tommy Blanchard will continue to build out the platform function within the QED operations team and Jamie Loving will continue to serve as QED’s Chief Financial Officer.

“I’m really excited that Frank and Bill are taking on these critical roles, and I’m looking forward to working closely with Chuckie as we build our growth fund,” said Morris. “These roles play to their unique superpowers and will allow QED to grow seamlessly and to continue to produce exceptional returns for our investors. For our portfolio companies, these moves will allow us to double down on our brand promise of providing the best advice you can get anywhere in fintech.”

Founded in 2007, QED Investors has invested in more than 170 companies, including 25 unicorns, and has more than $4.6 billion under management. In September 2021, QED announced it had closed a substantially oversubscribed $1.05 billion fund, including $550 million in QED Fund VII for early stage investments and $500 million in a new Growth Fund.

Contact

Ashley Marshall
Director, PR and Communications
QED Investors
ashley@qedinvestors.com
(518) 577-9984

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01

Settlement Collapse

Value transfer moves from days - corresponding banking, T+1 securities - to seconds. Working capital tied up in float is released.

02

Cost Collapse

Marginal transaction cost approaches zero: fractions of a cent, versus 1-6% on card and corresponding rails.

03

Programmability

Money becomes an object that carries logic - escrow, splits, rebates, compliance - executed by code, not back offices.

Pure infrastructure with no revenue accrual

Layer-1 chains and general-purpose middleware — outside our circle of competence and typically outside our stage.

Speculative asset creation

NFT platforms, memecoins, prediction markets styled as products — mapping to none of the five functions; structurally uninvestable for us.

Three structural truths cut across all five functions.

(a)

Regulated-first wins

The 2020/21 cycle proved permissionless purity does not survive contact with real financial regulation. GENIUS, MiCA, CLARITY and the UK/Singapore regimes are producing founders who start from “how do we get licensed” and build backwards — precisely the founder profile QED has always preferred.
(b)

Incumbents upgraded, not disintermediated

JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are jointly building a tokenized-deposit network; Visa launched a stablecoin platform in July 2026; 140+ businesses signed an open stablecoin standard. Banks migrate — and new-generation infrastructure companies own the picks and shovels of that migration.
(c)

Emerging markets feel it first

Every function improves most where the fiat experience is worst: cross-border payments, dollar access, investment product availability, working-capital finance. Those are exactly the geographies where QED has fintech ventures’ deepest footprint. Our geographic distribution is not incidental to the tokenization thesis — it is the thesis.

Trade & working-capital finance

Finkargo( LatAm import finance) and OatFi(B2B working-capital infrastructure) sit directly on flows whose logical settlement layer is stablecoin.

Collateralized digital-asset lending

Tokenized Treasuries, equities and stablecoin holdings as instant, programmable collateral.

On-chain private credt

Maple, Centrifuge and emerging institutional protocols - credit funds migrating to programmable rails.

Why QED is advanced

Credit is QED's craft: distinguishing lending businesses from fintechs pretending to be one, charge-offs earned from charge-offs deferred. On-chain credit is a straight-line extension, not a stretch.