After working together for nearly one decade, three former managing directors of Amex Ventures in early 2022 branched out to form their own fintech-focused venture firm, Vesey Ventures. The trio had made early investments in more than 50 fintech companies, including the likes of Stripe, Plaid, Melio and Trulioo. During that time, they also helped engineer over 100 partnerships between startups and financial services institutions.Their goal was to take that 10 years of experience investing through the venture capital arm of one of the world’s largest credit card companies, and apply it firsthand to new early-stage investments — but with a twist. The firm says its intent is to go beyond term sheets to issuing bespoke “Strategy Sheets,” which outline how Vesey Ventures aims to leverage its network “to act as a company’s first business development team.” In other words, it wants to invest in early-stage fintech and enabling technology companies “where opportunities for early partnerships with financial incumbents exist.”And today, the firm — formed by founding partners and friends Dana Eli-Lorch, Lindsay Fitzgerald and Julia Huang, who all left AMEX Ventures at the same time in late 2021 — has announced the closure of its $78 million debut fund. They named the firm Vesey Ventures after the street where American Express has its headquarters in New York. (They declined to say whether Amex is a limited partner in the new fund.)The feat is particularly impressive considering that, according to PitchBook data recently cited by The Information, “female-led venture firms in the U.S

Equi, a NYC-based alternative investment strategies platform, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Smash Capital, with support from Company Capital and Montage Ventures