209. No Cards, No Phones, Just Your Hand: How Handwave Raised €4.2M to Build the Future of Payments With Palm Biometrics w/ Janis Stirna

Speaker A: First I heard about this technology but my first question was uh, like you know from a mafia movies, if you chop the arm off, is it working?

Speaker B: Chopping, uh, the arm is actually a very popular question to us. And it's like we usually answer that it's not, you need the blood there and rotation and so on. Yeah, you're right. A palm is under the radar because the palm biometrics we are not using in our devices. We are going to be I think one of the most regulated companies in Europe definitely. It's our responsibility to keep sensitive data very, uh, very safe as well as potentially the pioneers, one of the pioneers in the Europe for the biometric payments. We are like kind of bringing reputation for the whole biometric, pure biometric payments itself. And that's uh, what is our mindset as well together like with Visa, um, usually the corporates like to work with very mature companies because they are taking some liabilities and the risks on their self, especially reputation risks when enabling something new. And usually they don't like to do it right because why they should risk with their reputations just because, you know, you have some idea.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Hello, hello, hello. Dear listeners, welcome to another episode of the Pursuit of Scrappiness podcast. Whether you're building a business, running a team or just starting out in your career, we are here to bring you scrappy and actionable insights to help you become more productive. My name is Old Stadosgalz and my co host is Jan Zeps.

Speaker A: Hey everyone.

Speaker C: Hey man. Forever and always. Before we start, a quick reminder. Follow us on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It helps more than you know and in exchange to that you will receive more than 200 episodes of ageless wisdom, inspiring stories and fascinating people. So there's plenty to explore. If this is your first episode, uh, click that follow button and be the first one to know when a new episode drops every Tuesday. So about today's topic. Today we're stepping into the world of payments and the future of payments. And at least in my career I've worked quite a few years in fintech and payments has been something that people have wanted to disrupt in different ways for uh, quite a while now. You know, cash is ancient, credit cards pretty old too. I would, I would say that the only like real world innovation that has happened to point of sales in our lifetimes is mobile payments like Apple Pay, Google pay that people actually use every day. I use all the time and I think it's used uh, you know, globally. There are also cryptocurrencies which have Seen different applications, hype cycles but we can't really say that they are actively used in your or you know local grocery store or coffee shop. So it's, it's kind of a different story. So what else is there? There are people out there working on various projects that would either bypass Visa, MasterCard or ensure payments without any physical cards, tokens or mobile phones using biometrics. And today we are talking to a founder of one such company. Welcome Yanis. Hi man.

Speaker B: Hi. Hello everyone.

Speaker C: So Jan Stin is the co uh founder of Handwave, uh Latvian Fintech that is shaking up checkouts with palm based biometrics. So no cards, no phones, just a wave of your hand or show of your hand. Uh and to go on this mission they have managed to raise quite a bit of funds. So fresh off a uh, 4.2 million seed round announced a couple weeks ago, uh backed by Praktikap Capital. Tough guys to get on your cap table. So congrats on that and uh, partnered with Visa and uh, taking on giants like Amazon one and uh, some other solutions out there. So quite a fascinating story. So we're going to talk about how to pioneering products in general or disrupting products and disrupting established markets and regulation and security that comes along with financial services and uh, a bit about future of payments. So let's kick things off and let's start with how do you even go about introducing a completely new means of payment uh as uh quite an ambitious undertaking. So why did you even decide to do it? What inspired you to go on this path?

Speaker B: Yeah, it actually started uh because uh four years ago we were building the biggest music festival in the Baltics. Like uh, we have Positivos in Latvia.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But we thought that we could make something much much bigger. And then uh, uh the co founder of the Handwave he was as well the team member on that uh festival. Um and he thought that it would be super nice that people would not use the tickets or bracelets but just use the biometric solution to enter the festival. And that was actually the kickoff and the initial start. Um at that time we went around globally to check what solutions exists like into the market. And we realized that there are none any mature ones which you can just take and integrate like everywhere. Um, um but we realized that palm scanning is the only way how it could be done because the face scanning is a bit ethical issue. Questions that you need to trust with your face to third party service provider or festival fingerprint is not accurate. Um ace scanning it's just so futuristic. Um, and uh, the palm scan could be m most convenient solution. But at the time Covid came, uh, uh, idea about the festival ended, um, but idea about the palm scanning, uh, stay on our table. And that was the time when me and my founder, we worked in the company Worldline. And Worldline is like the biggest payment company in Europe. Um, at that time, uh, Sandis, uh, the co founder, he was responsible for the whole technical infrastructure here in the Baltics. Um, I was responsible for like international projects uh, in the Baltics and participated in some activities as well in Europe. Uh so we know some things about the payments let's say in that way. And the idea was that hey, maybe let's put that palm scan together with the payment and enable it not only for one festival but globally. And that's where two years bootstrapping period started for us. Basically we were without funds, without uh, any kind of investments. We worked full time job. Um, but during the evenings and the weekends we did uh, very very hard analysis. Basically how the industry works. What is visa, what is MasterCard, how they are cooperating, what are the business relationships, what are the technical integrations behind it, like what existing infrastructure looks like. And we had a very, very small office uh, with lot of drawing boards and we drove multiple ways how we could integrate this palm scanning solution on existing infrastructure. So basically that was the goal. So yeah, that's, that's how the journey started. And uh, the fun thing was that it was just very, very super interesting. It was not about you know, that we will earn a big money or big funds or big venture capital. But it was like that is it even possible to do it? That was like the key motivation. And every month we got some answers and it's like playing a beta katana, like katana board game. It's like building the road, building their own and so on. So yeah, that was the start.

Speaker A: Actually people don't. And uh, we pre discussed, we have looked into this industry sometimes ago as well. But people don't uh, Palm is somehow under the radar fingerprint. Everybody knows you can scan eyes and face now everybody knows. But I think people somehow are not that familiar even with the fact that also Palm has like very unique print. Right? And I remember like first I heard about this technology but my first question was uh, like you know from a mafia movies, if you chop the arm off, does it work? And actually no it doesn't anymore. But uh, it is pretty under the radar or not anymore.

Speaker B: Like uh, uh, chopping the arm is actually a very popular Question to us and it's like we usually answer that. It's not, it's you need the blood there and rotation and so on.

Speaker A: Um, um.

Speaker B: But yeah you're right, a palm is under the radar because the palm biometrics we are not using in our devices. Um, and like each biometric type have uh, their own use case. I would say it in that way. Uh, like in mobile phone it's great that you have fingerprint or you have face and recognition because the biometric data stores in your mobile device. It's not like in some collective database where the, where high accuracy matching is needed, right? And for daily purposes it works great. I can unlock the phone with face and so on and implementing uh, the palm scanning on the mobile phone to unlock the phone. It's not that convenient comparing like fingerprint and so on. But when you start to think about the mass usage in the daily services, like for example on the post terminals or like going into the events with tickets and so on, then the face recognition or the fingerprint which works great on your mobile phone is not that great anymore like for those particular usage because like each biometric solution have their own like, like strong points and the weak points. And that's where the palm scanning actually comes out as, as uh, the best biometric way how like uh, you could use it like in the shop, like um, entering the office, like going into the public transportation and so on. It's contactless so it's good, you don't need to touch the surface. It works very very fast. Meaning you just show your palm and the uh, scanner scans. But the most important part is that the movement is the very, the same how you are doing right now with your mobile phone to do the payment. Because like when you are going to the store, for example self checkout register, right? You scan the items, you press the pay and what you are doing, you are taking the mobile phone with your right hand, you are uh, double clicking and putting like on uh, for the scanning. And in our case we are taking this phone off but the movement itself stays the same. And what it means that actually consumer can fully control their own biometric data because it's their choice that they are using this biometric because they need to show the palm on the scanner which is not the thing for the face recognition. Because when we validated the product around the world in Tokyo, in the United States, in Europe and Middle east and so on, we got a lot, a lot of feedback uh, from different big, big organizations which has tried face recognition implementations and they just call it the project because consumers are not using it because of the sensitive data. No one knows what those commerce are doing with their sensitive data. Right. Like for example Tokyo, Tokyo Metro we had a discussion. They have tried face recognition and they just called the project uh because consumers don't want to use space. So yeah we really believe that Palm is that biometric M solution, how consumers will use it.

Speaker C: You mentioned you were drawing these uh diagrams on how it would fit in like how many iterations did you have to go through uh and did you manage to land on a solution where you can use the existing infrastructure?

Speaker B: Yeah, uh we actually had more than 10 um, more than 10 um and all of them we validated with issuing banks, with acquiring banks with card schemes. Some of them we as well validated with the regulators. Uh it was actually a very very hard process because like industry uh is very complex with a lot of details and every small detail could make a very big impact on the overall flow like how the money goes afterwards and who is responsible and so on. Um, um on this day we are very very good spot because like uh the way how the payment flow will work, how the integration will happen, what is the business model that everything has been finalized and confirmed uh together with our partners, with regulators as well and uh, and uh with regulators we are into discussions to get the license here in Europe but uh overall internationally the card schemes has confirmed the solution and we have agreements with them. Basically we just enabled uh 8 billion cards uh into our ecosystem which can be synchronized with consumer profile with biometric data. And um. So yeah um on this day we can say that that uh we have basically finalized the way an approach and solution like how it could be implemented. And we are doing the integrations right now. We are making those uh partnership agreements uh in the European and targeting for United States and uh it actually came as a finalization just three months ago. So basically it took two and a half, almost three years basically to get to this point which is very huge achievement even if it on today doesn't bring the money. We are not that type of startup. We are for the long term but the base for the long term is very very stable. And ah we definitely are the frontrunners in the biometric industry because of. And that came not from us but from our partners as well from the card schemes that because of uh, because of this model how the payment works. It's uh unique way um and uh no other company in the world has gone in that way. Uh but it allows us to scale Solution very fast. It allows us to integrate with any acquiring bank, any merchant in the world in very lightweight light wave. And that our solution are bringing benefits for all the participants. Meaning acquiring banks, issuing banks, definitely uh card schemes and the merchants. So basically friends with everyone. That's how we are calling.

Speaker C: But then at the end of the day for this to work you need a ton uh. Of sensors everywhere hardware, right?

Speaker B: Yes uh, device is needed. Um, definitely uh or aim. Uh we are aiming um to have those devices as cheap as possible. Um with an idea that like the magic is happening in the software. So basically and it was a very crucial point for us because like two years ago we got very direct feedback from very big company who told that like if we are going with device price which could be I don't know about 300 years let's call it then none of in the industry would be capable to afford it. We are targeting more €200 and definitely it's completely different case then for the industry and the merchants. And uh. Device is a good thing the bad thing. I would say the bad thing. Of course it's like hardware blah blah blah, need to integrate and so on. But we are not only about the payments, we are as well about uh. Our solution offers instant loyalty instant edge verification. Meaning that those are the things what retailers are really looking for uh either way even without like the biometric payments. And that means that they will either way do the capex investments in some solutions for simply just for the age verification. And that means they need to bring the hardware on the place for example the cameras to scan your face. So either way it will for them it will be some additional hardware. And then in our case if one device pretty small one brings the payment loyalty age verification better data currency about the purchase. Uh because we have validated consumers like through our platform uh bringing biometric payment rails where we could enable afterwards account account payments like uh crypto stablecoin payments and so on so on. Then that device is okay so um. Because it's like just as enabled like like super big world and you could even.

Speaker A: Yeah you could even go as far as like country can say like we sell alcohol only to those who. Who can verify their age with this uh. You know at some point or cigarettes or something.

Speaker B: I know it's already like we are already like it's. It's already as a functionality in our product because like consumer will do registration through our applications and they will need to go through the KYC process meaning regular process wherever you are onboarding in the Banks or Neo banks or like even SmartID. You just like scan your Palm, scan your passport or ID card. Then you're taking mobile phone, scan your Palm just using the mobile phone, uh, you add the card, uh debit card or credit card. You do 3D authentication to prove that you are the consumer. And we are doing the validity checks that if you really are you basically and when you pass by all the checks it means that we have validated user and then this validated user, uh we can as a functionality use it for different kind of services. Like for example edge verification. Consumer shows the palm and we immediately says to the retailer that this guy is under 18 and that brings that we are actually the first payment method in the world who brings this instantage verification on the place which is super nice thing for the retailer because uh we are taking some liabilities up from them.

Speaker C: But yeah, you mentioned that you're friends with everybody and then you had announcements partnership with Visa. How do you see major financial traditional institutions uh perceive startups that are disrupting the systems? Do you see that they are uh, supportive or you need to somehow threaten them or convince them or like how to basically get them on your side. What has been your experience?

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, my experience that uh, it's a very long process and uh, you need to be solid uh and credible with everything what you are doing. Um, and uh for us helps the fact that we are coming from the big corporations so we know their mindset, we know how the corporations internally works. Like things like, like what usually are the sales cycling sales uh cycles, how long and what are the um, like even attitude and the wording how you are like speaking with them because like if you are going too bullish that like we are startup like super ambitious and we will change the world and so on. They will say guys, stop it down. That's not how the corporate works. Everyone saying that guys we have super interesting solution, could be with very big potential and let's check it out together. Then the discussions could start. And then in those discussions you need to be very prepared. You need to be with good materials, with good uh chart flows, uh, with good understanding what you are doing. If you are not that strong in the payments or the finance, uh, you can easily lose their interest because like they don't have a time, you know to teach you and so on. Um, so yeah, uh, uh, it's a very very tough process. Um, um, regarding the startups, um, it's not a good thing that we are startup and I will be transparent here because uh um, usually the corporates like to work with very mature companies because they are taking some liabilities and the risks on their self, especially reputation risks when they are enabling something new. Uh, and usually they don't like to do it. Right. Because why they should risk with their reputations just because, you know, you have some idea. Right. Um, so yeah, you need as soon as possible to grow the muscle hustle. Like even without. With investments, with network. Uh, right, with first agreements and uh. So they really trust you and they are really engaging with you. Uh, we made it through, uh, I would say, uh, because we had very good idea, very good plan how we would like to do it. At the same time we had like very, very good friends in the industry and uh, here in the Latvia in the Baltics and those people help us a lot to put those bricks together. And um, in that sense like it was very good that we came from this payment industry and we knew some people and it was like, like hey, let's think together, let's do it together. Like we are you know, from Latvia. Like uh, maybe let's build it Latvian fintech company internationally and so on. So yeah.

Speaker C: Have you done any of those like uh, startup programs that uh, those big companies do, like you know, this MasterCard, Lighthouse or some kind of similar. Like do you see some practical value in going that route?

Speaker B: Uh, we didn't. Uh, not the ones which were organized by the big corporations. Um, definitely there are value I do believe. Um, and if the startups, especially fintech ones, for example, that Lighthouse program, um, um, are capable to apply and are capable to spend the time and effort because it really, it requires you know, travel and so on, um, then I think it's good. Um, in our case it was a bit different because our mindset in a company is not to be maybe very public or participate in any external events, but really focus on the product and like those relationships which goes beyond the product publicity because like this PR release, what we had, like where we are cooperating with Visa and so on, like we actually were working together with them for one half year, right. And uh, like um, most probably we would be capable to go together in their different kind of programs to get like publication and so on, but it requires your valuable time. And in our case, uh, we decided to spend it like really to work, working on the solution and the product. Uh, to whom already we don't have enough time to be honest.

Speaker A: So yeah, which kind of sounds so logical, right? You invest in product instead of going around and doing presentations and it's Interesting. Like the question about these programs. There are a lot we have in a few episodes discussed how many of them are actually adding real value. Um, some are. Some. Yeah. Some maybe are not. But uh. Every. Every company needs to judge um. Themselves.

Speaker B: Yeah. No, I think like if you in our case um. We have the product which is you know pre revenue M. Pre production let's say we are not currently any pilots in the market yet and so on. So that's why I don't feel that we are really would get the best out of it all of those right. Because we don't have really to promote yet like in. But for those companies who have already product on the place revenue are starting growing someone of course for them they need to get uh like public appearance and those Lighthouse programs or other kind of programs helps a lot because they have like marketing NPR channels already established where you can hop on those rails and get basically very very very efficient. Like uh. Odd about yourself.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And then totally and definitely maybe after two years we will do it maybe in a different way. But like uh. In our case right now it's not the right time to be in the spotlight. So

Speaker C: for those programs I think biggest value is that you can just get a meeting with all the banks and like uh. If you plan to sell to the banks it's a very good way how to get in there because. Because you know people are busy and not everyone has friends so in Google. So yeah I think that's. That can help. Um, I want to talk a bit about regulation and security. Uh obviously plays a massive role in financial services. Similarly never you know dealing with like biometric data. Obviously it's also something that requires uh a lot of effort effort and potentially incur substantial costs. So uh. We were wondering how do you approach these topics like to get maximum business value while also keeping the data safe and relevant Risks.

Speaker B: Yeah. Security actually is uh one of the biggest priorities in our company and uh. In that say we are going to be I think one of the most regulated company in Europe. Definitely uh we have different kind of certifications in our plans and we are preparing for them like Fido, pci, dss, ICO and so on so on. Um and um. It's our responsibility to keep the sensitive data very uh very safe and uh. Um as well as potentially the pioneers one of the pioneers in the year report the biometric payments. Like we are like kind of bringing reputation for the whole biometric. Pure biometric payment itself. And that's ah. What is our mindset as well together like with Visa, regarding, like this token enablement and that uh, we need to do everything very, very secure in very right manner. Um, so yeah, that's why we are investing a lot of money into that. Like we are like have a team of very strong people of compliance and security and we are building uh, from the scratch all the processes, like all the technology that it's very mature I would say in that way. Um, I think it will be one of our biggest challenge in the long term, especially when the product will go very wide. Um, because of course people have tendencies to try to break it and try to hack it and so on. In our case, the good thing is that like the way how our biometric technology is working, um, of our algorithms, which are two and they're taking lot of, lot of things from your palm including the vein structure like liveness checks and so on. It's impossible to hack it as such that you just cannot fake your hand or make the blood vein structure like identical like other person and so on. But there will be different ways how they will try to hack it, right? Maybe try to directly hack our systems or maybe try to stall the device and so on. Um, and for that edge case, definitely we need to be prepared that um, nothing bad will happen.

Speaker C: Are you concerned about the uh, user acceptance of the method? I uh, understand, uh, your solution is not really anywhere out there today. But uh, how are you making sure that people are actually going to be willing to wave their hands?

Speaker B: To be honest, no. And um, I can explain why, um, because um, uh, payment industry actually where we are going into it, um, are going towards the biometric payments and uh, we are not the first one in the world who is doing that. And the competitors has already proved that uh, consumers uh, are using that and like to use the product. Like we have pilots in China for the public transportation. We have Amazon one and their user base are growing, uh, good for us. It's only for basically for their retailers and some small merchants and they will not be capable to spread around globally. Uh, but still consumer base is growing and that's just a normal tendency from the human habit perspective that uh, consumer will always are looking for the next much more convenient solution. Like the solution which will help them uh, to do uh, the lightwave actions in his daily life. The same was with the contactless, right? The same was with the payment cards. And even before those errors, consumers didn't solve the problem because when you like when everyone paid with cash, like uh, no one solved the problem. Why do you need a card Right. And then consumers start to use the card. Oh it's nice, it's easier, it's safer. Like no one can stall directly from you. Then the contractors start to appear, right. And people thought like why do I need it? Like everyone will just stole my card and you know, contactless. So you go and so on. But everyone always using the contactless. So sometimes you just need to offer the innovation to the people and before they even thought about it. Yeah, it could be, it could be nice. And consumer tries one time, two times and done they start using that. Um, so yeah, I'm not that concerned about that fact. I think it's just matter of time, um, just matter of time. And all the statistics and predictions and forecast by the big companies but as well from the payments industry predicts that uh 2030, 2032 there will be hundreds of billions transactions which will be made just by the peer biometric payment. So I think people will use it.

Speaker C: This is actually a good segue into a question that I had about uh, where, where the next major platform is going to be. And I guess uh, given that you have applications that go beyond payments, you must have thought about uh, where everything is going because you know currently everything is centralized in the smartphone communications transactions whatnot arguments. Uh, you're trying to pull payments away from that. Ah, where do you think other applications are going to be pulled? Is it like smart glasses or brain chips or biometrics or humanoid assistant robots?

Speaker A: Paying with a brain chip, uh something

Speaker C: paying with a wink.

Speaker A: There was an implant.

Speaker C: Contactless with your head. Contactless with your head. Like you put your brain chip next to this uh, NFC scanner.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. I think uh, there was uh, chips in the palms actually like when you start this company, like there was something people around told the top tier as well like putting the chips in your palm and we are saying no, no, no, it's like without the chips, uh, like how I'm seeing it personally is that uh, uh any wide uh product can be uh, the product can be wide only if it can be easily used or integrated like brain chips could uh, be. But does 8 billion people will use the brain chips maybe after 100 years.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: The same goes as well I think uh, with Apple Watch actually because Apple Watch actually offers the payment. You just put the watch and use it. Right. But none like from the percentage of the people around the world who have the Apple Watch, it's, it's very, not that very wide group. Right. And, and then there's percentage who is using the payments into the watch. So and, and um, um. Could be that um, could be that there uh, the payment industry could shift fully in the biometrics. I do, I fully do believe and I think uh, as well the face recognition will be used uh for some particular use cases where the consumers are not afraid to do the sensitive data. I don't believe that it will go that there will be everywhere the cameras around like we will be in those uh, sci fi movies. Um, um. Uh.

Speaker C: But yeah, I think yeah it's a fair point that for mass adoption uh, smartphone was needed by everybody. It became such that it's used by everybody. A smartwatch, not so much. It's a bit of like a convenience and style thing. And then obviously humanoid robots. Probably gonna be a bit expensive to do stuff for you. Um, yeah, um, brain chips. Uh, a bit of invasive in your brain. Yeah, only if they can do it like shooting with like some kind of you know, uh, two second pistol shot, then it's maybe a bit different story. It's not like you're gonna have like open head surgery to make a payment.

Speaker A: All depends what uh the government decides, you know. Yeah, ah, we can go into that.

Speaker C: What do you want decide it not work.

Speaker B: Yeah, Europe most regulated like um, region um, in the world as well for our solution. Actually we realized that our solution perfectly works for United States and other region because the regulations there are not that harsh for the innovations. Um and I fully understand why Europe are doing that. But like to enter the Europe market, uh, of course it's like additional effort but from our perspective it's good because like if you are preparing solution for the Europe it automatically fits all the world regulations because it always will be a couple of levels higher. Um, so yeah, um, so yeah, ah, um, I think uh, that's why a lot of innovations are coming from United States as well. Like if there will be a next some global way of platform of the payments and so on that most probably it will come from United States because they are just a lot as well in the fintech industry to try out something more, to innovate a bit. Something more and so on.

Speaker C: Yeah, when we were looking at this industry they had this pay by touch which was like a fingerprint uh, payments scheme that was a big scandal. They raised like a couple hundred million and went bust. And uh, it was a big story around them. So they've definitely been trying all kinds of stuff. Uh, uh, well for your product I think what is a massive advantage is that that uh, the barrier of entry for the consumer is just will right you just need to be willing to show your hand. You don't need to buy anything, you don't need to do anything. You just need to sign up. And you mentioned that you can even scan it with your phone. Like does it have like an infra camera that you can use?

Speaker B: No. We are m investing a lot in the algorithms uh which uh will work with your default cameras. So basically when you can take your Samsung or iPhone and uh with pretty decent camera you can just scan your palm and uh our algorithms will take a lot of unitaristic things from the skin surface and other things. And then afterwards when you will go to the shop there will be device with both cameras infrared and this default RGB camera. So basically at first we will match you with this RGB camera the tru and at the same time we are taking like as well. This can be infrared camera and then afterwards you have the both biometric uh hash codes uh into the database and when you show we match with both of them. So basically we are by default enabling two factor authentication um that we are checking you or you, you and you like if it's you and not you then like false. But that's how it should not work.

Speaker C: That's pretty cool. Pretty cool. Cool ideas. So what's next for you uh to finish up? So what's next for hand wave? What major milestones do you have to reach this year? Next year? When can we wave our hands?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good question. Uh finalizing technology definitely is one milestone pilot together with our partners with whom currently we are integrating is the second milestone. And uh, uh to do the very nice you know um PR activity so the consumers could start to, would like to start to use and try it out. I think that's the third as and I would call it as a one big milestone basically to pilot here in the Baltics. Definitely, definitely that we are aiming for next year before the summer. So let's see how it will go. Um, the second and maybe even the biggest milestone is that uh as the business model and the flow has been finalized um to start to scale it around the world especially in the United States. Um, um, um on that we are working a lot right now um like looking for first partners and so on. Um because this product is meant for the global usage and we are at very right time to start to scale it. Um yeah and definitely next investment round because especially in the fintech area uh investments uh needs to be bigger maybe comparing to the average startups because like there are a lot of technology and the processes, compliance and everything that you need to build and maintain. So yeah, next investment round definitely is in our plants. Uh, let's see when it will happen but uh, hopefully sooner than later. So.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker C: Sounds good. We shall be following your progress.

Speaker B: Good.

Speaker C: Eager to wave some hands?

Speaker A: Well, uh, it depends on the country. I think in Germany places still don't accept cards so uh, maybe next century Baltics in that sense. Uh, sometimes, sometimes piloting things in Baltics kind of seems a bit unlocked, not logical but here it makes total sense.

Speaker B: Yeah, it makes like our region is actually one of the most advanced in the world uh in terms of the fintech solutions. Um, and we need to be proud of that. It as well give some indication about our quality of life overall that we as a uh, region can develop and try out some things and people are willing to use it and so on. The same as well to go with, with Nordic countries. Like the Nordic countries, especially Sweden are the most uh advanced fintech countries and so we are in the good region. Right. Uh, the bad thing is market is not that big. Um, but it does matter in the sense that uh we are planning that our solution is in all of the countries in the world similar like Apple Pay or similar like cards and so on. It's just like where we are starting. So Baltics is good definitely we will start um other countries in the Europe as well are in our plants and United States definitely. Uh the good thing is that like as well from Latin America as well from uh Africa and Middle east, uh, uh companies are coming to us at the moment and they're like investigating what could be, you know, integration opportunities and partnership opportunities and so on. And it just means that like our solution is not only good for the advanced fintech countries but maybe even quite opposite like in the countries where there are big fraud rates like in Latin America because you can install the card or mobile phone during the payment or when you're driving out the money from the ATMs and so on. So yeah, um, so yeah, I think it will be very interesting journey uh in the sense in the following years uh, regarding which countries we will pilot and how the project will scale.

Speaker C: Well, best of luck and uh, uh, unicorn. What can we wish uh to you this definitely has the potential for that. Thanks a lot for giving us your time and uh, energy and ideas uh, and advice. Uh, so thanks a lot to Yanis and um. Yeah, see you around.

Speaker B: Thanks. Thanks a lot guys. Bye.

Speaker A: Thanks. Bye.

Speaker C: And to the listeners, thank you for your attention and loyalty and uh, see you next week.

Speaker B: If you like this show, remember to leave us a rating or review. It helps other people to discover the pursuit of scrappiness.