Nathan McKinley is vice-president of corporate development at USAA, a financial services provider for military personnel and their families. He is responsible for its $330m venture capital fund, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and intellectual property transactions. He is on the board of USAA portfolio companies CafeX, ID.me and MX.
In March, ID.me raised $19m in its series B round, while CafeX’s $21m B round had closed two years before and the same month as MX, a personal finance startup formerly known as Money Desktop, raised $30m in its A round.
McKinley said: “USAA provides financial services to the military community, and we do so with a focus on innovating new ways to serve them, including by inventing the ability to deposit cheques remotely using devices such as mobile phones and home scanners.
“We have over 50 patents that cover Deposit@Home and Deposit@Mobile online and mobile cheque deposit technology. We also do that by investing in innovative companies that could help us serve our members better. In 2016, we doubled the size of the team, made nine investments, and signed an intellectual property commercialisation agreement with Persistent Systems.”
USAA’s exits include SiriusXM’s acquisition of Automatic Labs, a US-based provider of connected vehicle services for $115m, according to a regulatory filing seen by news provider Fortune. Automatic had raised $32m of funding, $24m of which came in a 2015 series B round backed by Comcast Ventures, USAA and CDK Global.
McKinley has worked at USAA since 2006, and has managed bank product management, retail marketing, enterprise innovation, and the military affinity group. His team understandably has close ties with the military – Adam Holcombe, a GVC Rising Star 2016, received the Bronze Star during his time as an engineer officer in the US army.
Beforeto joining USAA, McKinley spent 16 years with MBNA America and left as senior vice-president of product development after the acquisition by Bank of America in 2006.