Basil Darwish oversees the financial technology and enterprise IT deals as managing director for Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, which is a strategic corporate venture capital (CVC) and growth equity unit for US-based financial services firm Wells Fargo.
Darwish said: “We seek to partner with visionary founders and CEOs to build successful and category-defining companies. I lead the focus on fintech, regulatory technology and enterprise IT, and can either lead and syndicate financing rounds or work with partner VCs and CVCs. My team’s deep connectivity in the financial services industry helps facilitate meaningful partnerships and provide guidance to our portfolio companies.
“Investment focus areas in fintech and regtech include payments and treasury management tech, compliance tech and anti-money laundering and banking infrastructure software. In the domain of enterprise IT: machine learning and artificial intelligence – both applied AI and enterprise solutions, data management and analytics, cybersecurity and cloud technologies.”
He serves as board observers at portfolio companies including identity verification software provider Socure, fraud prevention technology provider Arkose Labs, business intelligence software developer AtScale and crypto-asset security technology developer Elliptic.
He also sits on the boards of cash management technology developer Trovata, AI software development tool provider H2O.ai, financial compliance technology producer Droit Financial Technologies and financial technology application platform OpenFin.
In addition, he took part in the fundraising efforts of blockchain technology developer Axoni and Greenlight Financial Technology, a provider of bank accounts for children. He worked closely with Kensho Technologies, the AI technology developer that was later acquired by financial data and analysis provider S&P Global, and financial markets technology provider Pico Quantitative Trading.
Before moving to San Francisco Bay Area in 2018, Darwish had held a two-year stint at Wells Fargo’s New York office, focusing on New York and London ecosystems as director of strategic investments.
Previously, Darwish had spent nearly seven years at financial services group Citi, the last five of which in senior vice-president (SVP) roles at its corporate venturing arm, Citi Ventures.
He held an SVP position at Citi Ventures in New York since early 2014 and had co-led investments in, or portfolio management of companies including insight discovery platform Ayasdi, big data analytics technology provider Platfora and cybersecurity company Illusive Networks.
Prior to that, Darwish had spent almost three years leading Citi Ventures’ corporate venturing and incubation activities in Singapore and Southeast Asia as SVP, after moving up from Citi’s investment banking team.
Darwish holds a business of science degree in electrical engineering and telecommunications from University of Jordan, a master of science in electrical engineering, very-large-scale integration design and semiconductors from Tufts University and an MBA from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
