Kai Schmitz
Kai Schmitz is a founding partner at Crestone and covers the Americas region out of Washington, DC. He also serves as Board member at different Fintech companies in the US and Latin America and investment vehicles in the US.
Before Crestone, he was a partner at Amadeus Capital, a Deep Tech Venture Capital fund in London, where he covered Emerging Markets and Fintech. Previously he spent 7 years at IFC, the private sector investment bank of the World Bank as Investment Lead for IFC’s $500m Fintech investment portfolio. Kai was responsible for 20 investments in equity, structured debt and funds.
Kai joined IFC from the World Bank, where he was a Senior Expert in the Payment System Development Group. He advised Central Banks and other government entities in Africa, Latin America, Europe and Australia on payment market infrastructure and regulation.
Kai started in Fintech when he left law firm Hogan Lovells in 1999 to start Money System with a classmate from his MBA. The Company operated an international payments platform between Europe and Africa. When the company was sold in 2003, he moved to the US to become co-founder of MFI Corp., which provides financial services to Latin-Americans in the US.
Originally a lawyer, Kai holds a J.D. (equiv.) from University of Hamburg and an MBA from Henley Business School in England.