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Florian Spiegl
Founder & CEO of EVIDENT, with extensive experience in FinTech and digital assets.
Florian M Spiegl
Florian M Spiegl is an innovator, entrepreneur, and executive in financial technology. He is the Founder and CEO of Evident, a digital assets platform with the mission to make impact investing accessible to anyone.1
Before starting Evident, Florian served as CEO and board member of Hunter Technology Corp., a publicly listed commodities trading technology company.14 He was appointed to Hunter Technology's Board of Directors in 2021.56 Previously, he co-founded FinFabrik, a Hong Kong-based blockchain and trading technology company which was acquired by Hunter in 2020.1
His earlier corporate career spanned strategy consulting with the Boston Consulting Group in Vienna and New York and wealth and asset management with Credit Suisse in Switzerland, London, and Singapore.1
Key Positions and Roles
- Founder & CEO, Evident (January 2022 - Present)1
- FinTech Advisory Group, Appointed Member, Securities and Futures Commission (March 2019 - Present)2
- Lecturer, Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of Hong Kong (July 2022 - Present)2
- President, FinFabrik at Hunter Technology Corp. (October 2021 - December 2021)2
- Chief Executive Officer, Hunter Technology Corp. (March 2021 - October 2021)237
- Founding Member and Committee Chair, FinTech Association of Hong Kong (October 2017 - December 2021)2
- Co-Founder & COO, FinFabrik (August 2016 - February 2021)2
Florian is an active angel investor in innovation and impact ventures. He is a founding member of the Hong Kong FinTech Association, regular lecturer at Greater China universities and the Hong Kong Securities and Investment Institute, and also serves on the FinTech Advisory Board of the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong.1
Highlights
“If you can earn 12%, maybe 13% on a really good day in senior secured bank debt, what else do you want to do in life? If you are living in a no-growth economy and somebody can give you 12, 13% with almost no prospect of loss, that’s about the best thing you can do.” 🎤 Stephen Schwarzman, CEO Blackstone Group
Nuff said to illustrate: global investment firms are shifting focus from traditional buyouts to private credit as an alternative to traditional bank lending.
📖 The story
Traditionally, private credit has mainly targeted the upper mid-market borrowers, a sector where traditional banks are less active.
Now, industry giants like Apollo and Blackstone are increasingly positioning themselves as alternative lenders, capable of making large-scale corporate loans.
Why?
The yield difference is too tempting to ignore. Central banks have ramped up interest rates to temper inflation and are signaling to keep them elevated for longer. In this landscape, private credit—even to well-rated corporates—emerges as a profitable avenue in the alternative assets universe.
As a result, private credit is currently the fastest-growing segment of the alts market.
💾 Some data/ drivers to ponder
Decline in buyouts ⬇️ • Average buyout funds returned around 18% during low-interest rate periods, but with rising rates, this is expected to decrease. • Higher interest rates have led to a nearly complete halt in buyouts over the past year. • The volume of exits from PE buyout deals has fallen over 60% from their peak in 2021. • Private equity investments have dropped 37% in the first half of this year.
Rise in private credit ⬆️ • Private credit funds are expected to yield returns in the low teens but with less investor risk. • Blackstone's credit and insurance arms manage $295bn, more than double its $137bn in PE. • Apollo's private credit unit now manages >$400bn, far surpassing its buyout division's $100bn. • An example of a larger-scale corporate deal is a €500mn loan to Air France by Apollo.
💡 Interesting development. ‘Almost no prospect of loss’ is an optimistic statement and it remains to be seen how long ‘no-risk' returns of 12%+ can persist. But private credit seems set to continue growing within the alts universe.
#alternativeinvestments #privateequity #economics
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
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Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.