The 2015 Fintech Finance 35: Kenneth Marlin, Marlin & Associates

Software and data are the technology themes, and financial services a heavy concentration, for New York–based investment banking boutique Marlin & Associates. The firm has completed more than 200 transactions worldwide, in health care and business services as well as finance, since managing partnerKenneth Marlinfounded it in 2002. With ten deals completed through September of this year — among them the sale of posttrade systems company Information Mosaic, advised by Marlin, to London-based Markit — Marlin continues to build on a record that began when he worked on the corporate side, in the 1980s and ’90s. In ten years with Dun & Bradstreet, Marlin led 60 acquisitions and divestitures. Later he was CEO of Swiss-owned market data company Telekurs (North America) and a spin-off, Telesphere Corp., before joining private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson from 1999 to 2001. He views as a megatrend “the confluence of multiple technologies — like the Internet, mobile, security, broadband networks and greater storage capacity — which is allowing people’s creativity to come up with a lot of cool products.” A common goal of entrepreneurs is to make it easier for consumers and professionals to do business, Marlin says, be it through automated payments, wireless connectivity or customer data management technology like that of Trunomi, which his firm advised in a $3 million capital round in September. He has long contended that the financial industry is effective in pushing innovation, and now some of that energy is directed at vendor management: “They [vendors] require the customer to act like a general contractor,” Marlin says. “Every time there is a problem, there is finger-pointing. Buyers now want vendors to take responsibility for a bigger piece.”