Pinstripe to Punk - Why Unqork Is the Next Google
On Thursday the New York-based, no-code startup Unqork announced that it closed a $131 million Series B funding round, the 4th largest Series B in NY history.
In my view, Unqork’s funding milestone is the first landfall of the next great disruption storm. A critical mass of financial executives, like Unqork's Gary Hoberman, have left their former employers and are now launching disruptive startups. Because of this Entrepreneur Exodus banking, insurance, and management consulting will be permanently transformed . Here’s why.
Disruption 1.0 - From Punk to Pinstripe
The first wave of disruption began inside the dorm rooms of Harvard and Stanford where punk entrepreneurs like Zuckerberg, Brin, and Bezos changed the way we shop, share information and connect with one another. Their revolution was a direct-to-consumer revolution. (Check out Laurence Ingrassia's new book, Billion Dollar Brand for a brilliant analysis of the first Disruption Wave.) Google, Facebook, and Amazon have certainly had an impact on finance, management consulting and insurance. But they didn’t disrupt those industries – not like they disrupted journalism and retail.
But the day that Mark Zuckerberg swapped his black hoodie for a pinstripe suit and had to testify before Congress was the day Disruption 1.0 died. It was that era’s ‘Altamont.’ These companies now impact elections and have scary, adult responsibilities. By necessity, they are slower, more cautious, and less fun than they used to be.
Disruption 2.0: From Pinstripe to Punk
Disruption 2.0 is fueled by pinstripe executives transforming into punk entrepreneurs. Unqork’s CEO, Gary Hoberman embodies that shift. He is part of Wall Street's Entrepreneur Exodus. For over twenty years he was a catalyst for exponential technological acceleration in finance. As Managing Director at Citi, and as Gloabl CIO of MetLife he used all of his power to solve big problems faster. But eventually he realized that he could have more of an impact from the outside than on the inside. So in 2016 he ditched his suit and tie and launched his first startup, a no-code platform that enables anyone in financial services to build enterprise software.
Hoberman is part of Wall Street's Entrepreneur Exodus. This new generation of entrepreneurs invested decades moving as fast as they could inside of investment banks, management consultancies, and insurance companies. They know exactly who the customers are, who the regulators are, and how the plumbing works. And they have complete fluency in how finance can be smarter, easier, cheaper and faster. Hoberman joins Wall st. alumni like Sallie Krawcheck in his transition from corporate intrapreneur to startup entrepreneur. Because of the Entrepreneur Exodus I believe we will see accelerated change in finance that at a certain critical mass starts to eclipse huge, entrenched incumbents. This is what makes their post Wall St. startups dangerous.
Unqork's potential disruptive impact starts to become clear once you use the software. The Unqork interface is a bit more complicated than PowerPoint–but not much. Except, unlike PowerPoint it can be used to build complex enterprise software for insurance and banking. For example, Unqork has been able to recreate asset management platforms that took hundreds of people, years of approval, and tens of millions of dollars in less than 10 days.
I am part of Wall Street's Entrepreneur Exodus and am an unapologetic, partial cheerleader. For a long time I knew that big finance’s bureaucratic heft and intransigence was unsustainable in the digital age. I saw a critical mass of brilliant innovators build incredible solutions only to quit or get fired. This milestone by Unqork seems to me like the Entrepreneur Exodus is now coming back home. The Barbarians of Disruption have finally arrived at the gates and finance will be permanently transformed because of it.
