*Margaret Lim, Managing Director of Amex Ventures*

Amex Ventures, the venture capital arm of American Express, invests in early-stage startups that have strategic value to the company. The corporate venture capital fund has made investments in more than 100 startups in areas such as fintech, commerce, and enterprise capabilities, including investments in Plaid, Wonder, and Stripe.

As a venture fund nestled within a worldwide banking institution, Amex Ventures offers the resources of a global services company along with more traditional venture support. Nearly two-thirds of its portfolio companies have had a commercial partnership with American Express.

Margaret Lim, a Managing Director at Amex Ventures, has been with the company since 2019. In addition to leading the partnerships between Amex Ventures’ startups and its parent company, she focuses on investment in fintech, commerce, and frontier technologies.

Lim joined Caroline Hyde, host of Bloomberg Television’s flagship technology show, at Bloomberg’s Lexington Avenue office in New York City, for a conversation as part of the Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg Speaker Series. She shared her thoughts on the benefits of working with international talent, what it takes to truly innovate in a crowded landscape of AIs and NFTs, and how Amex Ventures finds the sweet spot between American Express’ business needs and a broader mandate to experiment.

“We take a very deliberate thesis-based approach,” says Lim. “Because if you’re consistently just taking a business unit’s requests, then you can never push the balance of being truly innovative.”

A venture fund as the “eyes and ears of the business”

According to Lim, Amex Ventures serves three distinct populations: There’s American Express, a Fortune 500 company with a desire to integrate leading-edge technologies into its business. Then there are the individual American Express consumer customers, who Lim wants to be excited about supporting the company every day. And finally, there are the small business owners who are using American Express for their day-to-day operations. The fund invests in companies that meet the varied needs of these three audiences. So, while fintech is a major focus, the fund also seeks to invest in diverse technologies. It has supported companies working in software and security but also, she notes, Gen AI.

Lim refers to her team as “the eyes and ears of the businesses,” monitoring trends and emerging technologies to prepare for what’s ahead. Her job, then, is part investor and part strategist. “We’re not monitoring trends for the sake of it,” she says. “We’re translating them into conversations with our partners, and working with them to think through where a piece of technology can be an additive to their business.”

Her role also includes helping the startups in Amex Ventures’ portfolio to scale and amplify their impact, whether it’s through new distribution channels or joint development opportunities. One example she cites is how American Express launched its Amex Sync program to standardize how startups can access Amex products through APIs.

The fund’s strength, says Lim, is in its ability to harness the highly-engaged American Express customer base and partner ecosystem. “Especially in this climate,” she says, “startups and VCs are starting to realize that financial capital is great. But resources and access to distribution is so much more important if you want to be able to build any sustainable growth.”

Amex Ventures’ Margaret Lim (right) talking with Caroline Hyde, co-host of “Bloomberg Technology” on Bloomberg Television (left) on stage during the Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg Speaker Series event at Bloomberg’s Global Headquarters in New York City on Tuesday, May 28, 2024.

Leveraging local knowledge on a global scale

As an arm of an international company with a global customer base, Amex Ventures strives to mine talent from outside major technology hubs in the U.S. That might mean Lim is focusing on connecting with the vast number of founders from other countries who are working in “innovation capitals” like Silicon Valley and New York. “It’s a great melting pot of ideas,” she says.

Amex Ventures also sources companies from other areas. “You see founders building in Texas, in Boston, in Boulder, in Denver,” she says. “And you continue to see founders building great products that are very thoughtful for key specific markets with their regions.”

The same concept applies globally, as the fund seeks to tap into local expertise with events in cities like London. As Lim has discovered, what works in one area will not necessarily work in another. Regulatory requirements are vastly different from country to country. Consumer behavior varies widely, and some of the best products are developed to address location- or culture-specific needs. So, as Amex Ventures looks to expand its geographic scope, Lim says she’s particularly interested in startups serving the specific markets in which they originated.

Using emerging technologies for banking – and for delight

As the firm’s chief of frontier technology investments, Lim thinks critically about emerging applications for newer, vastly popular technologies. For instance, American Express has been looking at NFTs for years.

“We remain very excited about the fundamental innovations of the blockchain,” she says. And the company has worked with AI for the past decade for recruitment and to help identify fraud for its customers. American Express is currently experimenting with some generative AI pilots and focusing on how the technology can improve internal productivity. But, as with the blockchain, Lim privileges responsible use and experimentation over adoption as a “momentum play.” She gives the example of truly useful tools like AI-generated product summaries and imaginative applications like using an NFT to deliver perks to a superfan at a sporting event.

“I think the technology itself is extremely interesting,” she says, “which is why we’re constantly paying attention to it — and looking at founders who are leveraging the benefits of that technology for new and delightful experiences.”

You can watch the entire discussion below:

This article was originally published by Tech at Bloomberg.