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The Venture Codex

Washington University in St. Louis

1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63130, United States

Overview

Washington University in St. Louis will challenge you to realize your potential. They inspire and support each other with a view toward both individual and collective success. They are a community of individuals with inner fire and quiet confidence, inspired to work together to develop big ideas and tackle challenging problems. Their mission drives who they are as a university. As they accept the challenge of thier mission’s goals of inclusion and excellence, they are always evolving to meet the needs of their current and prospective students as well as thier alumni, faculty and staff. They focus on strategic priorities that produce the most impact toward their goal of enhancing the lives of their students, their community and their world. Their campuses demonstrate their commitment to an inclusive community that is welcoming, nurturing and intellectually rigorous. Throughout Washington University’s history they have set their sights high and judged their-selves by the most exacting standards. With a view toward individual and collective success, their mission moves us to inspire and support one another.

Total investments
7
Lead investments
0
Investments · 12mo
3
Active investors
8

Sector focus

  • E-Learning
  • EBooks
  • Education
  • Higher Education
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Investment portfolio

  • Cashea

    Participated · Series B · Jul 2026

    Founded in Caracas in 2022, Cashea rebuilt access to credit in Venezuela by offering fully digital, instant, zero-interest installment financing for everyday purchases both online and in stores. The company says it has more than 10 million consumer accounts, a network of 40,000 storefronts nationwide, and has enabled more than 100 million transactions since launch. Cashea’s product lets shoppers make a first payment via the app or a QR code in-store and settle the remainder in equal biweekly installments at zero interest. The company has taken operational steps during crises—waiving late fees and advancing cash to merchants after a recent earthquake—to support liquidity for merchants and consumers. Cashea plans to use its new capital to continue expanding access to credit across Venezuela and to build additional payment, savings and merchant tools that extend beyond its core installment product.

  • Airwallex

    Participated · Series H · Jun 2026

    Airwallex offers an AI-native financial operating system and a suite of regulated financial infrastructure products, including payment acceptance, billing, global accounts, corporate cards, and spend management. The company holds 85+ licenses across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific and serves more than 676,000 businesses worldwide, directly or through platform partners. Airwallex reported $1.3 billion in annualized revenue and $287 billion in annualized transaction volume as of March 2026, with more than 90% of revenue coming from customers using multiple products. It is rolling out two new initiatives—T:0, an end-to-end AI-native finance platform currently in private beta, and Airi, a consumer wallet and agentic commerce infrastructure. The company plans to use recent funding to accelerate product development, expand its regulatory and infrastructure footprint, and scale teams to build next-generation AI-native financial software. Airwallex was founded in Melbourne in 2015 and is co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with over 2,300 employees across 27 offices.

  • Salmon

    Participated · Equity · Apr 2026

    Salmon Group operates a modern money app and a suite of financial products delivered through the Salmon app and runs a BSP-licensed bank (Salmon Bank) and an SEC-licensed financing company (Salmon Finance). Founded in July 2022 by Pavel Fedorov, George Chesakov, and Raffy Montemayor, the company aims to be a challenger to legacy banks in the Philippines by focusing on customer experience and execution speed. Salmon highlights product metrics such as a 4.8 rating in both the App Store and Google Play and 99.9% uptime, and offers competitive retail features cited in the announcement (for example, Salmon Credit’s up to 62-day grace period and an 8% term deposit rate). The group is backed by prominent US venture investors as well as IFC (World Bank Group), ADQ/Lunate, Antler and notable Filipino investors. Salmon plans to use new capital to expand products, deepen distribution, and further capitalize Salmon Bank to grow its lending and deposit footprint. The company positions itself to scale its balance sheet and lending portfolio through a mix of equity and public debt financing.

  • Surfin

    Participated · Equity · Apr 2025

    Surfin Meta Digital Technologies is a Singapore-based financial technology platform led by CEO and founder Dr Yanan Wu. It provides digital financial services for the unbanked and underbanked in emerging markets, including consumer lending and credit cards, payments and remittances, wealth management, and B2B services. The company closed a funding round that brought its total funding to USD 26.5M. Investors in the round included Woori Venture Partners, Washington University in St. Louis, and Phillip Private Equity; an initial USD 12.5M investment was led by Insignia Ventures Partners in October 2024. Proceeds will be used to support development into new markets and to expand research & development initiatives. The firm plans to build a holistic suite of intelligent financial products for these markets. Surfin is a financial technology platform launched in 2017 and headquartered in Singapore that began with consumer lending and expanded into a suite of financial services. It now offers payments, remittance, credit card issuance, and wealth management across multiple markets. The company reports serving 60 million individuals across eight countries on three continents and processing about $2.7 billion in cumulative transactions. Products include Ayovest, a mutual fund trading platform launched in Indonesia in 2023, and Sufinc, a Visa-partnered credit card business in Mexico; in Indonesia Surfin holds licenses for P2P lending, mutual fund distribution, remittance, and payment gateway services. Surfin’s ecosystem is powered by a unified AI-driven credit scoring and risk-management engine to lend sustainably at scale and expand use cases. The company has been bootstrapped and self-financed since launch, has not taken third-party debt, and has over 2,500 people globally.

  • Strike

    Participated · Series B · Sep 2022

    Strike's core product is a commerce API built on the Bitcoin Lightning Network that integrates instant, global, cash-final payments into merchants, marketplaces, and financial institutions. Initial partners for the flagship API include Blackhawk, NCR, and Shopify, and the integration aims to eliminate legacy processing fees like interchange. The company also offers a consumer app (over two million downloads) that lets users send dollars worldwide instantly with no added fees and expands access to remittances and basic financial services. Strike says its payments are accessible to any consumer who can move money using the Lightning Network, including more than 70 million Cash App users. The company plans to release new product lines and API capabilities to enable large financial institutions and businesses to both receive and send payments using Strike's infrastructure. Strike will use recent capital to accelerate growth, expand existing partnerships, and launch new partnerships globally.

Team

  • Scott Wilson

    Chief Investment Officer

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  • II Luscri

    Assistant Vice Provost for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

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  • Elliot Elson

    Professor

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  • David Perlmutter

    Graduate Research Assistant

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