Do you know who set up Accenture’s first Innovation Lab in India? Then went on to transform SC Studios, the corporate ventures and innovation scouting unit which became part of Standard Chartered Ventures as we know it today? He’s also CEO of the first sustainable SME growth platform in the UAE. He’s been a banker, a tech advisor, a mentor to founders and accelerators, and now our newest Venture Partner at 1835i. Meet Amar Rathor. With global experience in Dubai, Singapore, Bangalore, New York and San Francisco, Amar is a visionary and a trailblazer in banking, strategy and ventures.
If you’re curious to know how one person can drive such monumental change, you’ll want to read on to hear Amar tell his story, his controversial prediction for the future of AI and his take on the biggest pitfalls founders make when partnering with banks.
How did your love of travel, learning and problem solving lead you to launch Accenture’s first innovation lab?
Growing up in India, travel quickly became a big motivator in shaping my career path. I started in finance and took on various challenges, but it was curiosity that truly fueled me.
At GE, Six Sigma taught me to approach problems with a first-principles mindset. This led me to innovation and process change, which is how I came to start the first Innovation Lab at Accenture. Without going into too much detail, this lab delivered multiple new solutions using innovative process and product improvement methodologies.
These early problem solving experiences gave me a process-based framework to not just learn, but to tackle new challenges and build something meaningful.
How did you then transform a small innovation scouting outpost into a global innovation driver at SC Ventures?
My 12-year journey with Standard Chartered across a variety of roles took me from Dubai to Singapore, New York, and ultimately San Francisco, where I transformed a technology and design outpost to a core innovation driver and a key enabler of the bank’s future strategy and vision. This involved building the startup investment pipeline for early corporate investments for SC Ventures which is now a global leader in banking corporate venture capital.
At Standard Chartered, we set out with two key goals: First, we focused on transforming the bank’s tech stack by building partnerships with fintech and enterprise software startups. By partnering with emerging cloud, data, and API companies, we enabled the bank to move at the speed of modern software companies, delivering consumers the experiences and products with the agility and speed of Fintechs. Second, we partnered with fintech powerhouses like Stripe, PayPal, Payoneer, Coinbase, and Ripple, helping them break into Asian markets and generating tens of millions in annual revenue for the bank.
From all this experience, what is your advice to founders on successfully securing partnerships and working with banks and CVCs?
Partnering with banks and CVCs presents valuable opportunities for startups. However, to truly succeed, founders need to demonstrate focus, perseverance, a deep understanding of the banking landscape, and a 10x value proposition.
Founders must be discerning, knowing when to decline opportunities that distract from core objectives. It's essential to persevere and achieve strong product-market fit, resisting the temptation to chase every feature request.
A common mistake is overestimating a product's appeal without grasping the complexities of banking operations. Bank executives face numerous priorities, including regulatory, compliance and legacy infrastructure constraints that complete full customer proposition. To grab their attention, your product or solution must deliver a substantial 10x improvement over current options; otherwise, the bank may find the investment needed to adapt to your product isn’t worth the return.
CVC relationships can also provide strategic insights along with access to capital, making it easier to scale in new competitive markets while derisking some of the market entry challenges.
As a leader in innovation, what's your boldest prediction for AI's future and its impact?
Narrow Artificial Intelligence
If we take a step back and see where we are and where we are headed - currently we are trying to develop AI that is good at specific tasks, like self driving cars, reading radiology reports or identifying security threats. This could be called narrow AI and this is the first step of computer intelligence if we put it like that.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
The next step, which might require a different architecture and a lot more energy, then is AGI or artificial general intelligence. The ability of machines to communicate across different languages and architectures will be key as this happens and we can see Generative AI or LLMs play a key role there. While Narrow AI gets machines to be as good as humans at specific tasks, AGI will be as good as humans at everything.
Communication has been a core differentiator for human evolution on earth. Over time, multiple communication mechanisms evolved amongst humans and now machines. AI could be used to connect modern cloud apps and near real-time access to mainframe data, facilitating advanced analytics and AI applications in the cloud or it could allow someone to use their natural communications language to build applications without learning programming. Removing such friction of communication between humans and machines will open up a wide array of opportunities — that is an aspect that not all people are seeing.
No one thought in the early internet days of 1995-2005 that the biggest disruption from the internet would be in the physical world of taxis and retail. Internet, mobile, satellites and payments came together in a way to create these innovations. So, in my view AGI is obvious and not far (and here’s where it gets really interesting.) AGI is just a transition point because it won’t last long before we reach something even more profound - a more recent term: Super Intelligence (SI).
Super intelligence (SI)
This is where computer intelligence will far outperform humans at everything. I feel at this time things might come back full circle for us humans. Given the energy intensity of AI, it might not make sense for AI to perform low value real world tasks where the value is in human connection and it requires a lot of computation, like giving a haircut or running a cafe. There is so much more to say about the economic implications on productivity of labour, capital and wealth but let’s save that for our next conversation.
With 1835i’s vision in mind, what focus areas are primed for unlocking new partnerships?
It's still early days at 1835i, but I'm focused on understanding ANZ Bank's key priorities and identifying opportunities for U.S. startups to partner within those areas. Currently, we are concentrating on SMBs, regulatory assurance, and home ownership, seeking promising companies to learn from and partner in these areas. I'm also attending Money 20/20 to connect with the team and looking forward to my trip to Australia in December for the ANZ & 1835i Portfolio Day.
A quick question or two about you personally before we end off - what’s one interesting thing people don't know about you?
I want to retire on a small farm.
And finally…. what is your hope for the future?
If I take a step back and look at the biggest change I’d like to see - it is around action in climate and sustainability. We’re all doing very little in that space, and the consequences can be catastrophic for us all. But, there are founders that I met who are solving some very hard problems and making an impact, and I’d love to see that impact scale. I’ve spent a fair bit of time helping climate founders grow and expand, and I’m enjoying working with one right now. This excites me - driving change where it matters most. For anyone interested in this space, I would highly recommend the book ‘Speed and Scale’ by John Doerr.
Amar Rathor has already achieved so much, and we’re excited to see how his leadership will help us push boundaries even further at 1835i.
