Sarah Biller
Co-Founder
Vantage Ventures, FinTech Sandbox & CMX
Sarah Biller is an Entrepreneur, Investor, and Educator in the FinTech sector and adjacent industries. Ms. Biller is the co-Founder of FinTech Sandbox, a Boston-based not for profit that accelerates the product development cycle of FinTech start-ups globally by providing free access to high quality, diverse datasets, and on the founding team for the Mass Fintech Hub. She is also the co-Founder of Capital Market Exchange (CMX), a predictive analytics platform for institutional bond investors that integrates natural language processing, Bayesian estimation techniques and machine learning to identify and quantify the impact of nonfinancial factors on near-term credit spreads.
She Co-Founded Vantage Ventures, a collaboration of the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University (a Research 1 University), global Technology leaders, Fortune Class companies and Venture Capital firms, focused on providing entrepreneurs in the Appalachian region a systematic and efficient approach to build world-changing ideas into scalable, investable businesses and access venture capital. Under her leadership, West Virginia was the fourth state in the nation to pass legislation authorizing the creation of a Regulatory FinTech Sandbox, providing FinTech entrepreneurs a partnership-driven approach to building transformative products and services to serve Main Street. Ms. Biller also works across the public, private and academic sectors as the Regional Innovation Officer for the West Virginia Digital Identity Hub.
Ms. Biller designed the curriculum and taught a graduate level course on the evolution of Financial Technology at Brandeis University. She was most recently the Chief Operating Officer for Innovation at State Street Bank’s Global Exchange division and Head of the bank’s Innovation Ventures efforts. Prior to joining State Street, Ms. Biller held roles at Fidelity Investments; worked on MCI’s corporate venture team; and launched and led research divisions for Fortune 500 CFO’s and treasurers at the Corporate Executive Board.
She has also been a Principal in the launch of several successful venture-backed start-ups in the FinTech and Life Sciences sectors. She is an Investor and Board Director at Nashville, TN-based Thread Bank, New York, NY-based Rialto Markets, a FINRA-regulated ATS digitizing the securities and automating the fundraising process compliance and regulatory requirements for private companies as well new asset classes such as carbon credits, and KAYLP, a London-based blockchain company digitizing assets for cross-border distribution. Ms. Biller was also an Investor and Board Director prior to their acquisitions for Finomial, a Boston-based technology firm automating the compliance and regulatory requirements for a global set of Hedge Funds, Durham, NC-based subscription economy platform WalletFi, and trading platform for Bitcoin Options, Alt-Options, LLC. She is an active Advisor and mentor as well as the Founding Advisor for MassChallenge’s FinTech Lab initiative.
Ms. Biller was named by American Banker as one of the 20 Most Influential Women in FinTech and in earlier years by Innovate Finance one of the Top 150 global women leaders in FinTech, Lattice80’s list of Top 100 Women in FinTech in the UK and Hong Kong and NY FinTech Women as a Top 20 inspiration for her commitment to lift-up other women in an industry historically not known for doing so. Her professional efforts have been written about in the Harvard Business School case “West Virginia: Finding the Right Path Forward” and the books “Silicon Heartland: Transforming the Midwest from Rust Belt to Tech Belt ” and “Fintech Feminists: Increasing Inclusion, Redefining Innovation and Changing the Future for Women Around the World”. She is a Forbes contributor and frequent contributor to podcasts and news outlets. Ms. Biller chaired EY’s National selection committee for its Financial Services Entrepreneur of the Year award.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from West Virginia University and was conferred an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Davis & Elkins College for her professional and societal contributions.