CHICAGO - The Center for Financial Services Innovation has established the CFSI Catalyst Fund L.P., a private-equity limited partnership that aims to cultivate new financial-services companies and solutions that target the underbanked market.
According to a news release, the partnership will focus its attention on early-growth-stage companies that have been identified to have potential for broad scale, near-term profitability.
"The Catalyst Fund is a unique opportunity for CFSI to influence the direction of the financial-services industry while supporting our broader work," said Arjan Schutte, CFSI's associate director of investment programs. Schutte also has been charged with managing the fund.
KeyBank and the Ford Foundation are the investors in the fund.
The fund will be integrated into a broad portfolio of programs, including the Innovators Roundtable, the Responsible Credit Roundtable and Business Match, which accelerates and shortens institutions' buying cycles by introducing them to CFSI-vetted vendors.
