Episode 31 - Tomas Campos
In this episode, I sit down with Tomas Campos, founder of Spinwheel.
Guests
Show notes
In this episode, I sit down with Tomas Campos, founder of Spinwheel.
Tomás Campos is the co-founder and CEO of Spinwheel, the agentic AI-powered credit data and payments platform that is revolutionizing the consumer credit ecosystem. Spinwheel services more than 15 million users and 165 million accounts, facilitating $1.5 trillion in connected debt across its network. A three-time founder, Tomás is a noteworthy entrepreneur, executive, inventor, and operator across payments, data, retail, consumer, and Saas industries.
Prior to Spinwheel, Tomás founded and sold his previous company to Westfield Inc. where he then served as the SVP of product. He also grew the digital payments division of Blackhawk Network Inc. to a $1.5 billion business and independent reporting segment as the global general manager.
With him, we talked about the whole experience of being a founder, that might not be for you, the differences between first time and second time founders, the credit market globally and how to raise funds in this environment.
In this episode
Tomas Campos, co-founder and CEO of Spinwheel, explains why consumer credit infrastructure has barely changed in decades and how real-time credit data and payment actions can improve lending decisions without adding friction or fraud. He describes how Spinwheel uses an AI agent per client to orchestrate the many data sources behind a single task, and why it delayed its raise until its numbers spoke for themselves. Drawing on two earlier exits, he urges founders to build for maximum value rather than a quick exit.
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and Spinwheel
- 1:26From Blackhawk to a first exit
- 2:57How Tomas ended up in fintech
- 5:14Why credit is hard to scale
- 9:57Data gaps in underwriting
- 13:45Verifying identity and orchestrating data
- 18:40How Spinwheel uses AI agents
- 21:19Raising in a hard market
- 26:59Lessons from two exits
- 35:54The US startup ecosystem
- 44:01Advice for founders
Key facts
Tomas has worked in fintech infrastructure for more than two decades, and Spinwheel is his third company.
Tomas was one of the first ten or so employees at Blackhawk Network, spent a decade there as it went public, and ran its digital businesses globally.
He founded a conversational-commerce company in 2015 and sold it in 2017; its assets were later valued at 10–11 times the sale price in a public offering.
Spinwheel, started in 2019, gives companies APIs for consumer credit data and payments; it does not serve consumers directly.
For tasks such as debt consolidation, Spinwheel spins up an AI agent per client and consumer to orchestrate the 10–16 data endpoints involved.
Spinwheel delayed its latest fundraise until its leadership felt the business's metrics would attract any investor.
Spinwheel had a third co-founder who left because he could not go unpaid for as long as the others.
Consumer credit infrastructure has changed little in five decades beyond the big bureaus.
Debt-to-income ratio changes constantly, so real-time data and payment actions are needed for accurate lending decisions.
The trick in credit data is to remove friction for consumers without introducing new fraud and risk.
The US lacks Europe's open banking rules but is moving in that direction despite setbacks around the CFPB rule and JPMorgan.
At seed you sell the dream; at Series A and B you sell the data.
It has never been easier to take an idea to a first customer; the main barrier is whether founders can afford the financial risk.
Questions and answers
How can consumer credit improve globally?
By improving the base data layer with real-time information and enabling actions on it, which lifts access, transparency and outcomes.
What did two exits teach Tomas?
That selling early undervalued what they built, so now he focuses on maximum long-term value.
What advice for new founders?
Solve a real problem, do the hard work to prove it, and embrace the rollercoaster.