Episode 3 of Driven introduces us to Tala’s impressive founder & CEO, Shivani Siroya, who combined her experience in investment banking and with the United Nations Population Fund, to found Tala — a mobile technology and data science company that is opening up financial access for the two billion underserved people around the world.

Anyone with a smartphone in Tala’s markets can apply for credit through the Tala app, which instantly validates a customer’s financial identity and evaluates their risk and capacity using only the data on their devices. More than 10,000 mobile data points go into Tala's underwriting models, helping us score even those without formal credit or banking history and design financial products to match their lives. Tala has disbursed more than 1.2 million loans totaling over $50 million in origination and more than one million individuals have accessed the product. The entire process, from app download to approval, takes about five minutes.

Having successfully raised a $30M Series B, Tala is now is ready to meet the next challenges of scaling global operations, growing the team, and serving more customers. CEO Shivani Siroya’s planning for these challenges includes reaching out to Tala’s early investor and advisor, Dustin Rosen, of Wonder Ventures, to share his wisdom and experience from having navigated his own and portfolio companies through similar challenges.

Dustin Rosen is an investor in technology companies and the founder of Wonder Ventures. Since he began his career, he’s been on every side of the business, from running and selling his own technology start-up to investing in dozens of others, as well as using this expertise to advise numerous entrepreneurs.

In 2010, Dustin founded Pose, and as CEO, led the company through development, growth and three rounds of venture capital funding. In 2012, Apple named it one of the best apps of the year, and at the end of 2013, Dustin guided Pose through an acquisition before beginning Wonder Ventures.

Prior to Pose, Dustin worked at the Mailroom Fund, an LA-based venture capital group comprised of the William Morris Agency, Accel Partners, Venrock, and AT&T. There, Dustin focused on discovering and funding high-impact and innovative companies in the Internet consumer arena. Before this, he worked at the William Morris Agency, getting his start in the infamous Mail Room.

Tala, formerly known as InVenture, is backed by Wonder Ventures, IVP, Ribbit Capital, Lowercase Capital, Data Collective, Collaborative Fund and other leading venture and impact investors. In 2016, Fast Company ranked Tala as one of its top 10 companies in Money, and Forbes named Tala as one of the top 50 FinTech companies in the world. Additionally, Tala’s work has been highlighted by the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, TED, and Wired, among others. Tala is headquartered in Santa Monica with additional offices in Nairobi and Manila.