Andy Lerner launched IA Capital’s venture effort in 2000 after five years already at the firm, brings an unusually technical background for a fintech and insurtech investor with degrees in engineering from Princeton and finance from Wharton, and has helped build five companies from scratch while openly saying he prefers backing young founders over experienced ones. An early internship at the FDIC shaped his view that state-based insurance regulation has been friendlier to new approaches than federal banking rules, which helped draw him toward insurtech and early bets on financial inclusion, and beyond his investing work he serves on the boards of Transportation Alternatives and Chess in the Schools.