Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner,Angel

Investor Stage

Seed

Micky Malka (born Meyer Malka Rais) is an entrepreneur by design and investor at heart, focused on the utilization of technology to disrupt consumer financial services. He is based in Palo Alto, California where he is the Managing Director of Ribbit Capital. Micky is also the CEO and a founding member of MECK Partners, an investment partnership focused on investing and building businesses in financial services, energy and agribusiness, and the Co-Founder and Chairman of Lemon, Inc.

He currently serves on the Board of Wonga, a company transforming the credit market by offering small, short term loans with more transparency, speed, convenience and flexibility than banks, high street lenders and other websites. Micky also serves on the Board of Peixe Urbano, the first and largest Latin-American local commerce website.

Micky grew up in Venezuela where he learned the impact of devaluation and hyperinflation at a very young age. Living with hyperinflation allowed him to develop a skill he is still well known for; accurately and quickly running numbers in his head. He also saw first hand how technology could transform businesses.

In 1993, at the age of 19, Micky, co-founded Heptagon Group, a securities and investment broker dealer servicing the Venezuelan and US markets.

In 1996, he graduated with a degree in Economics from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, Venezuela and was one of the founders of the Wendy’s Hamburger’s franchise for Venezuela. It was one of the fastest growing food businesses worldwide with over 70 new store locations in the first 3 years.

In 1998, Micky developed the online brokerage, Patagon by merging with Heptagon local operations. Patagon became Latin America’s first comprehensive Internet based financial services portal and dealer. The company expanded its online services to the United States and the rest of South America and was later acquired by the Spanish bank Banco Santander (NYSE: STD) for US$ 750 million.

In 2000 Micky was the interim CEO for Banco Patagon the leader for online banking in Spain and Germany.
In 2002, he co-founded Banco Lemon, a Brazilian retail bank serving the underbanked population) which became the largest private microfinance institution in Brazil. In 2009 it was acquired by Banco do Brasil, Latin America’s largest bank.
Micky was also involved with Classified Media Group, an online classified company focusing on Colombia, Venezuela and Central America. The group was acquired in 2007 by MercadoLibre (NASDAQ:MELI).

In 2011 he co-founded Banco Bracce a Brazilian financial institution positioned as the merchant bank of choice for mid-cap companies in Brazil.

In 2011 Meyer co-founded Lemon a service to help individuals keep track of their expenses.