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      Varun Mittal

      Varun Mittal

      Founder, Fintech Nation & Head of Innovation & Ecosystem

      Keenai Global

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      Varun Mittal is Country Head, Singapore at Keenai Global, a wealthtech platform built for globally mobile investors. Keenai brings every asset class together in one account, guided by the belief that wealth technology should be tech-led and human-empowered. At Keenai, Varun leads the Singapore business, working with clients, partners and the wider ecosystem to make global wealth simpler to manage.

      A seasoned professional adept at value creation across Southeast Asia’s digital business and financial services, Varun was part of the founding management teams of Singlife and helloPay, helping scale both and steering their acquisitions by Sumitomo Life and Ant Financial respectively. He has developed and implemented digital strategy, innovation management and ecosystem development across insurance, financial advisory, payments and banking.

      Most recently, as Chief Innovation Officer at Singlife, he led new product and distribution innovation, ecosystem partnerships and emerging technology rollouts, including the AI Center of Excellence. Earlier, he was a Partner at Ernst & Young, leading the global emerging markets fintech and ASEAN digital banking practice, and before that led payments for Samsung in ASEAN and developed regional mobile payment solutions at Singtel Group.

      Varun is the founder of Fintech Nation™, an ecosystem platform comprising a book series, the Fintech 65™ mentorship platform, an investment fund supporting Singapore’s fintech community, and a public policy initiative advancing Singanomics™. He has authored four books on Singapore’s rise as a global fintech hub, and was named one of the top ten people in Singapore fintech by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2019 and 2021.

      Speaking at SFF 2026

      • 12:15–12:45pmFri 20 NovSide ProgrammesOpen

        Capital Rewiring

        Fundable by Design: How Cash Discipline Makes You a Better Bet

        Side ProgrammesOpen

        About this session

        Every founder is told to grow fast and raise big. Fewer are told that investors quietly reward the opposite: the founder who knows their runway to the week, can explain every dollar, and never pitches from desperation.

        In this session, Varun Mittal argues that cash discipline is not a constraint on ambition. It is the most underrated fundraising strategy there is. Drawing on his experience as part of the founding management teams that scaled Singlife and helloPay through to acquisition, and on building an investment fund to back Singapore’s fintech community, he looks at fundraising from both sides of the table.

        He shares what builds conviction in the room, the signals that end investor conversations early, and the habits that separate a good bet from a risky one, from runway planning and unit economics to how cash is managed between rounds. The result is a company that raises when it chooses to, on terms it can negotiate, and not because it has to.

        Attendees will leave with a practical framework for building financial rigour into the business from day one, and a clearer view of how to become fundable by design.