Christina Melas-Kyriazi

Christina Melas-Kyriazi focuses on early-stage investments in application software and fintech. She is based in San Francisco, and before BCV was a product leader at Affirm and an active angel investor.

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About

What is the first company you invested in?

When I first met Ahmed and Jeff from AutoComplete, I was immediately struck by how they were applying the same B2B2C distribution principles I learned at Affirm but in a different domain — auto insurance. If you could make shopping for insurance as easy as a few clicks when buying a car at a dealership, most drivers could save money by switching providers. I have been blown away by the drive (no pun intended) of this team and their desire to offer better and more transparent options to consumers, which are values I deeply resonate with.

Do you have an investment ethos? Is there a portfolio company investment that exemplifies that ethos?

I am a product manager at heart. I want to know how a founder empathizes with their customers. How deeply do they understand the problem? What is their earned insight? How do they make hard tradeoffs with limited resources? I like product-oriented domain experts and divergent thinkers. The best founders I’ve worked have a pattern of bending reality to their will. Adeel, the founder at MagicSchool AI, was a teacher and principal before realizing how big an impact AI will have on education. Albert, the co-founder and CEO at Aleph, was a CFO at a startup where he realized siloed, disparate data was leading to a big opportunity in FP&A tooling. Sophia, the co-founder and CEO of Ansa, was a product manager at Ayden and wrote a book on payments. That gave her deep insight into how merchants with small average transaction values and frequent purchases (like coffee shops) were underserved. I look for a deep level of obsession with the problem.

What do you love about working for Bain Capital Ventures?

We act as one team and are very collaborative. We believe technology is a force for good in this world. We take our work seriously, but not ourselves.

What is compelling about your domain?

AI applications are transforming every industry around us, including large, regulated industries like financial services and healthcare. Bad markets can become good markets, workflows can be collapsed with agentic technology. The TAM for AI apps will be larger than any previous software market we’ve seen, because for the first time, AI can do work, and we can tap into budgets for labor vs just software. We are still so early in this evolution, but the market pull is undeniable. Similarly, fintech is hard, it’s regulated, and it’s big. Money is so fundamental to every single person’s life. It can be a cause of great stress or great delight. There are so many hard problems left to solve in financial services and money movement. In fintech you need to think deeply about your distribution advantage. As a founder, you need to push the boundaries, but you can’t just move fast and break things.

What are your interests and passions outside of BCV?

I love running. My favorite run is in the Presidio in San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge. Nothing gives me clarity like a long run. I love great food. I’ll eat anything but I particularly love Japanese food. One of my favorite experiences was eating at Jiro in Tokyo. I have so much respect for artisans who dedicate themselves to perfecting their craft.