Pantrium: In Transit, Us & AI

AI Replaces Engineers, Now Engineers Have AI Co-Founders with Cole Bittel

Cole Bittel left a stable job, moved off Google, started questioning who actually runs the world, and then built a tap-to-pay app to do something about it. Cole is an American, living in Denmark for seven years, building Walt: a European alternative to Apple Pay and Google Wallet. The pitch sounds clean. The reality is messier. He's a solo founder, a year in, staying up until 2AM, asking his AI co-founder whether humans will actually pay for what he's building. And yes, his mom is covering the Claude subscription.This is what it actually looks like to be in the middle of it. WHAT WE COVER - Why building a product for European sovereignty, and why he genuinely believes it's also good for the US- What it costs emotionally to hire AI as your co-founder, and whether loneliness has caught up with him yet- The honest answer to "how are you funding this?" that most founders never say out loud- Why software engineering is no longer a defensible career, coming from a software engineer with 12 years in the field- The bootstrapping myth in fintech: why everyone wants to do it, and why almost no one can- What's happening to VC funds right now that makes pre-seed founders invisible and why most founders don't understand this before they start pitching- The one question no investor ever asks and why Cole thinks it's the only one that actually matters No one have the answers, not Cole, not Christie, not the Anthropic CEO, not the Pope. That's kind of the point.If you're building something right now, thinking about it, or trying to figure out whether you have what it takes, tune into this candid conversation. Subscribe for more conversations, share the questions you would like us to ask and help us keep the show running!

Fintech Fat, Happy and Falling Behind with Monika Liikamaa

The Nordic fintech scene is about to have its Nokia moment. And Monika Liikamaa is one of the few people willing to say it out loud. In this candid conversation hosted by Christie H.Kristensen, they we delve into the things the industry keeps dancing around: — Why the Nordics have been coasting on a reputation that's starting to expire— Europe innovates 30% of the world's ideas and commercialises 2%. What the hell is going on?— Why the EU sometimes feels like the world's most expensive book club— The 2% VC funding stat that everyone misreads — it's a consequence, not the problem— Why women aren't pitching big enough (and what "big enough" actually looks like)— How banks lost the plot by choosing compliance theatre over customer obsession— Why Revolut is eating everyone's lunch — and how they turned on the fees and nobody flinched— Social media, the algorithm, and why Monika is still hopeful about the next generation— Writing your own eulogy as a leadership tool— And the two words that kept coming up in every single topic: just do. This is the kind of conversation fintech actually needs more of. It's candid, direct, and built on real experience. Tune in on this conversation hosted by Christie H.Kristensen. A candid take from an industry trailblazer, Monika Liikamaa - a fintech founder, builder, and investor who co-built Enfuce into one of Europe's leading cloud-native payment platforms - 24 million end-users. She's now building and backing the next wave of innovation in health and MedTech.

Building, Selling, and Buying Back with Tuomas Toivonen from Holvi

In this episode of the Pantrium podcast, part of the Exit mini-series, Christie H. Kristensen sat down with Tuomas Toivonen, co-founder and CEO of Holvi, for a raw and rather unique founder journey. Tuomas built Holvi in Helsinki in 2011, before "fintech" was even a recognised term. What started as a group of small business owners scratching their own itch, needing a unified banking and financial management solution that simply didn't exist, became one of Europe's early neobanks. No templates. No category playbook. Just a willing founding team and a lot of building from scratch. We went the full circle together: the early angel and seed investment rounds, what Tuomas wishes founders understood about taking external capital in regulated industries, the acquisition by BBVA in 2016, operating as an independently regulated entity inside a global bank, the Brexit decision to exit the UK market, all the way to the management buyout in 2020 that brought Holvi back under founder control in the middle of COVID. Tuomas gave an unfiltered account of what the buyout actually looked like: giving themselves 50/50 odds of being bust within two years, reducing the team dramatically, cancelling all company cards and rebuilding the economics from zero. And then what it took to come out the other side. The episode closes with his take on exit culture in the startup world, and why — after 15 years with the same company, across phases that felt like completely different businesses — he still believes the journey is the reward. It’s a Full Fintech Circle 00:00 Welcome to Exit Series 01:08 Founding a Fintech Pioneer 01:35 No Templates in 2011 04:01 Scratching Own Itch 06:26 Taking Money Changes Goals 09:15 Regulation and Investor Fit 11:14 Building the Early Board 12:38 Why Sell to BBVA 14:54 Due Diligence on Acquirer 16:33 Signing Day Emotions 19:20 Life Inside a Big Bank 21:45 Role Shift and Tech Build 22:44 Scaling Across Europe 24:01 Recording Glitch and Return 26:01 UK Expansion Lessons 26:40 Brexit Forces Exit 28:25 Why Reacquire Hal 32:34 Buyout Mechanics 33:30 Turnaround Risk Reality 35:42 Cost Cuts And Layoffs 39:52 Rebuilding Culture Ownership 40:56 Pricing Shift Profitability 43:51 Founder Lessons Patience 45:10 Exit Myth Reality 47:05 Future of Holvi Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/night-drift/the-cleaner License code: GJBCGVW3GGGELEGR

What Happens After The Exit with Rune Mai

In this first episode in the mini series we call Excit - where we go behind the screen of fintech startup champaign and glam to talk about What it feels like when you’ve spent years building something—only to watch it change… or even disappear…And we’re here today to talk about what happened earlier this week. it was announced that Spiir, the leading fintech in the nordics and money app will be shut down.So this conversation is not about how to build a successful startup.It’s about what it actually costs. What it feels like to let go. And whether success always feels like success on the other side.A conversation with the founder behind Spiir and Aiia, which got acquired by Mastercard in 2021. After years of building, pushing, and sacrificing, Rune reached the milestone every founder dreams of—an exit. The company he helped build was acquired by Mastercard. On paper, it was success. Validation. The moment that makes it all worth it.And in many ways, it was.There was pride in what had been built from nothing. Pride in creating something valuable enough to matter. And something deeply personal in being able to “pay back” the people who had supported the journey along the way.But the intensity that had defined everyday life—the constant problem-solving, the chaos, the momentum—suddenly stopped. Going from 15–30 decisions a day, from early mornings into late nights, to a calendar filled with meetings and predictable structure… felt less like progress, and more like standing still.As he puts it, it felt like no longer “moving any stones.”So he made a decision to step away.To start again—this time as an investor, and eventually, as a builder once more.The Founder’s Paradox — Building, Letting Go, and Watching It End”1. The Beginning — Before It Was Obvious“Take me back to 2011—building Spiir before open banking even existed. What did you believe then that most people thought was wrong?”2. The Climb — The Real Cost of Building“We often romanticize startup journeys—but what did it actually cost you personally to build Spear and later Aiia?”3. The Exit — Winning, But at What Price?“When Mastercard acquired Aiia in 2021, what did ‘success’ feel like in that moment—and what didn’t feel the way you expected?”4. The Hard Truth — Watching It End“Now, with Spear being shut down in 2026—how does that actually feel, seeing something you spent years building come to an end under someone else’s ownership?”5. The Reflection — What Founders Don’t Talk About Enough“If you’re brutally honest—what do founders get wrong about building toward an exit, and what would you do differently if you started again tomorrow?”“What gap does Spiir leaving the market create—and does that part of you want to build again?”Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/night-drift/the-cleanerLicense code: GJBCGVW3GGGELEGR

From Slides to Shipping with Nabeel Moosa from Odevo

In the latest Pantrium conversation, Christie H.Kristensen and Nabeel Moose, SVP, Embedded Finance solutions at Odevo, discussed Nabeel’s career journey from strategy consulting in London to in-house strategy at Visa and then product at Nets in Copenhagen, highlighting his pattern of leaving roles after learning “enough” to build new skills. He explains why he moved from strategy into product to own end-to-end execution, including leading PSD2/Strong Customer Authentication implementation and learning to translate vague strategy into actionable work with engineers and cross-functional teams. Key takeaways include creating “vehicles” like programs to scale delivery, improving stakeholder management by making decisions bilaterally rather than via large steering committees, tailoring communication to different audiences, and relying less on slides and more on concise docs. He shares leadership beliefs about clarity of purpose, trust, saying no upward, building for regulation, and staying future-proof by tracking industry change.00:00 Welcome and Fun Fact01:42 Career Turning Points04:32 From Strategy to Product08:24 Deep End at Nets10:02 Scaling Execution with Programs15:14 PSD2 and Measuring Success16:40 Aha Moment on Stakeholders19:35 What Is a SteerCo20:35 Steering Committee Dynamics21:34 Stakeholder Focus Framework23:05 Less Context More Speed25:07 Culture Shift Enterprise to Scaleup26:22 Trust Over Risk Decisions27:30 Career Pain Product Strategy33:08 Leadership Clarity and Noise35:11 Content Versus Influence37:14 Build for Regulation39:14 Uncomfortable Truth Input40:24 Staying Ahead of Ecosystem41:52 Closing and Signoff Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/night-drift/the-cleaner License code: GJBCGVW3GGGELEGR