Partner @Interplay

New York, NY
Joined January 2011
Michael Rogers retweeted
At our first @money2020, @KnotAPIs had one product and a pitch most people hadn’t heard before: let consumers move their card to a merchant in a few taps. This year we arrive with record quarter-over-quarter growth, millions of connected merchant accounts, and our most exciting partnership opportunities yet. The conversation has changed. We’re no longer explaining why Knot should exist. Prospects experience Knot for the first time in the apps they already use, everyone understands the revenue opportunity, and financial institutions want Knot live before they’re the only ones without it. What started with CardSwitcher has become something much bigger: infrastructure that connects users to their merchant accounts, automates actions, and keeps those connections working securely at scale. CardSwitcher has become the perfect wedge into selling additional products, and new Knot cross-sells have surpassed even my own expectations. In the past few months, the market has moved entirely in our favor too. Merchant connectivity is the layer the whole industry decided it needed. Issuers want top of wallet, networks want their token in the merchant file, and nobody wants a third party disintermediating the relationship between them and the consumer. It’s now clear that whoever owns the connectivity layer owns the consumer relationship. We’re heading into Vegas with more excitement and a fuller calendar than ever: issuers, partners we couldn’t have dreamed of, and everyone wanting a piece of the merchant connectivity layer. The question is no longer why Knot, or whether Knot works: It’s who will own the connection between users and merchants.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Immigration status shouldn’t depend on a paperwork nightmare. But for many immigrants, navigating the US immigration system means months of uncertainty, complicated filings, and life-changing consequences when something goes wrong. @Aizada - CEO & founder of @AlmaImmigration - knows this firsthand. After experiencing the system’s challenges herself, she founded Alma to transform how immigration legal services are delivered. Aizada joins me on the pod to discuss how Alma combines AI, technology, and experienced attorneys to make immigration law more efficient, transparent, and predictable. We explore: → Why AI could make legal services more human → Where AI will - and won’t - disrupt the legal industry → How companies are rethinking immigration as they compete for talent → Why skilled immigration matters to America’s innovation economy Special thank you to Aizada for joining the pod and to Alma for all of the amazing work they’re doing.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Replying to @sytaylor
Muse is great, and the banks' instinct is right: whoever sits between the customer and the merchant wins. Owning the connection is the most important. That's exactly why we built @KnotAPIs: customers connect to merchants directly via Knot, we keep that connection live, and then take actions on the customer's behalf.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Today, I may have ended my career. At a time I am heads-down raising our Series B, I did something some people will consider adversarial: I wrote directly to the leaders of America’s biggest banks. Why? I was looking through data from the hundreds of thousands of people who have downloaded Relief and engaged with our platform, and what I saw made me sick to my stomach. Falling behind has become a business model. Americans have paid billions of dollars a year in credit-card late fees alone. And the people paying those fees are, by definition, often the people already struggling to keep up. There’s something fundamentally backwards about that. Relief exists to help people understand their debt, protect themselves, reduce what they owe, and ultimately resolve it. And as we grow, we’re increasingly helping money flow back to creditors that might otherwise have gone uncollected. So this isn’t an anti-bank letter. It’s an argument that there is a better model. Give some of that late-fee economics back to consumers. Give people who are struggling a little breathing room. That money doesn’t disappear. It gets spent on groceries, rent, childcare, transportation, local businesses, and eventually back into the economy. Banks might make a little less on certain fees in the short term. But healthier consumers are better customers, and a healthier consumer economy is better for everyone. As Relief becomes larger, I want to make sure we never forget whose side we are supposed to be on. It’s not always about extracting the maximum dollar. It’s about treating people like human beings. And, at the very least, making sure the financial system doesn’t make a difficult moment in someone’s life even harder.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
We couldn't be more excited to share @KnotAPIs new case study with @sezzleinc, one of the world’s leading BNPL providers. Sezzle had CardSwitcher production-ready in just two weeks, and since launch, shoppers who used it to switch their card are spending 3.2x more at Amazon and 2.6x more at Walmart. As Sarah Hill, SVP of Product at Sezzle, put it: "CardSwitcher helped us close the gap between offering the Sezzle Card and making it useful in everyday spending."  Read the full story below 👇
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Building something great is hard. The question is: which hard are you willing to choose? That’s something @DWeisburd and I dug into on the latest episode. David chose podcasting as his hard. Three years ago, he committed to building How I Invest for at least a decade - before he knew whether it would work. There were no guarantees. Just the grind of booking guests, navigating compliance, building credibility, and showing up episode after episode. That commitment eventually turned the podcast into something much bigger: a network of investors, entrepreneurs, relationships, and venture deal flow. And that’s what I found most interesting about our conversation... The podcast wasn't just building David’s network. It was building David. We talked about: → The power of “information alpha” and “relationship alpha” → Why some emerging managers have a winner mindset—and others don't → Why founder-product fit matters → How relationships compound over time → And why the best opportunities often come from playing the infinite game My biggest takeaway: You can’t make building something great easy. But you can choose a hard worth doing. Then you have to stay in the game long enough for the compounding to begin. Big thanks to David for joining the pod.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Most people only see the front end of fintech. The app. The card. The payment. But underneath that experience is an enormous amount of infrastructure and some of fintech’s biggest opportunities are hiding there. @RoryOReilly, cofounder and CEO of @KnotAPIs, joined me on the pod to talk about how Knot is rewiring fintech and transforming financial connectivity. We dive into: - Why keeping a card “top of wallet” is harder than it sounds. - The infrastructure required to connect financial institutions with thousands of merchants. - Why security and compliance are foundational, not afterthoughts, in fintech. - Where blockchain and stablecoins could fit into the financial stack. - Rory’s unconventional path from selling shoes with his family to building fintech companies with his brother. What I particularly enjoyed about this conversation is that Knot is tackling a problem most consumers don't even realize exists. The biggest innovations in fintech may not be the products we see, they may be the infrastructure quietly making everything work. Special thanks to Rory for joining me on the pod.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Robots don't usually fail because they don't work. Poor system integration and mismatched ROI expectations cause more than half of deployment failures. Inadequate change management adds another ~20%. The tech works. The deployment doesn't. That gap is a software problem. @navya_prab maps where physical AI's second wave is opening up: interplay.vc/blog/physical-a…
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Joined @TheFullRatchet to talk AI demand curves, startup moats, seed strategy, and building internal AI tools. Always a pleasure chatting with Nick. Check out the full episode here: fullratchet.net/514-ais-effe…
AI isn't killing software. It's killing companies without barriers. In episode 514, @mpd explains why AI is expanding demand, how @interplay built an internal AI system that boosted productivity by 50%, and why venture investors need a new playbook for finding winners.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Every founder I know is asking the same question: “How should we actually implement AI across our company?” The reality is that every playbook will require customization, but there are clear patterns beginning to emerge. In this episode, Chetan Narain, Cofounder of Pepper, joins me and my colleague, Interplay Senior Partner @kevinwtung , to share how Pepper is integrating AI across its products and organization — and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. We discuss: - Where vertical SaaS ends and vertical AI begins - AI agents and guardrails - Organizational redesign - How to move fast without creating chaos If you're building a company and thinking beyond AI features toward AI transformation, I think you'll enjoy this conversation.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Every card program is fighting the same battle: becoming top of wallet. The hard part isn’t getting someone approved for a card. It’s making that card so easy to use that it’s the one they choose for everyday purchases. That’s why I’m excited to share that @gemini is now live with @KnotAPIs. Gemini Credit Card holders can now easily make their Gemini Credit Card the default payment method at the merchants they already use, all without leaving the Gemini app. It works at merchants like Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Uber, and hundreds more. Gemini has always been focused on building products that make digital assets more useful in everyday life. Making their card easier to use wherever customers already spend is a natural extension of that vision. Looking forward to seeing what we build together next.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Socks are the #1 most requested item at homeless shelters. Dave Heath turned that single fact into @BOMBAS . The brand has donated over 200 million items of clothing and built a billion-dollar business along the way. What makes Dave a builder worth studying isn't just the scale. It's the discipline behind it. He reverse-engineered an exceptional product from a mission. He learned to test before betting. And he protected the brand as it grew. In this episode, I sit down with Dave to break down: • How he reverse-engineered an "exceptional product" from a donation mission and brought athletic-sock innovation to the mass market. • The Shark Tank effect, going from $800K to $2M in revenue in the six weeks after airing. • The expensive lesson of expanding into adjacent products too fast and the MVP-testing discipline that replaced it. • Radical-ish transparency. • The self-awareness to evolve his own role as the company scaled and how he screened his successor for humility • How Bombas is approaching AI. Big thanks to Dave for coming on the pod and sharing the playbook (and the mindset) behind Bombas.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
PitchBook-NVCA's Q1'26 data confirms what every seed investor has felt for six months: the seed round is no longer a category. It's two. The headline — a $3M median — looks unremarkable. The distribution under it isn't. It's bimodal. Peak 1: the classic $2–4M seed. Capital-efficient, team-and-thesis, 18–24 months of runway. Nothing new there. Peak 2: the $20M+ mega-seed. AI-native, pedigreed founders, functionally a Series A wearing a seed label. Different game. The valley in between — the old $7–12M "priced seed" — is where the worst 2026 rounds live. Too big to be scrappy. Too small to fund the AI play. In my experience, that's where down rounds incubate. So the right question for a founder raising now isn't how big the seed should be. It's which seed market they're in. There is no longer a default answer. Full piece: interplay.vc/blog/two-seed-m…
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Michael Rogers retweeted
We’re excited to announce that @KnotAPIs is now live with @CashApp. The Cash App Card is one of the largest debit card programs in the United States. With Knot's CardSwitcher™, Cash App cardholders can instantly add their card across the merchants they use most, including Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Uber, and 100+ more, without ever leaving the app. Cash App has always focused on creating intuitive financial experiences. Knot builds on that by driving activation and spend for Cash App, reducing churn and abandoned carts for merchants, and giving users a frictionless way to use their Cash App Card. We’re proud to power an even more seamless Cash App Card experience and excited for what’s ahead. More to come.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
NY is about to cost founders a million dollars…and the state even more NJ changed its QSBS rules recently and recognizes QSBS. Why in the world is NY going to push founders to move to New Jersey? Haven’t we learned that we compete with other states? Retweet to spread the word that we can’t let this happen
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Private credit has exploded into a trillion-dollar asset class, but most people outside finance still don’t understand how it works. I sat down with Ivan Zinn, founder of Atalaya Capital Management and now part of Blue Owl Capital, to unpack the real mechanics behind the private credit market. Few people have a clearer view of how capital flows through the economy. During our chat we unpack: - What private credit actually is - Why banks pulled back after the Global Financial Crisis - How private lenders stepped in to finance everything from consumer loans to equipment, infrastructure, and fintech platforms - Where entrepreneurs could build meaningful companies by modernizing the infrastructure behind asset management. Big thanks to Ivan for sharing such a thoughtful and practical perspective on the evolving capital markets ecosystem.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
M&A deals aren't one-size-fits-all—structure matters a ton. The choice dramatically impacts taxes, liability transfer, approvals needed, timing, and even post-closing operations.📑🔥 linkedin.com/pulse/understan… #assetpurchase #stockpurchase #mergersandacquisitions #startups
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Michael Rogers retweeted
Is the global economy stronger than it looks or more fragile beneath the surface? If you’re trying to reconcile booming markets with rising geopolitical risk, this week’s episode brings an important perspective. I sat down with Chris Zhang, Partner & CIO of Ascend Interplay, to break down the real forces shaping 2026: - How AI is shifting from a narrative to a measurable economic impact - Why labor markets may determine where we go next - Global structural shifts that are underway - from escalating Middle East tensions to the rise of protectionism - and what they imply for supply chains, inflation dynamics, and U.S. debt sustainability. Big thanks to Chris for a thoughtful, data-driven discussion.
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Michael Rogers retweeted
1/ We support hundreds of executives' cyber security. We analyzed their posture *before* they started working with us. For the first time, we're publishing results which highlight overlooked business risk 👇
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