Meet Vima Founder Raphaël Héraïef and find out why horses teach valuable leadership lessons

04.11.2020 07:01, Isabelle Mitchell

Venture Leader Fintech Raphaël Héraïef founded Vima, a startup that combines behavioral science with intelligent technologies to improve automatic credit-score assessments based on borrowers' video presentations. Learn more about Raphaël’s expectations for the Venture Leader Fintech experience, what he learned while juggling med school and founding two startups, and how a startup manual helped his career.

The Venture Leaders Fintech 2020 will accelerate their international expansion and build a business network through meetings with top-notch investors and industry leaders. From November 2 to 6, the Swiss National Startup team will represent Switzerland's innovative fintech force at the first-ever virtual edition of the Hong Kong Fintech Week 2020. To introduce you to the members of the Swiss National Startup Team, we asked each entrepreneur to complete a short profile and choose four questions from a questionnaire about their personal and professional life.

Name: Raphaël Héraïef
Job title: Founder of Vima
Location: Martigny 
Nationality: Swiss
Graduated from: University of Lausanne
Number of employees: 9
First touchpoint with Venturelab: Venture Kick in 2015

“Vima Behavioural AI improves credit score systems from a one-to-three-minute video presentation of borrower applicants and replicates experts’ assessments to understand traits, such as conscientiousness, that correlate to financial risk-taking and the capabilities to plan and pay back.”

How and where did you come up with the idea for your startup?
During my medical studies, I got interested in automated systems to understand complex human behaviors. Soon after, I realized that developing such technologies could benefit the financial system by providing a more transparent and fair credit-score system. 

What do you expect from the Venture Leaders program, and how will it help you achieve your vision?
Vima is looking for lighthouse customers and venture capitalists who are ready to implement the most disruptive technology in credit score systems, as traditional scores are based on transactional history. We are convinced that the Asian markets, especially China, are the most interesting ones.

How and where do you clear your mind? 
When I am horseback riding—I try to go three to four times per week. It is my passion, and I started when I was four years old. In a sense, it teaches you how to lead instead of forcing others to follow. (You will never win against a 600 kg horse!)

What is the most challenging aspect of being a founder? 
For the majority of people, the best ideas are usually difficult to envision at the inception of the concept. The obvious things have already been done. I would say that the challenge is listening to the feedback while being able to differentiate when you might be right or wrong.

What is your favorite book? 
The Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank. Sequoia Capital gave it to all their founders 15 years ago. It is still the reference, and it is still amazing how many of the mistakes listed in the book we still make—the book is worth reading several times!

What are you most proud of?  
I think it would be graduating from medical school while creating my two startups. This was challenging, but it taught me how to be productive and switch from one thing to another, which is useful as an entrepreneur!

Last but not least, could you show us your workspace? 
The picture was taken in Verbier, very close to our office in Martigny. Before the pandemic, we used to go there for brainstorming and team building!



This year’s Venture Leaders Fintech is organized in collaboration with swissnex China and supported by EPF Lausanne, ETH Zurich, Immomig, PostFinance, TX Group, Walder Wyss, and the Canton of Zurich.

For more information and updates on Vima and the Venture Leaders Fintech, follow the Venture Leaders Fintech 2020 team with #VleadersFintech on social media or subscribe to our newsletter.