Immad Akhund is the co-founder and CEO of Mercury, a San Francisco-based digital banking platform for startups.

He was born in Pakistan, with his mother working as a teacher and his father owning a mechanic shop. At the age of nine, he moved with his family to London. He would go on to attend the University of Cambridge and later move to San Francisco to participate in Y Combinator with his company Clickpass. Immad then founded Heyzap, a mobile developer tools company that successfully sold for $45 million in 2016.

In 2017, Immad co-founded Mercury, which has since raised over $450 million from a16z, CRV, and Coatue. He is a former part-time partner at Y Combinator and recently launched IA Fund to formalize his prolific angel investing, which includes backing more than 350 startups including Airtable, Deel, and Substack.

Beyond his illustrious career, Immad is a husband and the father of three children.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:11 Growing Up in Pakistan And Moving to London

06:37 “Yelp For London” and Early Entrepreneurial Endeavors

10:45 Pivoting From Flash Games to Mobile Ad Networks

12:15 Selling a Company After 8 Years of Pivoting

16:42 Thank You to Macroscope and Timeless Partners

17:56 Meeting His Wife Through Facebook

19:09 Finding Your Life’s Work

22:35 The Origins of Mercury

26:44 The Importance of Design at Mercury

27:37 How Mercury Landed Its Initial Customers

29:12 Raising Mercury’s Seed Round

31:09 The Choice to Not Work Weekends

34:58 Immad’s Best Startup Ideas

36:15 Are There Moats with AI?

38:05 Mercury’s 10-year vision

39:50 From Angel Investing to Formalizing a New Fund

42:13 Paul Graham’s Influence

44:33 Parenting Philosophy

46:27 Sources of Happiness

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