Aditya Khurjekar: Architect of Money2020 and MEDICI—A Legacy in Fintech

Aditya Khurjekar is, by any metric, a multipotentialite. From his early years designing chipsets for the world's first HDTV to his corporate tenure at Verizon and his foray into the fintech world, Aditya has been a builder at heart. He is currently focused on his latest venture at Prove Identity, after successfully establishing two companies and selling them. His profile reads like an evolving story, each role a chapter contributing to a life of "creative disruption." But what is it that propels this serial entrepreneur from one eclectic endeavor to the next?

Before starting MEDICI Global, Aditya tasted entrepreneurial success with Money20/20, a conference aimed at gathering cross-industry leaders. It was, as he puts it, "a relatively quick and happy success." The venture's successful exit in 2014 served as a validation for Aditya. "It's always different when you read books about successful founders versus you having experienced it yourself," he reflects.

But the story didn't end there; it merely set the stage. Aditya was keenly aware of the limitations that accompanied exclusive, high-ticket conferences. While such events could gather bankers, retailers, or mobile experts within their silos, they failed to facilitate unexpected, industry-transcending conversations. And Money20/20 was different.

"I felt like the interesting innovations happen when two very uncorrelated conversations come together," Aditya remarks. In Money20/20, he saw a place where innovators from varying fields could interact. Aditya saw this gap as an opportunity for what he called a "more global, everyday democratic setting." He puts it best: “If I'm a banker and I'm talking to a mobile guy, maybe now we’re doing mobile payments, and that's a new innovation. And so that is what I really saw at work at Money 20/20.”

So, armed with the belief that "innovation conversations" should not be the exclusive realm of the elite, Aditya embarked on his next venture, initially dubbed "Let's Talk Payments," later rebranded as MEDICI Global.

Today, as he prepares for his "third act," the contours of his career resemble a well-thought-out mosaic rather than a series of disparate tiles. Aditya has now joined Prove Identity (which recently acquired MEDICI Global), where he’s focused on creating a digital identity business to serve AI-enabled markets. His past experiences, he notes, have equipped him to "wear different hats, solve big complex problems" and work across functional languages—from tech to finance to marketing—with a certain grace. Let him explain.

"When it comes to navigating the startup landscape, I think it's important to be humble," Aditya states. He argues that many factors contribute to success, but one that often goes unacknowledged is… luck. He points to a pivotal moment from Money 20/20, as an example: "Hurricane Sandy happened a week after our conference. If it had happened just a week earlier than it did, we wouldn’t be talking right now and you wouldn’t know who I am." Aditya insists that even as he embarks on his third startup, his approach is far from cavalier. "I don't take anything for granted," he says, emphasizing the importance of continuously asking questions, seeking help, and learning.

Aditya's philosophy challenges conventional wisdom. We often hear about the importance of hard work and resilience in achieving success—Aditya doesn’t downplay this, they are important too, but he finds it important to point out that luck also plays a crucial role. "Does everybody who works hard, is passionate, and can raise a lot of money become a Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk?" Aditya asks rhetorically. The answer, of course, is no. What separates the highly successful from the rest is often a fortunate turn of events combined with the hard work and persistence to get to that fateful moment. He gives me a solemn nod when I call this “maximising luck.”

His motivation to jump from one industry to another stems from a need to stay "intellectually challenged." Aditya believes in constantly reinventing both himself and the problems he seeks to solve. "I enjoy crossing those bridges from one ecosystem to another," he says. From semiconductors to enterprise software, from mobile payments to fintech, and now identity, every shift feels "natural" to him. He's also closely watching the AI boom, seeing it as the next frontier intersecting with identity.

Aditya is optimistic about the role AI will play in shaping the future. He places it in historical context, saying that just as past innovations like the wheel or atomic fission and fusion had transformative impacts, so too will AI. "We should keep it in perspective and allow it to take us forward," he says.

When it comes to investment priorities, Aditya places people at the top of his list. "You always invest in people, not what they do," he explains. He argues that the mechanics around a business or a business model are always subject to uncontrollable forces. "It is the people who are making good or bad decisions."

He also emphasizes the need for creating a positive impact. "If you are investing in someone who wants to make atom bombs for a living and you don't believe that that is the right thing for humanity, then you don't invest in that person, no matter how smart or good they might be."

The third pillar in his investment philosophy is technology. "Without technology, you are not moving the ball forward," he asserts.

When asked how his belief in scientific solutions shapes his business acumen, Aditya is clear. "Good business is based on good science," he states. For Aditya, this doesn't just mean research and development; it extends to decision-making across all sectors of business. Whether in the realm of educational value systems prevalent in Asia or the outreach and marketing-focused value systems of America, he believes in a data-driven approach.

"The scientific process isn't just for scientists in a lab," he notes. "It's for anyone who needs to make an important decision based on evidence. Whether it's choosing a career or advertising a product, there's data out there that can help inform that decision." And for Aditya, one vital aspect of entrepreneurship that he has personal evidence of is the co-founder relationship.

“It’s important to have a co-founder,” Aditya states emphatically. “You want somebody who will keep you honest. You want somebody who you can lean on and you can give a shoulder for him or her to lean on.” Aditya compares the co-founder relationship to a marriage—a blend of love, trust, sacrifice, and the ability to weather both highs and lows. "Things are usually fine when things are going fine," Aditya chuckles. "But what you really need is trust during the lows, not just the highs."

He describes the role of a founder or CEO as lonely, emphasizing the need for a partner to share the burden. Aditya has been fortunate to have co-founders in his previous ventures, both in Money 2020 and Medici, admitting candidly, "I couldn't have done it without them."

So of course, when I ask Aditya for advice for budding entrepreneurs, his first point is: find yourself a good co-founder. But then he makes a surprising and counterintuitive point—don't just listen to people like him. Instead, he advocates for self-awareness and humility. "Listen to your grandmother," he quips. “There's a lot of free advice floating around, but don't listen to people like me. Because it's like your core values that only you know, only you know what makes you strong and weak, and what it is that you can or cannot do.”

According to Aditya, the buzz around trends shouldn't dictate one's career path. "Be honest with yourself about what you're good at because that will also help you find the right co-founder who complements you, not replicates you."

Aditya also had some straightforward advice about key performance indicators (KPIs). "If you think the only measure of success is how much money you've raised, you're doing it wrong," he says emphatically. For him, the true measure of success is finding a paying customer and generating profit. "This is common sense; you don't need an MBA for this," he added. I can’t help but feel it is this kind of candid common sense that makes Aditya such a successful entrepreneur.

At the heart of Aditya's entrepreneurial philosophy is a commitment to what he calls 'richer engagement.' Unlike many of his contemporaries, who might prefer the convenience of a text or email, Aditya ascribes higher value to the intangibles of human interaction. "What I can achieve in a 10-minute in-person conversation in the same room might take me two hours on Zoom," he says, a statement that offers a snapshot into his mindset. For him, the "investment of time" in people is synonymous with the investment of trust. This dedication to depth over speed reflects in every facet of his leadership, from choosing projects to investing in people.

When it comes to trust, Aditya's views are definitively black and white. "I start by trusting somebody. But here's the thing, if you break my trust, it is extremely difficult for me to trust you again," he states candidly. In an age where brand loyalties can be fickle and partnerships transient, his unwavering stand on trust is both a reminder and a challenge to everyone in the business world. It's a quality that he describes as not just applicable to work, but also to "living."

A particularly enlightening aspect of the conversation with Aditya is his perspective on the evolving dynamics within the startup and venture capital landscape. He notes, "There's a lot of ecosystem infrastructure that is available now for founders. The resources are getting easier to find, but you still need to take the action to go and find them." The democratization of resources and capital is a significant shift from just a decade ago, when, as Aditya puts it, "VCs were like guards."

However, the evolving landscape comes with its own set of challenges. Aditya is quick to note that the abundance of resources and capital also introduces noise into the ecosystem. "There is noise on both sides. So for both sides, it is more work to sift through the bad quality entities." He adds, "On the positive side, there is more of everything; on the negative side, because there is more of everything, you will work harder to find the good ones."

"I'm still learning. I'm still evolving," he confesses, and it's this humility that marks him as not just a thought leader but also as an eternal student of life and business. He extends this philosophy to his approach to management and delegation, emphasizing the importance of "delegating by empowering, by letting them be, by not micromanaging."

With this balanced, deeply human approach, Aditya continues to chart his own path. His is not just a profile of success; he's an example of the importance of cross-industry collaboration, an advocate for democratizing access to innovation, and most of all, a builder who's far from laying down his tools. Keep your eyes peeled; his third act promises to be even more compelling than the last.

Images courtesy of: Aditya Khurjekar, MEDICI Global, Money20/20, and Prove Identity

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