Fintech Highlights - 11/26/2024
Here's what we've been watching this week 👇
Pinned to the Top
Affirm, the buy now, pay later (BNPL) giant’s long-anticipated arrival comes at an interesting point. U.K. lawmakers are mulling over new rules to bring BNPL firms into line with other traditional consumer credit services, but such laws aren’t expected to come into effect until at least 2026. That could give Affirm plenty of time to build traction and curry favor with consumers and regulators alike.
Affirm isn’t launching in the U.K. with any of the big-name partnerships it has back home, but the fact that it counts the likes of Amazon, Shopify, and Apple as customers in the U.S. means that it wouldn’t be a huge stretch to also expand its commercial partnerships across the pond.
The BFD
The FTC is taking action against online cash app and neobank Dave, which it says used “misleading marketing to deceive consumers.”
Why go after Dave? At issue is how Dave marketed $500 cash advances to consumers that it rarely offered, and the “Express Fee” it charged if customers wanted their money immediately. The FTC claimed Dave’s marketing implied that its cash advances would be “instant” without disclosing the fees involved until after the consumer gave Dave access to their bank account.
The complaint says that if the user chose not to pay the fee, which ranged anywhere from $3 to $25, they’d have to wait two to three business days for the transfer to go through. The FTC also alleged that Dave would sometimes charge a surprise fee, which it described as a “tip.”
What's next for Dave? Dave has denied these allegations and intends to defend itself vigorously.
The company has also announced changes to its business model in response to the FTC complaint, including:
- Removing the "instant" label from cash advance mentions on its website
- Entering into a partnership with a new sponsor bank
- Shifting away from tips and fees for cash advances2
Despite these challenges, Dave continues to focus on expanding its services and improving its AI-based credit model to better serve customers living paycheck to paycheck.
Another BFD
Figma knows its employees have been on a wealth rollercoaster, including the stomach-dropping moment last December when regulators scuttled a $20 billion takeover by Adobe.
- That's why the company launched a tender offer this past spring, albeit at a lower valuation, and now will become the first company to join a new program that helps employees easily donate their private shares to charity.
Why it matters: Such donation programs could help employees (and ex-employees) lower their tax bills, while also doing some external good.
Zoom in: Figma is working with Daffy, a donor-advised fund manager led by former Wealthfront CEO Adam Nash.
- Its goal is to raise at least $10 million during the initial program run over the next two months.
- The program is for both employees and ex-employees who've held shares for at least a year, with the price (and income tax burden) set at fair market value. Similar to donations of public stock via donor-advised funds, no capital gains tax gets paid.
The big picture: This is not the advent of donor-advised funds accepting private stock. But it's mostly been the province of serial entrepreneurs or others with sophisticated private wealth managers, and has usually has very high minimums and fees.
What they're saying: "Part of what Daffy has tried to do is broaden access to the sorts of things the wealthy do, and private stock has been on our list for a while," Nash explains.
- "But it can be hard to donate private stock without board approval, which is time-consuming and not something boards always want to spend time on. So we decided to try working with the companies, almost like tender offers for charity. Maybe even as an optional part of regular tender offers. If you do it all at once, the individual donation sizes matter less because the costs are amortized across all the employees."
Yes, but: Daffy itself isn't a charity. It charges users a flat fee of $20 per month, and a one-time, 1.5% fee when the private stock becomes liquid (and thus can be sold and donated).
The bottom line: Unicorn startups are staying private longer, with some of the waits beginning to feel infinite. That puts a lot of pressure on rank-and-file with paper wealth, and programs like what Figma is doing with Daffy could be something of arelease valve.
M&A
Crypto.com acquired Australian brokerage and trading firm Fintek Securities. More here ->
Robinhood (Nasdaq: HOOD) agreed to buy TradePMR, a custodial and portfolio management platform for RIAs, for around $300m in cash and stock. More here ->
Celcoin, a Brazilian portfolio company of Summit Partners, acquired CobranSaaS, a Brazilian provider of loan and debt collection management solutions. More here ->
Modulr, a British embedded payments platform, acquired Nook, a London-based accounts payable vendor. Modulr had raised over $200m from investors like PayPal Ventures, Hive Learning, Connection Capital, Frog Capital, and Highland Europe. More here ->
Paxos, a New York-based stablecoin issuer valued by VCs at $2.4b, agreed to buy Membrane Finance, a Finnish electronic money institution backed by Maki.vc. More here ->
Indian travel and hospitality aggregator MakeMyTrip has agreed to acquire expense management platform Happay from fintech CRED. The financial terms were not disclosed, but Happay was acquired by CRED in 2021 for $180 million. More here ->
Prosus is aiming to list fintech firm PayU in 2025 as the Dutch investor looks to shift more focus to India. The market has been described as a pillar for its investment business after Swiggy’s stellar listing netted gains of $2 billion. More here ->
Fintech
Minu closed a $30 million Series B round of funding led by QED to help the employee benefits startup further expand its sales and customer success presence across Mexico and implement new HR tools. More here ->
Sales tax automation startup Kintsugi raised a $6 million Series A round valuing it at $40 million in April. The company has reopened the round, taking on additional $4 million in capital and doubling its valuation to $80 million. More here ->
Senegal’s Socium has raised $5 million in seed funding to fuel the growth plans for its HR solutions business in Francophone Africa. More here ->
Solvento, a Mexico-based payments company focused on trucking, raised $12.5m in Series A funding. More here ->
EdfaPay, a Saudi payments startup, raised $5m. More here ->
Investtech
OneChronos, a dark-pool trading startup, raised $32m. The ten-year-old NY-based institutional trading platform uses advanced math to match buyers and sellers in the equities market. More here ->
Wyden, a digital asset trading infrastructure company, raised $16.9m in Series B funding. Wyden is a global leader in institutional digital asset trading technology, providing comprehensive solutions for the entire trade lifecycle. Founded by Andy Flury, the company offers a sophisticated platform that streamlines digital asset trading for financial institutions. More here ->
Cardo AI, a New York-based private credit tech platform, raised $15m in Series A funding. Cardo AI provides advanced portfolio modeling and collateral data management technology for the $40 trillion asset-based finance and private credit marke More here ->
Crypto
Noble, an asset issuance platform for stablecoins, raised $15m in Series A funding. Noble, a New York based startup offers a platform enabling cross-chain issuance and management of digital assets. More here ->
Rise, a startup allowing companies to pay contractors using stablecoins, raised $6.3m in Series A funding co-led by Draper and Polymorphic, per Axios Pro. More here ->
Insuretech
Federato, an SF-based insurance underwriting platform, raised $40m in Series C funding. Founded in 2020 by Will Ross and William Steenbergen, Federato provides a RiskOps platform that aligns portfolio strategy with underwriting action. More here ->
Bolttech, a fast-growing global insurtech company, has announced the successful closure of a USD 50 million venture debt facility with HSBC.The financing will support bolttech’s strategic growth initiatives, including market expansion, enhanced technology and product capabilities, and increased operational flexibility. Read more,More here ->
Foxquilt, a digital insurance brokerage based in Toronto, has officially launched its services in New York. Through its proprietary platform, Foxden, the company will provide small business owners with customised insurance solutions for industries such as contracting, eCommerce, and personal services. More here ->
Coverdash, a rapidly growing insurtech broker specialising in startups and small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs), has teamed up with LendingTree, the nation’s premier online financial marketplace, to offer business insurance to LendingTree customers for the first time. More here ->
Proptech
GetMyHome, a Redondo Beach, Calif., homebuying tech startup, raised $1.5m in pre-seed funding from Wischoff Ventures and Progression Fund, per Axios Pro. GetMyHome offers an AI-powered platform designed to assist homebuyers and real estate agents in the home purchasing proces. More here ->
From the Stash
Financial institutions gear up for a credit boom with AI - Financial institutions are bolstering their credit offerings to capitalize on lower interest rates. Card-issuing platform Marqeta is developing new solutions for its banking clients and businesses to enable them to offer credit services to clients as the demand for credit increases and debit issuance spaces are becoming saturated, Chief Revenue Officer Todd Pollak told Bank […] More here ->
Bindable Launches Turnkey Solution for Companies Entering Independent Property & Casualty Insurance Market - Bindable, a leading InsurTech firm specialising in alternative distribution technology and services, has introduced a streamlined solution for organisations interested in establishing their own property and casualty (P&C) insurance agencies. More here ->
ManyPets Exits US Market to Focus on UK Operations - ManyPets, a leading pet insurance provider, has announced its decision to exit the US market to focus on its core operations in the UK. More here ->
TD Bank’s cautious approach to fintech vetting - TD Bank must be pragmatic when vetting fintechs while considering its budget as well as what issue it is solving for. “We don’t have the same dollars as Chase, Bank of America, Wells,” Todd Purcell, head of digital strategy, planning and partnerships at TD, said today at Banking Transformation Summit 2024 in Charlotte, N.C. More here ->
Ally saves $30M annually through automation - Ally Financial is deploying AI to boost efficiency and modernize processes to improve customer experience. The $196 billion bank last year launched Ally.ai, its gen AI platform, that “recaps [roughly] 10,000 customer service calls per day, allowing employees to focus on providing great service instead of taking notes,” More here ->
TD tweaks time-to-market approach - TD Bank’s technology leaders have shifted the bank’s delivery and execution strategy over the past several months to improve time to market. The bank’s technology organization, business heads and channel heads recently started to allocate four to six hours per month to meet and “really work on delivery, execution and the strategy." More here ->
Fintech EarnIn sued by DC attorney general over 300% rates - Financial-technology firm Activehours Inc., which does business as EarnIn, lures customers in with false promises of an early payday with no mandatory fees or interest costs while actually charging consumers rates of more than 300%, the attorney general of Washington, DC, alleged in a lawsuit. EarnIn claims that consumers can access their wages “within minutes […] More here ->
Digital Currency Group, the parent company of crypto asset manager Grayscale, is launching a decentralized artificial intelligence subsidiary called Yuma - led by DCG founder and CEO Barry Silbert, who will also serve as the subsidiary’s CEO. Yuma will invest in and build on Bittensor, a decentralized network that uses crypto-powered incentives to enable companies to create and train AI by rewarding participants with its native token TAO. DCG owns more than $100 million of TAO, Silbert said in an interview, making the firm one of the biggest holders. TAO tokens have a total market cap of $3.5 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap. The new subsidiary has about 30 people and plans to hire more. DCG has invested over $100 million across a number of different decentralized AI projects, including NEAR and TAO. More here ->
Payhawk integrates with Mastercard - Payhawk, which provides spend-management solutions, is integrating with Mastercard to offer real-time visibility of card transactions to commercial clients in the United States and Canada. Through the integration, which has been in the works since early August, eligible Mastercard corporate and business cardholders will have access to real-time controls through PayHawk’s platform. More here ->
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will launch more investigations into big payments fintechs including Apple Pay, PayPal and Cash App - after finalizing a new rule aimed at protecting customers from fraud, data sharing and debanking. The CFPB new rule will allow it a greater focus on ensuring that payments fintechs take responsibility for disputed transactions, instead of leaving disputes to banks or credit card companies to handle. The agency will also monitor fintech firms that abruptly cut off access to consumers with account closures and freezes, and the ability of customers to opt-out of data collection and sharing. More here ->
Inside Varo Bank’s gen AI co-pilot build-out - Varo Bank is building generative AI co-pilots by tapping internal tooling and Amazon Web Services. The $486 million digital, cloud-first bank is using AWS’ Bedrock to build generative AI applications and foundations, Viral Parikh, head of data at Varo, told Bank Automation News at Bank Transformation Summit 2024 in Charlotte, N.C. More here ->
Reports & Webinars
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