Fintech

Uber alum rakes in $9.7M to curb finance-related fights between co-parents • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in finances, Fintech, OnwardNo Comments

If you’re a parent, one of the hardest things about getting divorced is still having to deal with your ex about financial matters regarding your children. And, according to a 2015 report, just 50.2% of all 13.6 million custodial parents in the United States had either legal or informal child support agreements. Even in those cases, most agreements don’t cover expenses beyond the basics such as medical bills and extracurricular activities, among other things. This means that divorced parents end up going through a lot of back and forth about who’s paying for what, how and when. Finances when you’re co-parenting are an issue even in the most amicable of divorces. The daughter of divorced parents herself, Jacklyn Rome founded Onward in 2020 with the aim of helping divorced and separated parents more easily manage their shared expenses. Rome, who previously led new product launches at Uber and Blue Apron, said she built the app with the intent of not only alleviating headaches for the parents but also for helping reduce family tension overall. As she can personally attest to, children also suffer greatly from being caught in the middle as their estranged parents bicker over money. Today, Onward – formerly called Ensemble – has raised $9.7 million in a Series A funding round led by Atlanta-based TTV Capital to advance on its mission. Lerer Hippeau, Citi Ventures, Correlation Ventures and Gingerbread Capital also participated in the financing. The Los Angeles-based startup previously raised $3 million in seed funding in March of 2021. Since that time, Onward has launched a number of new features, including the ability to pay your co-parent back through the platform, partial payments and the ability to track other expenses not related to children such as shared mortgages or telephone bills. One co-parent for example may have taken a child to the dentist at a cost of $120. They can upload a photo of the receipt, and the other co-parent gets a notification to view all the details around the expense. The two can negotiate if needed all via the app, and settle the expense through a connection to payment providers such as Venmo or Zelle through the Onward platform. Rome says the company has grown significantly with nearly 100,000 installs. So far, Onward has leaned into social media as a marketing tool, including leveraging TikTok as a platform. By partnering with influencers who are co-parents, Rome said, the startup has been able to boost awareness of its offering. Onward remains pre-revenue. The company plans to begin monetizing early next year via “a suite” of new financial products,” including connected credit cards, according to Rome. Down the line, Onward may also build out a paid subscription model. Image Credits: Onward Incorporating transparency into the platform has also been a priority, Rome said. “Very often, men will say that transparency is their biggest pain point – they may or may not believe that the expenses are legitimate,” she told ZebethMedia. “In our app, they can view receipts and eventually with our cards, will be able to have a third-party verify where every transaction took place.” Onward’s new capital will go toward building out those products, additional testing of new marketing channels and boosting its current headcount of 10. While there are a number of fintechs in the broader family tech space such as Greenlight, Step and Acorns, Rome believes there is a “ton of green space in this market.” “There are 50 million co-parents in the United States, and they represent a massive, massive market that hasn’t yet been served,” she said. As to way, Rome speculated that “it might be considered a little bit less sexy of a market, or those who have been through it tend to be less likely to found a company.” TTV Capital doubled down on its investment in Onward, with partner Mark Johnson describing the app as being “brilliant in its simplicity.” “Jacklyn and her team have truly listened to the co-parents who are using the app – and have gone above and beyond in rolling out new improvements and features based on their needs,” he wrote via email. “We’re proud to support Onward as they scale to help even more co-parents easily navigate their unique financial situations.”

Mattilda wants to take over payment collection for Latin America’s private schools • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Fintech, FinTech Collective, mattilda, Mexico, Startups, VentureNo Comments

Digital payments are gaining momentum in Latin America, and startups like Mexico-based mattilda are putting their spin on streamlining financial and administrative processes for private schools while also offering credit backed by future school fees. The company was founded in 2022 by José Agote, Jesús Lanza, Juan Pablo Bravo, Adrián Garza and Ileana Gómez. Agote, Lanza and Bravo all previously worked together at Lottus Education, a university-focused educational platform in Mexico. It’s forecasted that cashless payments in Latin America will double by 2030. Debit cards are used a majority of the time, with cash a close second, according to reports. Most schools accept bank transfers and debit card payments, but are not set up for those to be made other than by driving over to the school with a card in hand. Schools also do not have an easy way to see who was still missing payments, CEO Agote said. It was while at Lottus that they saw how difficult it was for private schools to perform collections and get financing. In the United States, most private schools charge per semester. Parents can take out loans to pay for school in advance and the bank will assume the risk rather than the school. In Latin America, many of the payments are month to month, and if payment is not made, the school is the one to spend time contacting parents to collect that payment. “There is a fault in the system with schools nowadays and they’re painfully aware of it,” Agote told ZebethMedia. “The main problem is that these collection cycles are much longer than what people expect.” He explained what ends up happening is that, on average, 20% of the parents don’t pay by the due date and the school spends the next part of the month, if not more, trying to collect. For example, a school with 300 students will send 300 invoices then have to send out 300 follow-ups while also reconciling 300 payments each month. Here’s where mattilda comes in: the company provides a SaaS tool that enables parents to get a personalized payment link via email or WhatsApp and can then make tuition payments in a number of ways, including debit cards, credit cards, bank transfers and flexible credit lines, in seconds. Mattilda also manages communication with students’ families while also offering a hub for parents to easily access relevant documents and information pertaining to payments. In addition, it offers loans to schools based on their future school fees. “It’s hard for schools to get loans because banks will never execute on those assets,” Agote said. “There’s a lot of opportunity for investment in education, and no one is providing capital to these institutions, or if they are, they’re charging ridiculous rates like 30%.” Rather, Agote said mattilda is comfortable advancing the tuition payments, which means the company takes on the risk if payment is not made, but gets compensated through the advancement when they do. It is also charging cheaper lending rates, around 18% to 20%, than the banks. In addition, the company makes money on the receivables, which it buys for below face value, he added. So far, mattilda is working with 17 schools accounting for some 9,000 students, which Agote said will become 24 schools and close to 14,000 students as of November 1. Schools using mattilda average an 85% collection rate, versus the market standard rate of 70%, which he attributed to the removal of barriers to make the payment. Helping private schools with their payments is an area where startups are blooming across Latin America. Earlier this month, we reported on Argentina-based Fidu, which raised $5 million and is working with 1,000 schools. Its approach, as Natasha Mascarenhas reported, is to “build a new operating system for LatAm schools so that institutions can digitally manage everything from finances to school-wide announcements.” The company is also the latest to secure capital, raising $10 million in seed funding led by FinTech Collective. Also participating in the round was a group of investors including DILA Capital, QED Investors, GSV Ventures, Picus Capital, Emerge Education, SMP and Xochi Ventures. Carlos Alonso-Torras, head of emerging markets at FinTech Collective, told ZebethMedia via email that he heard about mattilda through an angel investor friend that had been one of the first checks in. What stood out to him initially was the “quality of the founding team.” He decided to invest when he saw how well the team was able to recruit some key hires and were responsive to recommendations on how to improve in skillset areas where they were weaker. “On the back of Lottus Education’s success, they have a unique level of nuance in their understanding of the education space, and a powerful network that can result in partnerships conducive to hyper scaling in Spanish-speaking Latin America — several are already in place,” Alonso-Torras said. “Furthermore, they are very knowledgeable of the higher education space, which opens a frontier, so to speak, that other models in LatAm within this vertical haven’t successfully tapped into yet.” Mattilda intends to deploy the new funds into expansion into other Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, lending to schools and development of new products. Agote said there are more than 5 million students in Mexico accounting for $15 billion in tuition, so the company has a long way to go as it works to target over 30,000 schools. There are also plans for creating a marketplace so schools can find better prices for items like laptops, uniforms lab and sports equipment and even desks and blackboards. “We’re still scratching the surface in terms of penetration in Mexico and the marketplace,” he added. “We have those two different verticals we are targeting for the future of the company, and I think we can pursue both at the same time.”

Apis in talks to back fintech Money View at $1 billion valuation despite market slump • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Accel, Apis Partners, Fintech, india, Startups, tiger globalNo Comments

India’s Money View is in talks to raise a new round of funding at a unicorn valuation, two sources familiar with the matter told ZebethMedia, in a boost to the local fintech community that has been rattled by the central bank’s stringent guidelines and funding crunch in recent months. Apis Partners is deliberating leading a funding round of about $125 million to $150 million in the Bengaluru-headquartered startup at a valuation of about $1 billion, the sources said. The round, a Series E, hasn’t been finalized, so terms of the deal may still change, the sources cautioned, requesting anonymity speaking about nonpublic information. Apis Partners, Money View and the startup’s founders did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening local time. The eight-year-old startup, which was valued at $615 million in a Series D funding round in March this year, offers lending to individuals who can’t avail credit from banks and other financial institutions. The startup has said in the past that the majority of its customers live in small Indian cities and towns. “India is one of the most underserved large economies when it comes to access to credit. More than 70% of the credit provided by banks is only given to the top 10% of affluent Indians,” it describes on its website. “The most underserved segments are people who earn less than 5L [$6,070] a year. Money View aims to bridge this credit gap by providing personalized loan offers for its customers through its robust data and risk assessment model. The company’s proprietary data models provide a 360-degree risk assessment, enabling credit for the underserved segments.” Money View — which counts Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global and Accel among its existing backers — has been profitable for over a year, its founder Puneet Agarwal said in a press statement in May, and was on pace to clock an annualized revenue run rate of about $80 million. “In the age of cash burning businesses, we are one of the very few fintech startups to be profitable for more than a year now,” Agarwal said in a press release in May. Its new funding deliberations come at a time when the dealflow activity has slowed down dramatically in the South Asian market as investors grow cautious of writing new checks and evaluate their underwriting models after valuations of publicly listed firms take a tumble. Indian startups raised $3 billion in the quarter that ended in September, down 57% from the previous quarter and 80% year-over-year, according to market intelligence platform Tracxn.

Evy wants to offer product protection insurance everywhere • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in Evy, Fintech, insurance, insurtech, product protection, StartupsNo Comments

Meet Evy, a French startup that is working on extended warranties and product protection insurance. The company raised a $6.5 million seed round (€6.5 million) from Sequoia, La Famiglia VC, Global Founders Capital and several business angels. Evy wants to bring an AppleCare experience to other brands and retailers. Essentially, the startup wants to create a seamless experience when it comes to adding product protection at checkout and some good coverage out of the box. The startup acts as an insurance broker and partners with Wakam to cover the risk — but it could also partner with other insurance companies in the future. On the other side, it partners with retailers so that they embed Evy’s insurance products on their sites or try to sell an extended warranty in stores. For instance, Evy has signed a partnership with ManoMano, a home improvement and gardening e-commerce platform that I’ve covered over the years. When a customer is buying a product on ManoMano, they can add multi-year coverage against breakage, breakdown and/or theft. What makes Evy stand out from legacy players is that it can create custom-made insurance products in very little time. For instance, ManoMano has 25 different product categories across four countries. Evy has created 25 tailor-made insurance programs in just a few months. Similarly, retailers can develop deep integrations with Evy as the insurtech startup focuses on API-based integrations. If there is something wrong with the product, Evy first tries to find a solution to fix the product. It plans to put together a repair network. If it doesn’t work, Evy makes a payment to the customer. And the distribution method should work quite well as Evy shares some revenue with its retail partners. Some big retailers, such as Darty or Best Buy, already generate important revenue from insurance products. Evy wants to offer a solution for the long tail of e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores. Evy isn’t just an insurance play. There’s a bigger vision around product lifecycles. “Eventually we want to offer all customer services that are associated with products. They are useful for both the merchant and the end user,” co-founder and CEO Simon Kemoun told me. “They are all switching to the circular economy. We know when a product is under warranty and we know when there has been no incident. We can issue a trade-in offer so that you can get the most recent product,” he added. There are some companies in the U.S. focusing on the same industry, such as Clyde and Extend. In France, Evy competes with Neat.

Crowded’s app gives clubs, associations banking flexibility • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in Apps, banking app, Crowded, Daniel Grunstein, Fintech, garageNo Comments

Crowded, a free banking app targeting member-based nonprofit organizations, like fraternities, sororities and booster clubs, closed on $6 million to continue developing its suite of banking and member management tools. Organizations often open banking accounts at nearby institutions, while some groups, like fraternities, sororities and on-campus clubs, are required to bank through their student activities, but without many of the features of modern banking. Crowded co-founder and CEO Daniel Grunstein told ZebethMedia that the company designed its mobile app for the specific needs of club treasurers so they can perform duties, for example, requesting and collecting member dues and tax reporting, digitally versus physically sending out notices to pay each month. The company is entering somewhat of a “crowded space” for organization management. For example, Heylo raised $1.5 million in seed funding this year for its member coordination app, while OurHouse and OmegaFi specifically target fraternities and sororities. Crowded offers both physical and virtual debit cards for its members, but organizations can also link their own existing bank accounts. One of the ways Grunstein says his company differs is that rather than charge subscription fees, Crowded collects interchange fees from merchants when those debit cards are used to make purchases. It also charges processing fees for member payments at around 3% or $5 per payment, which Grunstein said is lower than the industry average of 8%. Crowded co-founders, from left, Dvir Hanum, Daniel Grunstein and Darryl Gecelter. Image Credits: Crowded Grunstein started the company with Dvir Hanum, Darryl Gecelter and Dor Kleinmann in June 2021. The founders were previously in either financial technology or from alumni network tech. Grunstein himself has a background in fintech and enterprise software, previously working with JP Morgan Chase. “I was really focused on traction, as a service, and trying to advocate for that within a bank,” he said. “It made me put two-and-two together and realized that this is a way to solve some of the headaches I had and go top-down within a national organization.” Meanwhile, after launching a year ago with five customers, Crowded has grown into 300 chapter customers using the platform, with letters of intent signed with another 1,200 chapters. The company’s seed round was led by Garage and included Deel co-founder Philippe Bouaziz, Innoventure Partners’ Michael Marks and a group of former bank executives. The new funding will be deployed into building out the platform, marketing and compliance as it pertains to nonprofit finances. The platform was previously in closed beta, but Grunstein wants to open it up and continue building out features, including automation from the customer side. He also said the company was on its way to traction of $1 million annual recurring revenue. “We are working on completing the build of features so that what our customers do at a regular bank they can do with us,” he added. “We also want to add a self-service component, get into new markets, continue to grow in colleges and diversify our customer base. We will plan to do a Series A next year if we can meet those milestones.”

Bilt Rewards’ valuation jumps to $1.5B following new $150M growth round • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 25, 2022Posted in Ankur Jain, bilt rewards, credit card, Fintech, Left Lane Capital, VentureNo Comments

Bilt Rewards, which works with some of the country’s largest multifamily owners and operators to create loyalty programs and a co-branded credit card for property renters, entered unicorn status after securing $150 million in a growth round led by Left Lane Capital. We previously covered Bilt a year ago when the company raised $60 million in growth funding on a $350 million valuation. Today’s investment raises that to $1.5 billion and gives the company about $213 million in total funding since the company launched in June 2021 out of Kairos, the startup studio led by Bilt founder and CEO Ankur Jain. The company’s loyalty program and payment platform was rolled out to more than 2.5 million apartment units across the country so far, Jain told ZebethMedia. Users can earn points and improve their credit by simply paying rent each month. Bilt’s points can be used in 12 loyalty programs, including major airlines, hotels, travel, fitness classes, Amazon.com purchases, credit toward rent or a future downpayment. Bilt has already processed over $3.5 billion in annualized rent payments and over $1.6 billion in annualized card spend to date. Both of those figures are ones that have grown significantly in just the last 90 days, Jain said. Also, there are more than half a million customers using Bilt between the loyalty program and credit card. In addition to the new investment, Bilt also announced a new program called Bilt Homes, which helps renters access homeownership. Here’s how it works: Using the member’s monthly rent payment, Bilt will show the member homes they can own in their area for that same payment. That payment includes real-time interest rates, taxes, income, credit profile and other personal data to determine mortgage qualification, Jain said. Members can also calculate how an improvement in credit rating will affect the mortgage interest rate they may qualify for, and should they need or want it, enroll in Bilt’s free rent reporting to help boost their credit history with every on-time rent payment. “It’s an opportunity for more renters to think about whether homeownership is the right thing for them at this moment in time,” Jain said. “It’s just so stupidly confusing to buy a home today, so we created the first tool where you can now just say, for $3,000 a month, what are the homes that I could buy today for the same amount?” Joining Left Lane in the investment was Wells Fargo, Greystar, Invitation Homes, Camber Creek, Fifth Wall, Smash Capital, Prosus Ventures and Kairos. Previous rounds were more strategic in nature, while this round was the first time Bilt had taken growth institutional capital, Jain said. He notes that the company wasn’t formally looking for new capital. In fact, it had hit profitability earlier this year. However, there was a lot of inbound interest in the company, and bringing on institutional investors like Left Lane Capital positioned Bilt to think more long-term, including a possible initial public offering or other future opportunities, for example, acquisitions. Also, having partners like Wells Fargo double down in this round “was a testament to the strength of the partnership,” as was attracting one of the largest multifamily owners, Greystar, and Invitation Homes, one of the largest single-family rental players, Jain added. Much of the new capital will be kept in reserves for now while the company is focused on aligning interests further with its core commercial partners. “Unlike a lot of the VC rat race businesses where you’re just chasing growth for the sake of chasing growth, we can just keep focusing on the core business and growth and think long-term here,” Jain said. “That’s our goal and a big reason why we raised the capital right now.”

WeTravel books $27M to build fintech and more for bespoke group travel • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 24, 2022Posted in Enterprise, Fintech, Startups, travel, WeTravelNo Comments

Travel is back on the radar for investment, with consumers and business users both on the move again after a long pandemic period of staying in one place. Today, a startup called WeTravel — which builds tech for the specific needs of group travel — has raised $27 million, money that it will be using to expand its business on the heels of strong growth in the last year. The company provides payments and other tools to some 3,000 companies, working out to 500,000 customers using its platform. Transaction volumes have grown 30% and revenues currently sitting at 3X the level it was pre-Covid. And CEO and co-founder Johannes Koeppel said he believes those figures will double again in 2023 “as a conservative estimate.” The Series B is being led by Left Lane Capital, with previous backers Swift Ventures and Base10 also participating alongside angel investors that include Victor Jacobsson, one of the co-founders of Klarna. WeTravel had previously raised only $7 million in the 8 years since it was founded. We understand from sources that this Series B was made at a valuation of a little over $100 million. The startup, fittingly, has done a little traveling of its own. Originally, Keoppel and his two co-founders Garib Mehdiyev (CTO), and Zaky Prabowo (CMO) had moved out from The Netherlands to the Bay Area to start the business, only to find it impossible to navigate the visa waters to bring engineers and other technical talent over, too. So in 2019, WeTravel’s three founders relocated back across the pond to The Netherlands. Covid put paid to the idea that a startup needs to have its team in one place, and today, the majority of the company’s business team and customers are in the U.S., and it’s incorporated there, while the three founders, as well as WeTravel’s product and engineering teams, are all in Amsterdam. The gap in the market WeTravel is going after is one that seems to have been created, ironically, with the growth of online travel services. In the old, pre-internet days, travel agents ruled the roost when it came to booking tickets and overall vacations for many consumers and businesses, both as individuals and groups. Online tools have changed the game for individuals, but interestingly the same doesn’t apply to groups that want to, say, book a multi-day trip or retreat that might involve several hotels, activities, and food, which can involve multiple people, multiple locations, potentially hundreds of suppliers (not just hotels and airlines, but restaurants, excursion operators, insurance providers and much more), and the need for flexible paying options — different people paying different amounts, payments in installments, and lump sum payments that in turn need to be itemized across different suppliers. “The important piece is not so much about paying but what happens afterwards,” Keoppel said, “what the travel company has to do with these funds. A typical trip might cost $10 to the user, with the vast majority of that going to suppliers. It becomes about fund management. And more involved the trip, the larger the amount of suppliers from restaurants and transport companies to airlines and hotels and more.” On top of that there are wire fees and different payment methods business to business, country to country. WeTravel’s platform covers two main parts of that process: helping those putting the group travel together to organize suppliers and plan everything; and then handling the different aspects of the payment process, whether that involves setting up payments in installments, or working with various currencies and payment methods, and paying out to different suppliers under their individual terms. Keoppel describes the fintech side of the business as “the PayPal for travel” and says that it’s complex enough that companies like PayPal, Stripe and other big names in online payments haven’t really been able to address the particular segment of the market that WeTravel is serving, especially when used in tandem with the first part of its product set to coordinate itineraries and suppliers. Keoppel believes this is a template we might be seeing more in the B2B fintech world. “My belief is that there will be in the next couple of years more specific SaaS platforms that integrate payments as component for specific industries,” he said. (Indeed, today you already have some addressing this for, say, beauty and wellness, with companies like Fresha, Boulevard and Style Seat building tools specifically for the needs of that vertical.) This is also something that WeTravel’s customers also have sometimes tried but failed to build themselves. As travel agents have become “travel advisors” and focus on these bespoke travel experiences, some have turned, he said, to “custom-made systems they build themselves, but what I’ve realized is that what is lacking is the end customer experience. They don’t have the time to build the beautiful invoicing system plus payment methods, and all of the rest.” One thing that WeTravel does not currently do is offer discovery to its users — that is, travel advisors might still turn to their little black books, or these days maybe TripAdvisor, Yelp, or other recommendation and discovery platforms, to find interesting restaurants and more. This is something that WeTravel could potentially move into as it grows. `One significant elephant in the room is what happens when other big travel platforms consider how they might do more in this area: they already have all the big supplier relationships and it might be a matter of building or buying tools to meet this use case. Vinny Pujji, who led the investment for Left Lane, recalled that his parents once ran a travel agency, “so this was a cool one for me to see,” he said. “You bump into sneaky big markets and this is absolutely one of them.” He noted that the Covid winter that descended on travel does appear to be thawing, even in the current economic climate. “The data tells us that travel is mostly back now,” he said. He points out thought that

Post-Disrupt notes • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 23, 2022Posted in FintechNo Comments

Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. — Mary Ann Hellooo! I am writing this newsletter on the plane back to my home in Austin after being at Disrupt in San Francisco this week. It was my first IRL Disrupt, and even though I am on the team and was aware of all the planning and preparation behind the scenes, I was still blown away by how incredibly professional and well done it was. We had about 10,000 attendees, tons of great panels and speakers, engaged audiences and the super exciting Battlefield competition, among other things. But I am tired, so be warned this newsletter may be a bit abbreviated. 🙂 I had the honor of kicking off the entire show recording the Equity podcast LIVE with Alex Wilhelm and Natasha Mascarenhas, where we shared some interesting new news about Domm Holland, co-founder of the now-defunct, one-click checkout startup Fast. We had an absolute blast recording in person instead of looking at each other on Zoom. Thanks to all who attended so early that morning! Then on Wednesday, I moderated a panel titled “How to compete without losing your mind and runway.” Ramp CEO Eric Glyman and Airbase founder Thejo Kote were good sports and joined the amazing Ruth Foxe Blader of Anthemis to talk about what it’s like competing in this current environment. Despite being competitors in the spend management space, Eric and Thejo kept it chill and no fights broke out onstage. Meanwhile, Ruth shared some insight from the investor side. I’ll have a story with more details about what they discussed that will publish sometime in the next couple of weeks. Also on Wednesday, I moderated a fireside chat with Brex co-CEO and co-founder Henrique Dubugras and YC continuity managing director (and early Brex investor) Anu Hariharan. It was standing room only and Dubugras spoke candidly on a number of topics such as just how much the company spent on that billboard campaign, what really led to its decision to stop working with SMBs and the lessons learned after that decision caused a bit of an uproar in the startup community. He also revealed some new customers for the company’s Empower software product: Coinbase, SeatGeek, SuperHuman, ScaleAi and Medical Genomics. Again, I’ll be writing up a story with more details about what we discussed that will publish sometime in the next couple of weeks. And finally, on Thursday, I interviewed Rippling CEO and co-founder Parker Conrad. He discussed what he describes as “the biggest launch” of his career — the company’s new global payroll product, which he is not shy about saying will directly compete with the likes of Deel. You can read more about that here. He also discussed some takeaways from his experience at Zenefits, saying that he was taking compliance “very seriously” at his new company. Rippling’s move into the payroll space comes about one month after it announced an expansion into spend management, which puts it in direct competition with the likes of Brex, Ramp, Airbase, TripActions and many others in the space. Image Credits: ZebethMedia Weekly News As the Fintech Fund’s Nik Milanović (who also spoke at Disrupt about community) noted in this tweet, “The @plaid team has been busy in the last week: Faster digital onboarding More fraud controls Privacy Controls suite Crypto wallet onboard Meanwhile, payments infrastructure provider Finix revealed another way it’s going head-to-head with Stripe. In a blog post, the startup said: “Finix is further expanding its In-Person Payment offerings, rolling out more software development kits and APIs to pair with a suite of point-of-sale payment terminals from multiple manufacturers. The best part? Only a single integration is required.” As reported by TC’s Catherine Shu: Cross-border payments startup Thunes is partnering with Visa in a move that will add more than 1.5 billion new endpoints to Visa Direct’s digital payments network. This enables many more consumers and small businesses to send funds to markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where digital wallets are often the default payment methods. Fellow fintech enthusiast and newsletter writer Marcel van Oost is launching a new fintech community. You can learn more here. Finally, Cardless and Simon® Launch Premium Retail Credit Card on American Express Network. Fundings and M&A Landis grabs $40M to turn renters into homeowners Enable lands $94M to help B2B companies manage their rebate programs Achieve aims to fuel digital personal finance transformation with new $225M in fully committed debt capital Bookkeep raises $6.6M in seed funding Mexican buy now, pay later app Nelo lands $100M credit line Capital on Tap Gets $110M Credit Facility to Build Central Finance Hub Well, I had a wonderful time at Disrupt meeting my wonderful colleagues (we genuinely respect and like each other!) and so many of you. Already looking forward to next year. Oh, and a heads-up that I’ll be out all of next week, taking a much needed break, so you won’t be getting the Interchange in your inbox on October 30. But I’ll be back the following week! That’s it for this week. See you again in two weeks! Until then, take good care. — xoxoxo, Mary Ann

Alchemy, Ava Labs and BlockFi break down funding in a bear market at TC Sessions: Crypto • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 21, 2022Posted in Alchemy, BlockFi, Crypto, crypto markets, cryptocurrencies, Fintech, Flori Marquez, Nikil Viswanathan, TC Sessions: Crypto 2022No Comments

Bears hibernate during the coldest months, but there’s nowhere to hide from a bear market during a crypto winter. As the entire sector faces what looks to be a long stretch of uncertainty, young founders must find a way to keep the funds flowing. But how? This timely topic is why we’re thrilled that industry veterans Flori Marquez, founder and COO at BlockFi; Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder and CEO at Alchemy; and John Wu, president of Ava Labs, will join us onstage for a panel discussion called “Fundraising in Crypto Winter” at TC Sessions: Crypto on November 17 in Miami. If anyone understands the highs, lows and overall volatility of the crypto market, it’s the three people on this panel. Marquez’s BlockFi recently signed a deal giving FTX US the option to buy the crypto lender she founded. Viswanathan’s Alchemy, one of the fastest-growing companies in technology history, raised a $200 million Series C1 last February, giving the web3 developer infrastructure startup a valuation just north of $10 billion. Meanwhile, Wu’s Ava Labs is reportedly raising a $350 million funding round and looking at a potential valuation of slightly more than $5 billion. It’s a wild season for bulls and bears alike. We’re curious to hear the panel’s take on how fundraising, cap tables and valuations have shifted given the market conditions — and whether startups will see recovery within the near term. We’ll also ask these founders what they’re focused on when it comes to investing in crypto startups or projects, and which subsectors have the most opportunity for growth in a bear market. Learning how these three operators built and scaled their own startups through previous turbulent cycles in the crypto markets will be informative. Both Marquez and Wu entered crypto with traditional finance backgrounds while Viswanathan comes from Big Tech. Hearing how fundraising in the crypto space differs from those worlds — and how it has evolved from prior bear markets — will also be a worthwhile perspective. Don’t miss what’s sure to be a fascinating and valuable discussion. Flori Marquez, BlockFi founder and COO, oversees the company’s operations, client service, people, engineering and retail product teams. Since founding the company with Zac Prince in 2017, Marquez has built and managed critical functions, including the trading, risk, compliance and marketing teams. Marquez has spent her career managing alternative lending products. She served as head of portfolio management — and helped build, scale and optimize a $125 million portfolio — at Bond Street (acquired by Goldman Sachs). She managed all operations from point of origination through default and litigation. Prior to Bond Street, Marquez helped develop and maintain institutional partnerships at Oak Hill Advisors, a $30 billion fixed-income asset manager. Nikil Viswanathan is the co-founder and CEO of Alchemy, a leading blockchain developer platform valued at more than $10 billion. The company is backed by top investors, including Coatue, a16z, Lightspeed, Silver Lake, Pantera and many more. Viswanathan received his BS and MS in computer science from Stanford, and formerly worked in product management at Google, Microsoft and Facebook. A serial entrepreneur, Viswanathan co-created the social app Down To Lunch, and he was listed on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. As president of Ava Labs, John Wu aims to open up financial services and products for everyone. He brings more than 20 years of expertise as a fintech executive and technology investor to creating a blockchain-enabled solution for originating, issuing and trading financial assets. Previously, Wu built and led the digital assets business at SharesPost, where he served as CEO of the Digital Assets Group. Prior to that, he was a technology investor and the founder of Sureview Capital, a global hedge fund backed by the Blackstone Group. Wu began his investment career at Tiger Management before managing a global technology portfolio at Kingdon Capital. He received his MBA from Harvard University and holds a BS in economics from Cornell University. TC Sessions: Crypto takes place on November 17 in Miami. Take advantage of our Early Bird pricing and save $150. Buy your pass today, and then join the leading voices and visionaries in the blockchain, DeFi, NFT and web3 communities. Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Crypto? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Reliance to hive off and list Jio Financial Services • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 21, 2022Posted in Fintech, india, Jio Platforms, reliance, VentureNo Comments

Indian conglomerate Reliance will spin off and list its financial services, a move that it said will allow the oil-to-telecom giant to enter and expand into financial services such as consumer and merchant lending business. Reliance, run by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, said in a statement that it will be incubating (read: acquire) new firms in the new unit, which is called Jio Financial Services, to broaden its offerings to add insurance, payments, digital broking and asset management. “JFS will be a truly transformational, customer centric and digital-first financial services enterprise offering simple, affordable, innovative and intuitive financial services products to all Indians,” said Ambani in a statement late Friday. “JFS will be a technology-led business, delivering financial products digitally by leveraging the nation-wide omni-channel presence of Reliance’s consumer businesses. JFS is uniquely positioned to capture multiple growth opportunities in financial services bringing millions of Indians into formal financial institutions.” (More to follow)