Zebeth Media Solutions

Fintech

Apple partners with Goldman Sachs to introduce high-yield savings accounts for Apple Card holders • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Apple, Apple Card, Fintech, Goldman SachsNo Comments on Apple partners with Goldman Sachs to introduce high-yield savings accounts for Apple Card holders • ZebethMedia

Apple is taking a big step towards offering more banking services to its customers. The company announced today it’s partnering with Goldman Sachs to soon launch a new Savings account feature for its Apple Card credit cardholders which will allow them to save and grow their “Daily Cash” — the cashback rewards that are earned from their Apple Card purchases. In the months ahead, Apple says cardholders will be able to automatically save this cash in a new, high-yield Savings account from partner Goldman Sachs which is accessible with Apple Wallet. Customers will be able to transfer their own money into this account, as well. The account will have no fees, minimum deposits or minimum balance requirements, Apple notes, which would make the account somewhat competitive with a variety of neobanks which are often used as a way for customers to park their digital cash and earn money through interest payments. Apple, in its press release this morning, did not yet say what interest rate would be paid out on these high-yield accounts, however. Currently, competitors are offering APY’s in the range of 2.20%-3.05%, per data from Bankrate. Some are going even higher, Investopedia data indicates, citing APYs topping 3.1% at present. (Apple noted it’s not prepared to announce the APY due to the particularly dynamic interest rate environment at present.) Image Credits: Apple When the new offering launches, Apple Card users will be able to set up and manage their Savings account directly in the existing Apple Wallet mobile app. From that point forward, all the Daily Cash they earn through Apple Card purchases will be automatically deposited into this account, unless customers change this to instead have the cash added to their Apple Cash card in Wallet, as they do today. This option can be switched at any time, Apple says. An in-app Savings dashboard will display the account balance and interest accrued over time. Currently, Apple pays 3% cashback on Apple Card purchases made using Apple Pay at select merchants, including Apple itself, as well as Uber/Uber Eats, Walgreens, Nike, Panera Bread, T-Mobile, ExxonMobil, and Ace Hardware. Apple Card purchases will receive 2% cashback when Apple Pay is used and 1% back when the titanium card is used or when a virtual card number is used to shop online. Cardholders won’t have to rely only on their Apple Card purchases to fund their new Savings accounts, however. Apple says that customers will be able to deposit additional funds through a linked bank account or their Apple Cash balance. They can also withdraw this cash at any time, by transferring it back to that same linked bank account or Apple Cash card, without having to pay fees. With the launch of the Apple Card, Apple has been moving steadily into the payments market, allowing it to establish a more direct connection with its customers as it ramps up its “services” business, which sees it selling subscriptions to a variety of offerings, including Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, iCloud+, Apple News+, Apple Fitness+ and more. It’s also looking to make Apple Pay a more viable option for shopping online, with news that it will introduce an Affirm competitor, Apple Pay Later, for splitting up purchases into four interest-free payments. This offering is delayed until 2023, however, Bloomberg reported. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs has been moving towards becoming a more conventional bank, with its Marcus by Goldman Sachs product, which announced last year it had reached a milestone of over $100 billion in customer deposits after five years of operation. The partnership with Apple will give it another angle into the consumer deposits market. Apple didn’t offer an exact launch date for its high-yield Savings account, either, saying only it would arrive in the “coming months.” The company said the Savings account feature will ship with an upcoming iOS release, but could not detail which version number will include the option. “Savings enables Apple Card users to grow their Daily Cash rewards over time, while also saving for the future,” said Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, in a statement. “Savings delivers even more value to users’ favorite Apple Card benefit — Daily Cash — while offering another easy-to-use tool designed to help users lead healthier financial lives.”

Read More

With $67M in new capital, NorthOne is doubling down on SMBs as some fintech companies pull back • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in battery ventures, digital banking, Fintech, NorthOne, StartupsNo Comments on With $67M in new capital, NorthOne is doubling down on SMBs as some fintech companies pull back • ZebethMedia

It’s common knowledge, especially to those who work in financial services, that the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically increased demand for digital banking globally. A flurry of fintechs emerged in hope of meeting that demand while incumbent banks clamored to step up their own digital games. And then there were those companies that existed well before the pandemic. New York-based NorthOne is one such example. Founded by Eytan Bensoussan and Justin Adler in 2016, the startup was born to serve small business owners such as barbers, mechanics and local restaurant owners. When the pandemic hit, there was perhaps no other category of businesses impacted as greatly as small businesses. Some didn’t survive but many pushed through, either pivoting or weathering the early days of the crisis by adapting their models accordingly. “Covid, despite all the terrible parts, pushed the education around digital banking – at least in our part of the world,” said CEO Bensoussan. Over the years, NorthOne has worked to offer more than banking services to its customers. It added products that would also help them simplify their financial operations “by connecting the data layer between accounting, receivables, payables, lending, payroll — all the financial operations — and the bank account ledger.” “As our customers grow, their problems evolve beyond the bank account,”  Bensoussan said.  In 2021, NorthOne replatformed the company with a new banking partner, The Bancorp Bank, N.A, an investment that it says has paid off. Over the last 12 months, Bensoussan said that NorthOne’s revenue grew “4-5x” while customer growth was “in line with revenue growth.” “We were built – by definition – to serve the smaller part of the small business market,” COO Adler added. “And that made us really capable of serving these folks in an efficient way, but also having a product offering that was just really tailored for what they specifically need.” To help fuel continued growth, the startup is announcing it has raised $67 million in a Series B funding round that included participation from Battery Ventures, Don Griffith, NFL player Drew Brees, Ferst Capital Partners, FinTLV, Next Play Capital, Operator Stack, Redpoint Ventures, Tencent and Tom Williams. The financing brings NorthOne’s fundraising total to $90.3 million since inception. The company declined to reveal valuation, saying only that it was an “up round” that closed in late summer. The funding comes at an interesting time in the world of fintech, considering that players such as Brex have actually shifted their focus away from small businesses – in part due to the risk associated with underwriting such ventures – to focus on enterprises. For NorthOne, that only means opportunity. “A lot of folks are moving really aggressively towards that top side of the market –  like a Fortune 500 company or a VC backed startup, but the fact of the matter is that both of those markets are really niche,” said COO Adler. “We’ve actually really doubled down on our core customer base, which are businesses that you pass by on your way to work – like that cafe, or hair salon, or dry cleaner – that are just really underserved by traditional banks and increasingly also by fintechs and challenger banks.” Image Credits: Co-founders Eytan Bensoussan (CEO) and Justin Adler (COO) / NorthOne The majority of NorthOne’s customer base has less than 10 employees. The startup’s go-to-market strategy surprisingly relies less on the internet than one might expect. While the company, which does not yet have a sales team, does use the internet for leads, it also holds in-person event series in various cities around the country where it offers educational content to small business owners. It also partners with organizations such as Profit First, a group which offers financial management advice to small businesses. NorthOne, the founders said, works to give its customers access to its services in as many convenient ways as possible. For example, it takes cash deposits through a series of partnerships with companies such as Walmart, 7-11 and Office Max. “That’s important, as small businesses really do deal with cash – as much as we’d love to imagine that it’s all online,” Adler said. “The vast majority of America’s businesses are still using these types of money movement and we need to go to them.” Battery Ventures led NorthOne’s $21 million Series A in March of 2020 and is doubling down on its investment with the new raise. Partner Shiran Shalev says he was drawn to the company’s laser focus on the SMB market. “There’s so much focus in the fintech world on serving tech companies and serving large enterprises, that someone’s going after Main Street and that size of business, is just such a large opportunity,” he told ZebethMedia in an interview. Having spent time in Israel and Europe, where fintech was more developed, Shalev says he “spent a lot of time looking at all the different options in this space” in the United States. “We’re very, very intrigued by what NorthOne has built,” he added. Ultimately, the company’s goal is to give its business the “control, clarity and confidence” they need to better manage their finances. It plans to use its new capital to build out the software layer of its business as well as create new financial products for its customers such as payments rails to working capital and credit offerings. Presently, NorthOne has about 75 employees and doesn’t plan to go on a hiring spree with its new capital. “We’ll be adding programmatically as we bring on these new software layers and these new products,” Bensoussan said. My weekly fintech newsletter, The Interchange, launched on May 1! Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

Read More

Open finance startup Ayoconnect’s APIs enable financial inclusion in Southeast Asia • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Asia, Ayoconnect, financial inclusion, Fintech, Indonesia, open finance, Southeast Asia, StartupsNo Comments on Open finance startup Ayoconnect’s APIs enable financial inclusion in Southeast Asia • ZebethMedia

Focused on Southeast Asia, Ayoconnect’s APIs make it faster for businesses to launch new financial services, instead of needing to build their own tech infrastructure. It is also licensed by Indonesia’s central bank, enabling it to offer more services. The open finance startup announced today it has closed a $13 million Series B extension round led by SIG Venture Capital, with participation from CE Innovation Capital and returning investor PayU, the payments and fintech business of Prosus. This brings its total raised to $43 million, including the oversubscribed first tranche of its Series B, which was led by Tiger Global and closed in January 2022. Founded in 2016, with a team of about 250 people, Ayoconnect is currently working toward more financial inclusion for Indonesian consumers and SMEs. It works with regulators and incumbent banks, and was recently awarded a Bank of Indonesia (BI) Payment Service Provider Category 1 license. Ayoconnect says it is the only open finance player in Indonesia to be licensed by the central bank. Ayoconnect’s new funding will be used for leadership hiring, and on its Ayoconnect’s product and technology, including new solutions for payments, data and banking and new APIs for account opening and card issuing. The startup recently launched automated recurring direct debit with seven of Indonesia’s largest banks (Mandiri, BRI, BNI, CIMB Niaga, Danamon, Bank Syariah Indonesia and Bank Neo Commerce). This allows Ayoconnect’s clients to use its direct debit API and get the ability to make recurring debits from customers’ savings accounts at multiple banks. Before starting Ayoconnect, founder and CEO Jakob Rost was a managing director at Lazada. After leaving Lazada, he spent several years living in Indonesia, where he saw how the country could benefit from more digital financial inclusion. For example, it is the fourth largest country in the world by population, but about half of people are unbanked, he said. It also has a complicated geography, resulting in a weak financial infrastructure, fragmentation and less standardization in the banking sector. Furthermore, Rost added, consumer-facing businesses in Indonesia don’t have the digital financial infrastructure to manage their own finances while serving customers. Ayoconnect raised again so soon after the initial close of its Series B because it was growing rapidly and also secured important strategic partnerships after receiving its BI license. Rost said the new capital will strengthen Ayoconnect’s balance sheet and prepare it for future growth over the next few years. The platform now serves 200 API customers, including large banks, financial institutions, tech unicorns and fintechs, and offers more than 4,000 embedded finance products. Its APIs are cover two categories: open banking APIs and payment services APIs, with the goal of building the most complete open finance stack in Southeast Asia. Some examples of financial services that Ayoconnect’s clients have launched include the aforementioned direct debit, embedded finance (it partnered with PT. Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI), the state-owned operator of railways in Indonesia) to launch new ticketing and productivity features in the KAI Access mobile app, which enables users to buy cellphone credits, internet data subscriptions and electricity tokens). It also partnered with Bank Syariah, Indonesia’s largest Islamic bank, to add new digital and mobile capabilities with the goal of greater financial inclusion and economic growth among its customers. Other Southeast Asian startups in the open finance space include Brick, Finverse, Brankas and Finantier as competitors? One way that Ayoconnect differentiate is by being the only licensed open finance platform in Indonesia, which enables it to offer solutions that aren’t available on the market yet. “While open banking and open finance are reasonably well-established in Europe and the US, the industry is still very young in Southeast Asia but is growing rapidly. In Indonesia, hundreds of millions are embracing new digital services while many more are still without access to basic financial services like bank accounts,” said Rost. “As such, there is huge potential for open finance in the region and a ton of opportunities for the sector to grow further. We’ve been really excited to see the activity in the space and to be playing a role in helping to move the ecosystem forward.” In a statement, SIG Venture Capital’s Akshay Bajaj said the Ayoconnect team “have been running high volume APIs for years and are incredibly well positioned to help customers launch compelling and profitable use cases quickly and securely. As a result of its expanding capabilities, Ayoconnect continues to experience strong and growing demand from banks and API clients. We love their vision and believe they have the potential to transform and enhance the future of payments in Southeast Asia.”

Read More

GoHenry, the fintech for under-18s, raises $55M after passing 2M users • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Banking, Fintech, gohenryNo Comments on GoHenry, the fintech for under-18s, raises $55M after passing 2M users • ZebethMedia

Neobanks have made a name for themselves by successfully winning the business of newly minted adults, opening their first checking, savings and investment accounts and uninterested in doing business with clunky, expensive legacy banks. Now a new wave of startups and services has been getting a jump on that model with an even earlier target: under-18s, including kids as young as 6, and in the latest development, U.K. fintech GoHenry is announcing $55 million in funding to double down on the opportunity. The equity funding is coming from previous backers Edison Partners and Revaia (formerly Gaia), with a strategic investment from Italian payments company Nexi, a new backer. The company is not disclosing its valuation but I understand it’s more than $250 million and less than $500 million. It brings the total raised by GoHenry (named, the company says, after its first child-customer) to $125 million, including a $40 million round led by Edison in 2020 and a $15 million angel round. Early on, it also raised $15 million in crowdfunding in 2016 and 2018. GoHenry likes to say that it has 5,000 shareholders as a result of those campaigns, and half of them are users. That is just a small percentage overall of the kids (and parents) that GoHenry has amassed over the years. It now has 2 million customers — all between 6 and 18 years of age — across the U.K., the U.S., and more recently France and Spain after acquiring French rival Pixpay this summer. Today, they use two main services from the company, a prepaid debit card (topped up by parents typically) and a “financial education” app that links to that card (and an app that parents can use to help monitor and manage the account).  COVID-19 broke open the bank when it came to the usage of fintech: consumer “digital transformation” played out in a couple of ways, with people socially distancing driven to using apps and sites to manage their finances, underscored by a shift in commerce also going online, and people equally and more directly just shifting their attention to considering how they interfaced with finance and experimenting with new services as a result. This also played out, interestingly, among young people, GoHenry said, with the company seeing a surge of new users during the pandemic and an increased rate of activity among existing customers. Its research found that kids in the U.K., GoHenry’s main market, earned £148 million in 2021, up 9% over 2020. “We start at 6 because parents want a rite of passage, to give a card for a child’s 6th or 7th birthday,” CEO Alex Zivoder said. “That surprised us, since it was earlier than we expected. This shows to us that this is the best time for kids to start understanding the concept of money.” And that concept is linked to earning it, he added. “It’s all about allowance and chores, or a mix.” He notes that younger children do not spend much (nor have places to do so) but that takes off in the teen years, as teens do more spending and have more peer-to-peer transactions and more wages paid in from jobs or apprenticeships. “It’s the beginning of independence,” he said. GoHenry itself is not yet profitable, but those trends point to its growth. It posted $42 million in revenue in 2021 (the last complete year that it’s reported), which was double what it made in 2020. (New users get 30 days of usage free, but after that it’s £2.99 per month, and Zivoder said that 99% of people who try it out become customers.) Now the plan will be to expand those products with a new ISA product for savings accounts and the launch of a new gamified educational experience called Money Missions; to expand geographically in Europe (leveraging the Nexi relationship); and to start considering where there might be opportunities to do more for those aging out of the core service.  GoHenry is not the only fintech that is sharpening its sights on the segment. Earlier this week, kids banking app Step announced that it had taken out a $300 million credit line to build out a crypto trading product for young users (yes, crypto trading for under-18s…). Greenlight meanwhile added a new raft of family-focused safety features. Others like Revolut and Acorns, not originally built for younger users, have expanded into that age bracket. “It’s the emergence of a new sector,” Zivoder said. “In the next 2 to 3 years we’ll have hopefully created a successful new segment called youth banking. The funding and debt raises are the next step in the story. For all of us, it’s getting us to the point to become household names in this segment.” “When we first partnered with GoHenry in 2020, we knew the company was poised to make a global impact by making money approachable and fun for the younger generation and their families,” said Chris Sugden, managing partner, Edison Partners, in a statement. “Our initial investment powered the business’ acceleration in the U.K. and expansion to the U.S. We are excited to fuel GoHenry’s rapid growth into continental Europe and to teach young people financial literacy with practical tools like how to manage a budget.”

Read More

Egyptian consumer money app Telda raises $20M from GFC, Sequoia Capital and Block  • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in block, Fintech, gfc, sequoia capital, Startups, teldaNo Comments on Egyptian consumer money app Telda raises $20M from GFC, Sequoia Capital and Block  • ZebethMedia

Telda, an Egyptian consumer money app founded by ex-Swvl executive Ahmed Sabbah last April, has raised $20 million in seed funding. The fintech, in a statement, said it wants to “revolutionize finance for the MENAP region.”  Its first market, Egypt, is one of the highest consumer spending markets in Africa. The North African market’s private consumption accounts for nearly 85% of its nominal GDP, and only 4% of its overall GDP is cashless. Card usage in the country is still in its infancy in the cash-heavy society, but startups like Telda are banking on their card products to change the narrative, or at least try.  When Sabbah spoke with ZebethMedia last year, he said Telda had obtained a license from Egypt’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) under its new regulations, allowing the company to issue cards and onboard customers digitally. However, for more than a year following this approval, Telda hadn’t still launched its app and card products to its over 30,000 signups.  According to sources who spoke to ZebethMedia, Telda was yet to go live in the Egyptian market after raising that much money because it ran into issues with the apex bank, among them the appropriate licensing it needed to be called a digital bank, which seemed to be Telda’s description at the time. Sabbah denies that there was a scuffle between the two parties. “We are humbled to be the first company to receive the license in Egypt. Egypt’s commitment to shaping the future of finance and establishing itself as a global fintech hub is reflected in the support we’ve received from regulators over the past year,” he added.  Telda eventually secured licence approval from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) a few weeks ago to launch as a consumer money and payment app in the Egyptian market. The company finally started operations last month and launched its app and a Mastercard-powered card to the public. It has onboarded 25,000 cards so far and has a waiting list of 110,000 customers who have ordered their cards. According to the consumer money app, it wants to “change the way people feel about and interact with their finances in this part of the world: from money transfers to online/offline purchases to saving habits.” In a country where 50% of its 100 million people are active smartphone users, two out of every three individuals have little or no access to formal financial services in Egypt. Telda is one of several fintech apps that have raised marked capital to provide these services such as rewards, cards, buy now, pay later to individual consumers. Other fintechs include Sympl, Lucky and Khazna.  Over the past year, Sabbah said the company has learnt that going into the market with a minimum-functioning product doesn’t create a differentiator from the existing big financial institution. He also said that in consumer fintech, investing and over-optimizing in the first version of one’s product is a must, especially on the user experience side.  “We’ve also learned that customers are craving an intuitive user experience when it comes to banking, similar to what they see in the daily applications they use, social media. We believe our competition is and has always been Cash and this is the hardest competition to face in MENA. We’re laser-focused towards changing how Egyptians feel about and interact with their money,” the chief executive said on competition.  His comments indicate that within the past year, Telda went back to the drawing board to tweak its product before releasing it to the public. The new funding demonstrates continued confidence in what Telda can achieve in the ever-growing Egypt and MENA fintech market. The consumer money app says the investment will allow it to pursue its mission of fully and seamlessly digitizing Egyptians’ use and concept of money, including the crucial social element to sending, spending, and saving money. Telda’s seed investment welcomed venture capital’s most prominent names. They include existing investors Sequoia Capital and Global Founders Capital (GFC), who led the round. New investor Block, formerly known as Square, also participated; it’s the fintech giant’s second investment on the continent after crypto startup Yellow Card. Telda secured a $5 million pre-seed just last May, a month after Sabbah and his co-founder Youssef Sholqamy founded the company.  Speaking on the investment, Roel Janssen, a partner at lead investor Global Founders Capital, said, “We are incredibly excited to further strengthen our partnership with Telda. The company has launched a product that is better than most international consumer payments companies, and Ahmed and Youssef have attracted some of the brightest Egyptian talent in product, engineering and GTM. We are confident that Telda will continue to amaze Egyptian customers with an outstanding product experience and exceptional service in the coming years.”

Read More

Last day to save hundreds on TC Sessions: Crypto passes • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in blockchain, Crypto, Fintech, TC Sessions: Crypto, TC Sessions: Crypto 2022, TechCrunch Events 2022, web3No Comments on Last day to save hundreds on TC Sessions: Crypto passes • ZebethMedia

We warned you this day would come. You have less than 24 hours left to save $250 on a General Admission pass to TC Sessions: Crypto — taking place in Miami on November 17. Our special launch pricing expires tonight at 11:59 pm PDT, so buy yours now — your wallet will thank you. Now that you’re registered, get ready to go mining for opportunities across the blockchain, cryptocurrency, DeFi, NFT and web3 ecosystem. You’ll hear from industry giants like Binance’s Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, FTX Ventures’ Amy Wu, Alchemy’s Nikil Viswanathan and many more. Here’s a quick look at just some of the day’s hot topics — be sure to check out the agenda so you don’t miss what matters most in your corner of the cryptoverse. Keeping the Web3 Dream Funded: Billions in capital were raised by crypto native funds and web3 VCs during an unprecedented bull run, but as the crypto markets turn bearish, how will investors keep their web3 dreams alive? We talk to Chris Ahn (Partner, Haun Ventures), Michelle Bailhe Fradin (Partner, Sequoia Capital) and Tom Schmidt (General Partner, Dragonfly) about which potential bets are too early, too late and right on time. A Non-Fungible Empire: Few in the crypto space saw the explosive adoption of NFTs happening this quickly, but NFT marketplace startup OpenSea, founded back in 2017, was waiting in the wings. Fast forward to the present day, and there have been tens of billions of dollars in NFT transaction volume with OpenSea handling the lion’s share of those sales. We’re thrilled that OpenSea CEO, Devin Finzer will join us on stage. So far, he’s fended off marketplace competitors from well-funded public behemoths and upstart threats, but can his $13.3 billion startup hold its lead through a bear market? Securing Web3: As blockchain boosters continue to onboard swaths of consumers to their vision of the crypto web, a central question has been how to optimize the underlying tech to keep these new users safe. We’ll talk to a panel of experts with expertise in blockchains, decentralized apps and protocols including Kathleen Breitman (co-founder, Tezos) and Pascal Gauthier (chairman and CEO, Ledger) on how web3 technologists can build a more secure environment.  Plus, don’t miss your chance to meet and network with more than a dozen up-and-coming startups exhibiting at the show. Today’s casual conversation could lead to tomorrow’s next big deal. TC Sessions: Crypto takes place on November 17 in Miami, but the tides and time wait for no one. Jump on board and buy your pass before the launch special ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. (PDT). Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Crypto? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.  

Read More

Roboadvisor Betterment launches crypto offering with four themed portfolios • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in betterment, Crypto, Fintech, roboadvisorNo Comments on Roboadvisor Betterment launches crypto offering with four themed portfolios • ZebethMedia

Betterment, a roboadvisory platform which manages over $33 billion in assets, has finally launched its crypto offering after completing a private beta phase. The fintech acquired Makara, a crypto asset management startup, back in February and has been working towards transforming Makara into its own in-house crypto product since the deal closed. Crypto for Betterment, as the new offering is called, debuts to Betterment’s 730,000+ customers today with four themed, customizable portfolios that will allow users to invest in curated selections of digital assets, the company’s VP of crypto, Jesse Proudman, told ZebethMedia in an interview. According to Proudman, the four portfolios that launched today include approximately 25 different cryptocurrencies each and categorized as follows: “Universe,” which purports to offer broad exposure across the crypto landscape and includes coins such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chainlink and Filecoin “Sustainable,” which focuses on green blockchains including Ethereum, which recently transitioned to a proof-of-stake (PoS) transaction verification mechanism, and other PoS chains such as Solana and Tezos “Metaverse,” comprised of assets involved with immersive online experiences such as gaming and digital commerce, such as tokens used in Decentraland and Sandbox “Decentralized Finance,” which contains tokens native to DeFi protocols including Aave, Uniswap and Compound Proudman noted that the offering will include a feature that guides users to limit their crypto exposure to 5% of their investable assets as a guardrail. “A pretty meaningful number of our clients are either interested or already invested [in crypto], but they’re feeling pressure with the do-it-yourself nature, particularly when you couple that with the speed of change that happens in this asset class. So they provided feedback that this sort of managed, curated offering was of interest to them,” Proudman said. Makara, which is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, launched with 20,000 customers and $1 million in assets under management last June, according to Decrypt. Betterment announced last month that it would be partnering with crypto exchange Gemini, helmed by the Winklevoss twins, to develop the crypto portfolios and serve as custodian for the assets. The company’s last publicly-known fundraise was a $160 million round announced in September last year, which it raised at a $1.3 billion valuation. The company has been relatively slow compared to other investment platforms like Robinhood and Acorns in adding crypto to its suite, perhaps in part because it wants to focus on messaging around the importance of long-term investing, especially as the crypto markets continue to prove volatile. Betterment’s launch comes just a week after investing app Stash announced its own crypto offering informed by an anti-trading, long-term ethos that stands in contrast to the short-term trading mentality often associated with Robinhood’s rise.

Read More

Children’s financial app Greenlight signals next app iteration with family safety features • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Apps, financial education, Fintech, Greenlight, Greenlight Infinity, Tim SheehanNo Comments on Children’s financial app Greenlight signals next app iteration with family safety features • ZebethMedia

Greenlight Financial Technology, a venture-backed fintech company focused on providing a debit card, banking app and financial education to children, added another layer to its subscription plan with the introduction of family safety features. Greenlight Infinity, priced at $14.98 per month for the whole family, includes location sharing to see where anyone in the family is and do check-ins; SOS alerts to emergency contacts and/or 911 with one tap; and crash detection with automatic 911 dispatch wherein if a crash is detected while driving, driver and trip information is provided to emergency services. Tim Sheehan, co-founder and CEO of Greenlight, explained that the driver for the new features aimed at safety was simply, “you need to know where your kids are and want to keep them safe.” “I like the way we implemented the SOS alerts where you can choose to notify your family or the emergency services,” he added. “And if you click the SOS button and don’t choose whether to notify family or emergency services, they’ll just notify both by default. It’s so if you are in a really dangerous situation and can’t make that second decision.” Along with that is the Greenlight Savings Reward, where teens can earn 5% on their savings. Last year, the Atlanta-based company served more than 3 million parents and kids, and that has now increased to more than 5 million, according to the company. It has also raised about $556.5 million in total funding since Greenlight was founded in 2014, according to Crunchbase data. This includes a $260 million Series D round in 2021 that doubled the company’s valuation to $2.3 billion. Greenlight is not alone in turning venture capital heads toward the financial literacy for children and parents space. For example, last year, teen digital banking service Step raised $200 million in a Series C round and this week borrowed $300 million in debt financing to launch a crypto investing feature. Similarly last month, Stack raised $2.7 million for its cryptocurrency education and trading app.  

Read More

Brex, valued at $12.3B earlier this year, lays off 11% of staff as part of restructuring • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Brex, corporate spend, Fintech, Layoffs, StartupsNo Comments on Brex, valued at $12.3B earlier this year, lays off 11% of staff as part of restructuring • ZebethMedia

The startup’s CFO is departing to join Rippling, which recently entered the spend management space Mary Ann Azevedo 12 hours Corporate spend management startup Brex has laid off 136 people, or 11% of its staff, across all departments as part of a restructuring, the company has told ZebethMedia exclusively. After the layoffs, Brex has just over 1,150 employees. It’s been a tumultuous year for Brex, which announced in April that it was leaning into the enterprise segment. That new focus led to the company announcing in June that it would no longer work with small businesses or non professionally funded startups. The latter news caused a bit of an uproar — and some feelings of abandonment — in the startup community, which Brex initially set out to serve. Internally, the move apparently left less of a need for certain internal staff who were focused on serving those SMBs. Brex said it initially tried to “repurpose” as many roles as it could before ultimately deciding it had to let some people go. The layoffs also are evidence that even decacorns are not immune to the challenging macro and fundraising environment that 2022 has brought us. It was exactly nine months ago that Brex confirmed that it had raised $300 million in a Series D-2 round at a $12.3 billion valuation. Greenoaks Capital and TCV co-led that financing, which brought the three-year-old San Francisco-based startup’s total raised to $1.2 billion. Unsurprisingly, Brex cited the challenging macro environment in its decision.  In a blog post, co-founder and co-CEO Pedro Franceschi wrote: Late last year we decided to sharpen our focus and serve fewer customers really well. Today’s change is a continuation of this. We’ve been laser-focused on serving early-stage startups and scaled companies this year, and we’re very grateful for the momentum we’ve seen on Empower since we launched in April. While we’re fortunate to be in a strong financial position with many years of runway, the new macro environment is materially different from the first five years of Brex, and warrants a new level of focus and financial discipline. We know the importance that our customers place on Brex’s financial strength, and this change will put us on a path to sustainable profitability over the next few years. Over the summer, Sam Blond left his role as chief revenue officer at Brex to become an investor at Founders Fund. His replacement, Doug Adamic, had over 16 years experience at SAP/Concur — most recently as that company’s chief revenue officer — and is helping drive enterprise sales, according to the company. More recently, sources told ZebethMedia that Adam Swiecicki is stepping down from his role as chief financial officer at Brex, a position he assumed late last year when Michael Tannenbaum took on the position of chief operating officer. He will be joining workforce platform Rippling, which recently entered the spend management space, as CFO. Brex confirmed Swiecicki’s impending move, with co-founder and co-CEO Henrique Dubugras telling ZebethMedia: “We’re happy for Adam in his next role and it’s always great to see our team land with great companies. Rippling is a Brex partner and is focused on the small business market, while Brex has moved upmarket. From our side, Michael Tannenbaum will resume the role of CFO.” Moving forward, Tannenbaum — who began serving as CFO initially in 2017 — will serve in both positions. Swiecicki’s decision to leave is reportedly unrelated to the layoff. In an attempt to soften the blow for the laid-off workers, Brex said the affected employees will receive eight weeks of pay, with an additional two weeks for each complete year of service. For those with less than one year at the company, the startup said it is waiving the equity cliff. And for those with options, it is offering to extend the exercise period to seven years. Impacted workers will have access to current healthcare benefits through the end of the month, and then Brex says it will pay for six months of health insurance. The company says it is also dedicating part of its recruiting team to help those impacted “find new opportunities,” and will prioritize hiring them back “as roles open up over time.” Additionally, Brex is letting all impacted employees keep their computers.  Brex started its life focused on providing credit cards aimed mainly at startups and SMBs. It gradually evolved its model with the aim of serving as a one-stop finance shop for these companies before its aforementioned pivot to a focus on enterprise earlier this year. A company spokesperson told ZebethMedia that the company is “getting some really strong signals on Empower,” its new enterprise-focused software offering. Since Empower’s April launch, its monthly active user count has grown 5x month-over-month “on an increasingly large base,” the spokesperson added. It also, the company said, passed $3 billion in annualized processing volume in less than three months of the platform going live. Meanwhile, the spokesperson told ZebethMedia that Brex cash deposits are up 100% year over year, noting that rising interest rates have actually increased the revenue in its deposits business. Brex declined to share hard revenue figures, saying only that “growth — even in this environment — is remaining quite strong.”   The company obviously took a big chance by betting on the enterprise space. It will be interesting to see how that bet plays out. Reporter’s note: The story was updated post-publication to clarify that Swiecicki will be joining Rippling as CFO. My weekly fintech newsletter, The Interchange, launched on May 1! Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

Read More
business and solar energy