Fintech Highlights - 4/23/2024

Here's what we've been watching this week 👇

Pinned to the Top

Crypto prices keep going strong, even as some industry execs are at risk of going up river.

• Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) next week will be sentenced by a federal judge in Seattle for violating the Bank Secrecy Act and for failing to implement an effective anti-money laundering program. DOJ is asking for three years in prison, which is much more than had been expected.
• Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged the founders of Samourai Wallet, a crypto-mixing service, with conspiracy to commit money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitter business. Samourai had raised money from New York-based VC firm Ten31.

The BFD

The FDIC seized Republic Bank, a small Philadelphia lender, and sold most of its assets and liabilities to Lancaster, Pa.-based Fulton Financial (Nasdaq: FULT).

Why it's the BFD: Because of how unusual this is, despite post-SVB concerns about regional bank failure contagion. In fact, Republic Bank is the year's first U.S. bank failure.

The bottom line: "Republic is small enough to fail, and none of its depositors are going to lose money, not even the ones with more than $250,000 in the bank. But its failure shows that the Fed's rate hikes continue to hurt bank asset values."

M&A

Apollo Global Management sold a stake in Atlas SP, the lending business it acquired last year from Credit Suisse, to MassMutual. More here ->

Thunes, a cross-border payments company that's raised over $200m, agreed to acquire Tilia, a West Hollywood-based payments platform for online games and virtual worlds that raised over $20m from JPMorgan and Dunamu. More here ->

ComplyAdvantage, a London-based for financial crime risk platform, acquired Golden, an SF-based self-constructing knowledge graph. ComplyAdvantage has raised over $140m from firms like Ontario Teachers' and Index Ventures, while Golden had raised around $60m from firms like a16z (which is investing in ComplyAdvantage as part of the merger). More here ->

Synapse, a banking-as-a-service provider, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and agreed to sell its assets to SoftBank-backed TabaPay. Synapse had raised over $50m from firms like a16z, Trinity Ventures, and Core Innovation Capital. More here ->

Paystand, a B2B payment company that's raised $85m, acquired Teampay, a spend management software startup that had raised around $96m from firms like Fin VC, Mastercard, Proof Ventures, Trestle, and Espresso Capital. More here ->

Hawaiian Electric Industries (NYSE: HE) is considering a sale of American Savings Bank, per Bloomberg. More here ->

Aon (NYSE: AON) completed its $13.4b purchase of New York-based insurance broker NFP from Madison Dearborn Partners and HPS Investment Partners. More here ->

BBVA (Madrid: BBVA) offered to buy rival Spanish lender Sabadell (Madrid: SABE) for around €12b, four years after prior talks collapsed.  More here ->

Goldman Sachs is in talks to sell its GM credit cards program to Barclays, per the WSJ.  More here ->

Haveli Investments made a $150m convertible preferred stock investment in Blend Labs (NYSE: CLND), an SF provider of cloud banking services.  More here ->

Fintech

Bump, an LA-based financial management platform for creators, raised $3m in seed funding.. Bump allows creators to track income and market value, which can help them negotiate better deals and see how much money partners owe them. More here ->

Bump, a platform that helps creators manage and grow their businesses, announced a $3 million seed round, with investments from ImpactX, Capitalize and Serac Ventures. More here ->

RockFi, a Paris-based wealth management company, raised €3m led by Varsity I. More here ->

QI Tech, a Brazilian banking-as-a-service company, raised $210m in Series B funding led by General Atlantic at a valuation north of $1b, per Axios Pro. More here ->

UserHub, a New York-based billing platform for B2B SaaS, raised $3.2m in pre-seed funding led by 468 Capital. More here ->

TaxBit, a New York-based provider of tax and accounting compliance software, raised funding from In-Q-Tel at a $1b valuation. More here ->

Givebutter, an Austin, Texas-based nonprofit fundraising and CRM platform, raised $50m led by Bessemer Venture Partners. More here ->

Pomelo, an SF-based international money transfer startup, raised $35m in Series A funding, per TechCrunch. Vy Capital led, and was joined by Founders Fund, A* Capital, and Afore Capital. More here ->

Superlogic, a Miami-based rewards program marketplace, raised $7.6m from Amex Ventures, Sangha Capital, 10SQ Capital, Nima Capital, Actai Unicorn Fund, and Chainlink Capital. More here ->

FilmChain, a London-based payments startup for films and TV stakeholders, raised £2.8m. Holt IntersXion led, and was joined by Roca X, DeBa Ventures, TechAngels Romania, and HearstLab. More here ->

OnePay, a WhatsApp-based payments processing startup based in Colombia, raised $1.3m from Qupa Ventures. More here ->

FinQuery, an Atlanta-based spend management provider, raised $25m led by Periphas Capital with participation from Lavelle Capital. More here ->

Fintoc, a Chilean instant payments API startup, raised $7m in Series A funding. Propel led, and was joined by Monashees. More here ->

RevenueCat, a Brandon, Fla.-based subscription management platform for apps, raised $12m in Series C funding led by Adjacent. More here ->

Vixtra, a provider of credit for Latin American importers, raised $6m from Valor Capital, QED Investors, NXTP, Endeavor Scale-Up Ventures, and Actyus. It also secured $30m in debt. More here ->

Baselayer, a business banking fraud prevention startup, raised $6.5m in seed funding, per Axios Pro, from Torch Capital, Afore Capital, Founder Collective, Picus Capital, and Gilgamesh Ventures. More here ->

BriskPe, an Indian cross border payments company, raised $5m from PayU. More here ->

Y Combinator alum and B2B fintech startup Fintoc raised a $7 million Series A round of funding to consolidate its presence in its home country, Chile, and in Mexico, where it expanded one year ago.  More here ->

Pomelo, a startup that launched in the Philippines in 2022 — allowing people in the United States to send money to the country while at the same time building their credit — has raised $35 million in a Series A round led by Dubai venture firm Vy Capital with participation from Founders Fund.

Investtech

401go, a retirement program setup platform for financial advisors, raised $12m in Series A funding, per Axios Pro. Next Frontier led, and was joined by Rally Ventures. More here ->

Bokra, a Egypt-based wealth management startup, raised $4.6m co-led by DisrupTech Ventures and SS Capital. More here ->

Crypto

Turnkey, a New York-based provider of wallet infrastructure for crypto developers, raised $15m in Series A funding. Lightspeed Faction and Galaxy Ventures co-led, and were joined by Sequoia Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alchemy, Figment Capital, and Mirana Ventures.  More here ->

Securitize, a Miami platform for tokenizing real-world assets, raised $47m. BlackRock led, and was joined by Hamilton Lane, ParaFi Capital, and Tradeweb Markets. More here ->

Ansa, an SF service for merchants to offer branded virtual wallets, raised $14m in Series A funding. Renegade Partners led, and was joined by Bain Capital Ventures, BoxGroup, and Wischoff Ventures. More here ->

X10, a London hybrid crypto exchange, raised $6.5m from Tioga Capital, Semantic Ventures, Cherry Ventures, Sarkware, and Cyber Fund. More here ->

Style Protocol, a Swiss startup that converts NFTs into 3D assets for games, raised $2.5m from Morningstar Ventures, Dutch Crypto Investors, GBV Capital, Protocol Labs, and Alpha Ventures. More here ->

Moso, an LA shop-to-earn crypto rewards startup, raised $2m in seed funding from Symbolic Capital, Dao5, Coinlist, and Polygon Ventures. axios.link/3w3zgrD More here ->

Hinkal, a privacy layer for confidential decentralized finance transactions, raised $1.4m. Salt Fund led, and was joined by Draper Associates, SNZ, and Peer VC. More here ->

Insuretech

🚑 FlashAid, an Indian health insurtech, raised $2.5m co-led by Piper Serica Angel Fund and SOSV. More here ->

Urban Jungle, a London home insurance startup, raised £11.2m from Intact Ventures, Ingka Investments, Mundi Ventures, Eka Ventures, and Sony Innovation Fund. More here ->

Proptech

Zefir, a French residential real estate transaction platform, raised €11m from Sequoia Capital and Zigg Capital. More here ->

Inhabitr, an SF commercial real estate furnishing platform, raised $27m in Series B funding led by Hamilton Ventures. More here ->

Backflip, a Dallas platform for acquiring and renovating single-family homes, raised $15m in Series A funding. FirstMark Capital led, and was joined by Vertical Venture Partners, LiveOak Venture Partners, Revel Partners, ECMC, and Crow Holdings. More here ->

From the Stash

🏡 Pulte: The homebuilder's profit-per-home is jumping as it capitalizes on a nationwide housing shortage - The company's "home sale gross margin" was 29.6% in the first quarter, up 0.5 points from a year earlier. (+4.6%) More here ->

Capital One waiting for regulatory approval of Discover acquisition - As it waits for regulators to approve its $35 billion acquisition of payments network Discover, Capital One is “fully mobilized to plan and deliver a successful integration.”  Adding Discover will make the $475 billion bank a more “diversified, vertically-integrated global payments platform.” More here ->

How Bank of America approaches innovation - Bank of America’s innovation is never complete since its team constantly updates offerings to meet ever-changing client needs.   “At Bank of America, innovation is everybody’s job,” Jorge Camargo, managing director of mobile app, online banking and Erica AI at Bank of America, told Bank Automation News. “We’re constantly listening to clients and building solutions. More here ->

Navy Federal selects Zafin for core modernization - Navy Federal Credit Union selected SaaS core modernization provider Zafin to update its core and move away from its legacy mainframe.   “We selected Zafin to help us as we work to externalize our products and pricing from the banking core,” Pete Amstutz, senior vice president of savings and membership at Navy Federal, told Bank Automation. More here ->

Ex-Wells leader Ellington new adviser at Uplinq - Uplinq, a credit decisioning support platform for small business lenders, named former Wells Fargo leader Derek Ellington as its strategic adviser.   “Most recently, [in] my role running small business at Wells Fargo, which is one of the largest small-business operations in the industry, I gained a lot of insight into gaps that continue to exist. More here ->

⚖️ U.S. prosecutors requested a 36-month prison sentence for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. (Axios) More here ->

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