Fintech Highlights - 1/18/2022
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Pinned to the Top
Fad? Trend? Or just flat out reality - either way crypto is having a moment.
Here's an eye-popping stat: Cryptocurrency-related job postings in the U.S. surged 395% between 2020 and 2021, per a new LinkedIn report.
Why it matters: Job growth in crypto dramatically outpaced the wider tech industry, which saw a 98% jump in postings in the same period, Erica Pandey writes.
The most common crypto job postings were blockchain developer and engineer, LinkedIn notes.
The big picture: This jobs boom comes as investments are pouring into the industry. Venture capitalists invested a record $30 billion in crypto companies in 2021, according to PitchBook.
And in another sign of the times, Los Angeles has renamed its iconic Staples Center the Crypto.com Arena.
The BFD
Citigroup said it plans to exit its Mexican retail banking business, called Banamex, via either a sale or an IPO.
Why it's the BFD: The earth is no longer flat when it comes to retail banking, with only Santander still trying to make a global go of it. Banamex, which was Citi's savior during the financial crisis and later the source of scandal, was the U.S.-based bank's last foreign consumer operation, having last spring announced plans to exit 13 overseas markets.
Bonus: This is something of a black eye for Citi CEO Jane Fraser, who led the company's original Banamex investment and who said "there's a lot to like" about Banamex, while announcing the other country departures.
The bottom line: "Banamex is a deep part of Mexico, literally standing for Banco Nacional de MĆ©xico. There's going to be a very strong attempt to try to bring it back into Mexican hands, as no one there loves the fact that all three of the country's biggest banks are owned by foreigners."
Fintechs
U.S. fintech Current is rolling out a new product designed to make its banking service more appealing. The company announced this morning itās launching a new high-yield offering called āInterestā that allows any Current account holder to earn a 4.00% Annual Percentage Yield (APY) ā a rate thatās 60x higher than the national average, it notes. More here ->
Brex, the S.F.-based corporate credit card company focused on startups, raised $300 million in Series D-2 funding at a $12.3 billion valuation. Brex started its life focused on providing credit cards aimed mainly at startups and SMBs. It has gradually evolved its model with the aim of serving as a one-stop finance shop for these companies. More here ->
Checkout.com, a London-based online payments platform, raised $1 billion at a $40 billion valuation. Checkout.com is building a full-stack payments company ā it acts as a gateway, an acquirer, a risk engine and a payment processor. The company lets you process payments directly on your site or in your app, but you can also rely on hosted payment pages, create payment links, etc. More here ->
Accrue Savings, founded in June 2021 by CEO Michael Hershfield, aims to get people saving again with its merchant-embedded shopping experience that rewards consumers for saving up for the things they want to buy. Accrue Savings embeds the savings feature on a retailerās website, enabling merchants to also put the feature in targeted email or SMS campaigns. When the consumer opens an account and hits savings milestones, they can receive FDIC-insured cash contributions from brands. More here ->
Global Processing Services, an embedded finance and API payments platfor, has added $100M to its coffers. The funding will be used to continue growing GPSās business ā which includes a range of fintech services such as payments, direct debits and standing orders; virtual cards; mobile wallets; fraud prevention; expense management; cryptocurrency management; BNPL and more. More here ->
Arc, a fintech that is building what it describes as āa community of premium software companiesā that gives SaaS startups a way to borrow, save and spend āall on a single tech platformā - is coming out of stealth today with $150 million in debt financing and $11 million in seed funding. And itās doing it as part of a partnership with Stripe, one of the worldās largest, and most valuable private fintechs. More here ->
Gr4vy, a San Mateo-based cloud-native payment orchestration platform (POP), unveiled a further $15 million in Series A extension funding, taking its total Series A stage funding to $27.2 million (including previous seed funding). Retailers often build their own āorchestrationā platforms for payment processing and routing, but these can be complex to maintain. Spreedly plays in this space, and, last year, Gr4vy launched in the U.S. to do this in an even more fleet-of-foot manner. More here ->
Novo, a Miami-based neobank for SMBs, raised $90 million in Series B funding at a $700 million valuation. Novo now has 150,000 SMB customers in the U.S., up by 50,000 on last Juneās figures. And Novo has collectively now seen $5 billion in lifetime transactions, up by $4 billion on last Juneās $1 billion. More here ->
Merit, a digital credentialing platform, raised $50 million in Series B funding. Merit - originally called Sigma - wants to help governments issue digital credentials that link back to a government license database with the goal of bringing an end to flimsy paper cards. More here ->
Paysail, an enterprise payments startup, just raised seed funding to build a tool that shortens the cross-border payment process to less than five seconds, the company says. Its solution leverages stablecoins, which it describes as ācryptocurrencies designed to have a stable price because they are pegged to a commodity or currency.ā More here ->
CAIS, an alternative investment platform, raised $225 million at a valuation north of $1 billion. Apollo and Motive Partners co-led, and were joined by Franklin Templeton. This new investment follows a previous investment by Eldridge and accelerates CAISās mission to modernize how financial advisors access alternative investments. More here ->
Crypto API provider Conduit wants to be the Stripe of decentralized finance. And is building a set of APIs that developers can use to build platforms that provide access to DeFi products. More here ->
KionWorks, an Indonesian financial platform for SMEs, raised $43 million in Series C equity funding (plus $65m in debt). KoinWorks was originally created to help SMEs, which are often turned away by traditional financial institutions, get access to working capital. Since then, it has also developed a comprehensive platform of financial tools to help its customers, including e-commerce vendors and social commerce sellers, increase their sales. More here ->
Refyne, an Indian earned wage access platform, raised $82 million in Series B funding. The startup works with employers to enable their workers to access their earned salaries in real time. An employee with the partnered firm can log into Refyne and see how much they have earned in a week and withdraw a fraction of it anytime they wish, for instance. More here ->
Tencent has invested in Easy Transfer, a startup that aims to make tuition payments less stressful for hundreds of thousands of overseas Chinese students. More here ->
Fintech Farm, a newly launched fintech startup based in the U.K. that creates digital banks in emerging markets, confirmed today that it has raised $7.4 million in seed funding. The company said it plans to use the investment to launch neobanks in eight countries over the next 24 months. More here ->
Lipa Later, a Kenyan tech-led consumer credit platform, is planning to expand to new markets in Africa after raising $12 million in pre-Series A funding. The startup, a buy now, pay later (BNPL) company founded in 2018, is now planning to enter Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria, and expand in its existing markets, which are Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. More here ->
Proptech
Acorn Finance, a Sacramento-based marketplace for home improvement financing, raised $8.4 million in Series A funding. MassMutual Ventures led, and was joined by Moderne Ventures and insiders Vestigo Ventures, Accomplice and MetaProp. Acorns Finance is a loan marketplace platform that allows homeowners to view home improvement loan offers from multiple lenders. Additionally, the service markets itself to contractors as a way to help their customers obtain the funding they need. According to the company, the number of loan applicants increased by 800% in 2021, which also brought an 800% increase in revenue. More here ->
HomeVestors, a Dallas-based real estate investment franchisor best known for its āWe Buy Ugly Housesā marketing campaign ā has been purchased by Bayview Asset Management LLC, a global investment management firm. HomeVestors has bought more than 110,000 houses since 1996, recruiting, training and supporting over 1,150 independently owned and operated franchisees. The company acquired almost 10,000 houses in 2021. More here ->
Insuretechs
Accelerant, an Atlanta-based insurance risk exchange, raised $193 million at a $2.2 billion valuation. Accelerantās platform helps its members better understand risk, benefit from insights, and handle operational and regulatory complexity. More here ->
From the Stash
Why Banks Are Slow to Embrace Cloud Computing ā www.nytimes.com Cloud computing is slowly changing how Wall Street banks handle their business, but concerns with security remain.
How Can Traditional Banks Adapt or Evolve to Compete With Fintech? What Moat Do They Have? ā fintechnerdcollective.com Each month we ask some of the brightest (and most curious) minds in fintech one key question. They can answer however they see fit. The goal is to crowdsource some knowledge, have a little fun, andā¦
Embedded Fintech: Which Financial Services Should Be Embedded? (Part II) ā medium.com In the first part of this series, we outlined why we think non-fintech platforms should care about embedded fintech. We believe true embedded fintech refers to non-fintech companies leveragingā¦
Reports / Webinars
Our Fintech Predictions for 2022 - From 11:FS ā content.11fs.com Which fintech trends can we expect to really take off in 2022? Find out our predictions.
The State of Mobile - 2021 - App Annie ā drive.google.com
The latest annual report from App Annie is available, chock full of insights on the Finance category :)
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