Fintech Highlights - 10/18/2022

Pinned to the Top

Corporate spend management startup Brex announced that it was laying off 11% of its staff, or 136 people.

It was also revealed that the startup’s CFO, Adam Swiecicki, is departing to join Rippling as its CFO. Notably, workforce platform unicorn Rippling recently entered the corporate management space, making it a direct competitor with Brex.

Tthe layoffs appear to mostly be related to Brex’s move earlier this year to no longer work with SMBs and nonprofessionally funded startups. In other words, the company said it primarily let go of people who were focused on serving that group. Still, it must suck for those employees — especially considering those groups that it no longer works with were initially Brex’s bread and butter.

Bigger-picture-wise, the news of Brex’s layoffs show that even decacorns have not been immune to this downturn. The company earlier this year confirmed a $300 million Series D extension at a staggering $12.3 billion valuation. And while the company claims to be “in a strong financial position with many years of runway,” it adds that its shift away from SMBs to focus more on enterprise customers — and, by default, any related layoffs — will put the company “on a path to sustainable profitability over the next few years.”

The BFD

In the face of mounting losses, it’s looking like Goldman Sachs might be gearing up to pull the plug on Marcus, their take on the mass-market digital bank.

Why this is the BFD: With the GS consumer business set to lose $1.2bn this year, it makes sense. Sachs is about as Wall Street a bank as they come. They don’t have much skin in the retail game and were never about to pivot towards that market, especially when it’s nowhere near as profitable as what they’re used to.

The big picture: Not that Marcus hasn’t been a pretty good success, all things considered. Building new products is anything but easy but they’ve made a decent stab at it. Perhaps where they struggled is in failing to really gain a foothold in a branding sense in the same way that Chase, for example, has done so well.

What’s next? Is this the end of Marcus? The coming weeks and months will tell. All signs point towards a scaling back. Just how far that policy extends remains to be seen.

Breaking news - the Marcus brand will get pushed into GS's wealth business as part of a massive reorganization announced late last evening. (more here ->)

M&A

Reinsurance giant Munich Re has acquired apinity GmbH, a start-up that supplies application programming interface (API) solutions in the form of Software-as-a-Service for the insurance industry’s ecosystem. More here ->

Allianz X announced that is has acquired insurtech pioneer simplesurance. More here ->

Fintechs

OatFi secures capital to power BNPL services for SMBs — techcrunch.com

OatFi, a startup providing working capital infrastructure for B2B payments platforms, has raised $8 million in new equity and $50 million in debt for its platform.

Ntropy raises cash to normalize and classify transaction data — www.yahoo.com

Ntropy has raised $11 million in venture capital. It offers an API that enriches transaction data for financial services businesses. The company aims to cut down on the time and resources needed for fintech companies like to contextualize and normalize financial transactions.

Payable raises $6.1m to modernise business payments — www.finextra.com

Payable, a payments operations platform for businesses, has raised $6.1 million in a funding round. Payable has built a platform that lets firms connect their banks and automate payments from initiation to reconciliation with a single API and dashboard.

Corporate Card Startup Mercantile Raises $22 Million To Target An Unusual Niche: Professional Associations — www.forbes.com The startup has raised $22 million to date, with its most recent round led by Index Ventures.

With $67M in new capital, NorthOne is doubling down on SMBs as some fintech companies pull back — techcrunch.com

NorthOne, a New York-based SMB banking startup, provides digital banking and financial management services to SMBs. With a recent raise of $67m - it wants to add credit products to its offering.

Northstar Raises $24.4 Million to Make Financial Guidance a Universal Benefit — techcrunch.com Companies such as Zoom, Snap and NerdWallet have tapped fintech startup Northstar to provide one-on-one financial advice to their employees.

GoHenry raises $55m after its losses balloon 20-fold — sifted.eu After splashing cash on customer acquisition in the US and UK, the neobank says it’s now chasing profitability — but is still launching in new European markets.

Egyptian consumer money app Telda raises $20M from GFC, Sequoia Capital and Block — techcrunch.com

Telda gets fresh funding, after raising $25 million in the last 18 months.

FlapKap provides revenue-based financing to e-commerce brands in MENA, gets $3.6M seed funding — techcrunch.com FlapKap raises $3.6 million to consolidate its position as MENA's foremost and leading revenue-based financing player

Open finance startup Ayoconnect's APIs enable financial inclusion in Southeast Asia — techcrunch.com Ayoconnect is currently working toward more financial inclusion for Indonesian consumers and SMEs.

Crypto

Zerion wants to beef up wallet with $12.3 million fund raise and take on MetaMask — www.yahoo.com The company, which introduced its digital wallet earlier this year, plans to use the funds for payroll and marketing, along with improving the wallet's security features.

Crypto Lending Platform Moon Mortgage Raises $3.5M Seed Round — www.coindesk.com The platform will allow investors to use their crypto as collateral for financing real estate investments.

Pillow wants to make crypto saving and investing easy for new users — techcrunch.com Pillow, the Singapore-based startup, announced it has raised $18 million in Series A financing co-led by Accel and Quona Capital.

Charli D'Amelio-endorsed fintech Step borrows $300M to bring crypto to teens — techcrunch.com Digital banking service Step launches crypto investing for kids and teens, raises $300M in debt to grow product and team

Insuretechs

Vouch launches business coverage for life science startups — www.insurtechinsights.com Vouch Insurance , a commercial insurance business focused on tech companies, announced its expansion into the life science category wit..

Blockchain-powered reinsurer Re raises $14 million seed round — www.insurtechinsights.com Re, a blockchain-powered reinsurance company, has raised $14 million in seed-round funding to build a decentralised system for investors...

French insurtech startup Olino scores €2.2 million to bolster its embedded insurance product for European SMEs — www.insurtechinsights.com Paris-based insurtech company Riskee is changing its name to Olino and announcing the close of a €2.2 million funding round to accelerate...

Proptech

Fintor Raises $6.2M To Lead The Fractional Real Estate Movement For Gen Z And Millennials — www.forbes.com Up until recently, exorbitant home prices kept all but the wealthiest out of the residential real estate market. Fintor is a “first-of-its-kind mobile real estate investing platform that allows users to buy and sell fractional shares of real estate properties with as little as $5.”

Title Tech Provider Flueid Announces $15M Series B Raise — www.inman.com Series A investor Aquiline Technology Growth led the latest funding round following the closure of a new $365 million fund in May.

CrowdStreet Raises $43M to Help Investors Enter the Real Estate Market — www.builtinaustin.com After raising $43 million in funding, Crowdstreet is looking to create new ways for investors to learn about real estate and create new ways to invest.

From the Stash

Apple partners with Goldman Sachs to introduce high-yield savings accounts for Apple Card holders — techcrunch.com Apple announced it's partnering with Goldman Sachs to soon launch a new Savings account feature for its Apple Card credit cardholders.

Bank of America launches CashPro API update — bankautomationnews.com Bank of America has built and launched an expanded CashPro Payment API this week to give clients more options to process transactions in multiple countries at any time of day. “Through a single API implementation, the bank’s Cash Pro Payment API connects clients to over 350 payment types across 38 global markets,” Meg Garand, head

What's holding insurers back from embracing insurtech? — www.insurtechinsights.com Legacy systems are often blamed for the reason the insurance industry struggles to fully modernize. Many incumbent insurers have outdated...

Allstate and GEICO announce claims shake-up — www.insurtechinsights.com Allstate and GEICO – two of America’s largest auto insurance companies – have announced they have changed the way auto repair shops deal...

What a recession means for fintech — content.11fs.com Fintech was born out of a financial crash with huge investments, but what would another one mean?

Raul Vargas to succeed Jeff Dailey as president & CEO of Farmers — www.insurtechinsights.com Farmers announced that Raul Vargas has been appointed to the position of Farmers Group, Inc. president & CEO effective January 1, 2023...

Reports / Webinars

Insurtech Insights Europe | Europe's Largest Insurtech Conference — www.insurtechinsights.com Insurtech Insights is Europe's Largest Insurtech Conference, gathering over 2,500 executives, entrepreneurs, and investors from all over the world...

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