Fintech Highlights - 10/5/2021

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Pinned to the Top

Betterment, announced this past week that it has raised $60 million in Series F funding at nearly a $1.3 billion valuation.

Founded in 2010, Betterment has been slowly growing, and rolling our some stellar features and products.

They now manage $32 billion in assets for its nearly 700,000 clients. And In addition to offering automated 401(k) and IRA options, the company also provides socially responsible investment options, retirement planning services, a checking account, and a high-yield savings account.

In March, the company acquired the investment advisory business of WealthSimple, partnered with Zenefits to offer 401(k) plans on the Zenefits platform, rolled out a checking account for shared finances, unveiled a co-pilot tool for advisors, and launched pre-packaged tech stack for RIAs.

The BFD

AngelList this week launched AngelList Stack, a new suite of products that will compete with Carta in providing services to help founders start, operate and maintain ownership over their companies.

What is Stack? The new software will cover four bases: end-to-end incorporation, business banking, advisor equity grants and cap table management.

And it makes sense. Starting a company is hard. Having an market changing idea is tough enough let alone having to fulfill the mundane and very intricate requirements to start it up. Very few first time founders understand all the paper and structural requirements, especially if they are intending to raise capital.

Why it's the BFD? Many of you are product leaders. Making big decisions on what to build and release to your customers. This is a GREAT case study in understanding customers and users, and how to enable them to meet their goals.

More here ->

Fintechs

Alloy, a New York-based identity operating system for the financial sector, raised $100 million. Alloy has evolved that platform to not only automate onboarding identity decisions but to also automate transaction monitoring and soon, credit underwriting. Also over the past 12 months, the company has seen its annual recurring revenue (ARR) triple and number of customers double. More here ->

Swan, an embedded banking services startup, raised $18.7 million. The company provides a banking-as-a-service platform for other products and services. Swan partners with SaaS companies, marketplaces and even other fintech startups so they can offer white-labeled banking features. For instance, you can leverage Swan’s API to generate accounts and cards using API calls. More here ->

Rize, a fintech-as-a-service company that provides services to other firms, announced an $11.4 million funding round. Rize has built something that it calls “synthetic accounts.” For those of us who last heard the word “synthetic” in a financial context attached to the phrase “CDO,” this may sound concerning. It’s not. Instead, synthetic accounts allow Rize to provide customers of its banking services a way to create a unified account for end users not tied to a single custodial account type. In practice, synthetic accounts allow Rize to offer end users (the customers of its customers) the ability to combine different custodial accounts (checking, brokerage) into a single experience. More here ->

Highnote, an SF-based virtual payment card enablement startup, raised $54 million. Highnote is launching with ambitions to make waves in the world of card issuing, by making it easy for any company of any size to provide virtual payment cards to their customers. Founded by PayPal alums, the company is exiting stealth mode. More here ->

Higo, a Mexico City-based B2B payments platform for SMBs, raised $23 million. “Higo is the first B2B payments platform that automatically populates all invoices from a customer’s vendors — and provides a single ledger where users can approve, pay and finance these invoices without ever leaving our platform." More here ->

Ketch, an SF-based online privacy regulation and data compliance startup, raised $23 million. In 2020, Ketch introduced its data control platform for programmatic privacy, governance and security. The platform automates data control and consent management so that consumers’ privacy preferences are honored and implemented. More here ->

Mynd, a company that aims to make it easier for people to buy and manage single-family rental properties, announced today it has raised $57.3 million in funding. Doug Brien and Colin Wiel started Mynd with the goal of making real estate investing more accessible. The pair has built a platform for investors to find, finance, purchase and manage single-family rental properties — 100% remotely. More here ->

QisstPay, a Pakistani BNPL startup, raised $15 million in seed funding. The company that serves retailers including the local units of Samsung Electronics Co. and Xiaomi Corp. plans to have 1,000 merchants by next month and a million customers by next year using its service. More here ->

TomoCredit, a San Francisco-based credit card for first-time borrowers, raised $10 million. The fintech offers a credit card aimed at helping first-time borrowers build credit history, based on their cash flow, rather than on their FICO or credit report ratings. More here ->

Coinrule, a British automated crypto trading platform, raised $2.2 million in seed funding from backers like Fitbit founder James Park and Twitch founder Kevin Lin.  More here ->

SourceScrub, an SF-based private company intelligence platform for the financial services industry, raised a new round of funding. SourceScrub’s platform leverages private company data channels, including conference lists, buyer guides, fundraise news, industry classifications, best-of lists, and job postings to build its powerful data asset, which is invaluable to customers for sourcing, qualifying, and tracking private companies. More here ->

Capital Float, an Amazon-backed startup that offers its buy now, pay later service on many popular online platforms in India including that of the e-commerce firm, said on Tuesday it has raised $50 million in a new investment following a strong growth in recent quarters. More here ->

Nomad Homes, a Dubai-based home buying platform, raised $20 million. Not every country has a Multiple Listing Service to aid in buying and selling a home. This often makes the process complicated as buyers weed through fake and duplicate listings and little pricing data, unlike in the United States. Nomad Homes is working to change that. More here ->

Benepass, a New York-based employees benefits platform, raised $12 million.  Benepass is an employee benefits management platform and card that can manage all benefits, meeting the needs of both employers and employees. The platform allows employers to easily integrate all their pre-tax benefits given to employees along with perks into a unified mobile app and card that gives employees the flexibility to easily access and utilize their benefits.  More here ->

Stake, a New York-based provider of flexible payment and loyalty plans for renters, raised $4 million in seed funding. More here ->

Prometheus Alternative Investments, an LA-based social network for investment pros, raised $5 million in seed funding. More here ->

Insuretechs

Insurify, a ‘virtual insurance agent,’ raises $100M. Insurify has built a machine learning-based virtual insurance agent that integrates with more than 100 carriers to digitize — and personalize — the insurance shopping experience. There are others in the insurtech space, but none that we know of currently tackling home, auto and life insurance. More here ->

Hedvig, a Swedish neo-insurer, raised $45 million in Series B funding.  Hedvig provides property, travel, contents and accident insurance geared to the lifestyles of younger adults — it also has a “clumsiness” policy, and a portion of profits is donated to charity. More here ->

Sureify, a San Jose, Calif.-based life insurance and annuity platform, raised $15 million. Sureify provides a platform helping carriers acquire, service and engage their customers. The company enables omnichannel sales with LifetimeACQUIRE, a product that drives placement rates via quoting, e-application, automated underwriting and new business transmission. With LifetimeSERVICE, insurers are offering their in-force customers comprehensive self-service portals and native applications. Lastly, LifetimeENGAGE fosters a lifelong relationship between carriers and their policyholders with multifaceted engagement programs and analytics. More here ->

Buckle, a Jersey City, N.J.-based provider of insurance and credit products to gig workers, raised $60 million. Buckle is a digital financial services company serving the middle class and providers to the gig economy. Using a portfolio of technologies and data sources, the company provides insurance and credit products to those who earn less than the average American wage and are subsequently penalized for having poor or no credit. More here ->

Insurify, an insurance startup, has announced a strategic partnership with Nationwide. Through the platform built by Insurify, customers will have access to a tailored car insurance purchase experience, allowing them to compare car insurance quotes, coverage, and policies from Nationwide and other insurance companies at the same place. More here ->

Ladder, a Palo Alto-based life insurance startup, raised $100 million in Series D funding co-led by Thomvest Ventures and OMERS Growth Equity. www.ladderlife.com

From the Stash

Japan e-commerce giant Rakuten to list online bank — www.reuters.com Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten Group Inc said on Thursday it is preparing to list its online banking unit, raising funds as it soaks up losses incurred from building its low-cost mobile communications network.

USAA's Telematics App SafePilot™ Launches in Majority of States — www.prnewswire.com

Following increased member demand for more personalized auto insurance, USAA is announcing its telematics app SafePilot has launched in the...

Events

FTT Embedded Finance - North America — www.fintechtalents.com FTT Embedded Finance North America is a virtual event exploring the future of financial services & building an exciting new community.

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