Fintech Highlights - 1/10/2022
Pinned to the Top
U.S. prosecutors are in the process of seizing shares of Robinhood Markets Inc (HOOD.O) tied to Sam Bankman-Fried, who has been charged with fraud in the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, a U.S. attorney told a judge on Wednesday.
The Department of Justice did not believe the 56 million shares of Robinhood, worth about $465 million, were property of a bankruptcy estate, U.S. attorney Seth Shapiro told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey, who is overseeing the FTX bankruptcy.
Prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of engaging in a years-long "fraud of epic proportions" that cost investors, customers and lenders potentially billions of dollars by using customer deposits to support his Alameda Research hedge fund.
More here →
The BFD
Stripe was officially the most valuable fintech in the world in 2022, according to research from Utility Bidder. At $95bn, the company saw off second-placed Checkout.com by a cool $55bn.
What this is the BFD: You can choose to view the findings in a couple of ways. One - it’s great to see the fintech landscape in a healthy-looking space after a couple of years of turmoil. Two - it’s been some year for Stripe. Just two months ago, the FS giant laid off 14% of its 8000-strong workforce. Talk about mixed fortunes.
Looking forward: It’ll be really interesting to see what the picture looks like in another 12 months’ time. FTX, for instance, holds fourth spot. It would be, um, surprising if that were still the case come 2024.
M&A
GoLogiq (OTC: GOLQ) agreed to acquire New York-based digital wallet provider GammaRey for $320m in stock. More here →
Vista Equity Partners agreed to acquire Duck Creek Technologies (Nasdaq: DCT), a Boston-based provider of insurance industry SaaS, for $2.6b, or $19 per share (46% premium). More here →
While that’s happening, Duck Creek Technologies is planning to acquire Imburse, a Swiss-based modern payments platform. Imburse’s cloud-native software-as-a-service (SaaS) payment solution is built for the insurance industry. It enables insurance carriers to quickly connect to the entire payments ecosystem at a lower cost, seamlessly integrate with existing finance infrastructure and processes, and manage multiple partners for collections and disbursements, all in one place. More here →
This week's IPO market will be headlined by Skyward Specialty Insurance Group, a Houston-based specialty property and casualty insurer focused on underserved markets, which plans to raise around $128m. It would be the first company to raise over $100m in an U.S. IPO since last October (Mobileye). More here →
Embedded Insurance
Assurant has launched Assurant Product Experience Exchange, a new offering that enables Assurant clients across industries – mobile, retail, housing, and automotive – to customize and embed insurance and protection programs, support, and services into their omni-channel customer experiences. The APEX platform allows partners to choose an integration method from APIs, a customized website, or widget. Before integrating, clients can view the product API library as well as test and review data they provide through a self-service portal.More here →
Fintech
Grazzy, an Austin, TX based payments platform for hourly employees that allows digital tipping, instant tip-outs and other banking services, raised $6.8M of Seed funding. More here →
Trade Republic, a UK based popular stock trading app, adds 2% interest on cash. This feature reminds me of Robinhood’s brokerage cash sweep program. In the U.S., Robinhood users currently get 1.5% interest on cash sitting in their accounts. More here →
U.K. based data and payments fintech Moneyhub raised $17.7 million in a December venture round. Moneyhub is a data and payments fintech that provides open banking, open finance, and open data solutions. It provides financial management solutions to individuals, financial professionals and enterprises. More here →
Indian fintech Money View is now valued at $900 million after a new new funding round. The company has raised $75 million, its second round this year, despite the market slump. More here →
KreditBee, an Indian digital lender, raised $100m in new Series D funding (round total now $200m). The company offers instant micro loans starting as low as $12 to new-to-credit customers and credit of over $3,500 to salaried professionals. The company says its hope is to serve the 400 million new-to-credit customers in India. More here →
Crypto
Arkham, a Dallas-based platform that tracks the motion of crypto tokens on the blockchain, raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding. More here →
Insuretech
Liberate Innovations, a provider of insurance claims automation and client communications solutions, raised $7m in seed funding. The end-to-end platform provides insurers with a one-stop shop for building user-friendly front-end experiences for their end customers and seamlessly stitching together core systems and insurance solution vendors to automate complex business processes. More here →
In August, cyber insurance startup Coalition acquired Digital Affect Insurance Company, a property and casualty insurer licensed in all 50 states, from Munich Re Digital Partners US Holding Corporation. Recently, Coalition has begun filing new SMB cyber insurance programs with different states using the new carrier, which is now called Coalition Insurance Company. More here →
Lumotive, the maker of Light Control Metasurface beam steering chips “enabling the next generation of 3D sensors,” has closed a $13 million funding round led by Samsung Ventures, with participation from USAA and Uniquest, bringing its total funding to date to $56 million. More here →
Superscript, a London-based insure-tech focused on SMEs and high-growth tech companies, raised £54m in Series B funding. Founded out of London in 2015, Superscript constitutes two core insurance businesses: an online-only “self-serve” platform that’s available to U.K. customers including SMEs, sole traders and landlords, and an advised broking service called SuperscriptQ that’s available in the U.K. and across the European Economic Area (EEA). More here →
Proptech
Doorstead, an SF-based rental property management startup, raised $21.5m in Series B funding. The company offers “guaranteed” rental payments to homeowners, and more. More here →
From the Stash
Wyre, the crypto payments company once valued at $1.5b, is shutting down. This is the company that previously agreed to be acquired by one-stop checkout firm Bolt, before the deal was terminated, and which had raised around $55 million from firms like Samsung NEXT Ventures, Great Oaks VC, Ether Capital and the Stellar Development Foundation. More here →
Will Twitter, PayPal and Walmart compete to launch America’s super app? Twitter, PayPal and Walmart could find themselves competing to monetize the financial lives of millions of people. That raises several questions: Why is now the moment for super apps in the West? More here →
Top insurtech funding rounds, December 2022 -There were about 20 funding events in the insurtech sector between Dec. 1 and Dec. 31, 2022, according to a review by Digital Insurance. What follows is a selection of these, focusing on those in the P&C and life insurance sectors that are part of the venture-capital financing model. More here →
North American Startup Funding Tanked In Q4, Closing Out A Down Year - North American startup investment fell sharply in the fourth quarter, closing out 2022 with funding far below the prior year’s record-setting levels. In total, investors put $36.1 billion to work across all stages in Q4, per Crunchbase data. That’s a whopping 63% decline from a year ago (a remarkably bubbly time for startup funding) and a 10% drop from third-quarter 2022. More here →
Greenlight Reinvents Financial Education with Level Up — a Gamified Financial Literacy Curriculum for Kids and Teens - Family fintech pioneers new interactive financial literacy game to boost money confidence, knowledge, and skills. More here →
Cashless Denmark records a year without bank robberies - Denmark's transition away from cash has seen the country record its first ever year in which it experienced zero bank robberies. More here →
Reports / Webinars
Tech Talk - Plaid
From the federal government’s plans to launch an instant payment service to the fallout of Crypto, what’s next for fintech in 2023? Find out in Plaid’s upcoming virtual Tech Talk on Thursday, January 12 at 11am PT. Join Zach Perret, Co-Founder and CEO of Plaid, Ginger Baker, Head of Financial Access, John Pitts, Head of Policy, and Alain Meier, Head of Identity, as Zach shares his biggest fintech predictions for the year ahead.
Fintech Insider - The Biggest Stories in Financial Services in 2022
For the last Fintech Insider of 2022, 11FS put together a panel of experts to discuss the biggest stories in financial services in 2022, the impact of these stories, and what buzzwords the panel would ban going into 2023. Special guests: • Mary Ann Azevedo, Senior Editor - TechCrunch, Alex Johnson, Creator - Fintech Takes
See above or watch the report here →
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