Fintech Highlights - 12/7/2021
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Here’s what’s worth watching this week….. 👇
Pinned to the Top
Square is becoming Block.
The financial services company announced Wednesday (two days after Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter) that it is changing its name and rebranding in an effort to distinguish the company from its top financial service product.
The company said there would be no organizational changes and its different business units - Square, peer-to-peer payment service Cash App, music streaming service Tidal and its bitcoin-focused financial services segment TBD54566975 - will continue to maintain their respective brands.
This shift, plus the 100% focused Dorsey, will allow the company to push hard on emerging payment and currency projects while allowing the core businesses to hold strong and not face enhanced regulatory scrutiny related to those side efforts.
The BFD
Hometap, a Boston-based startup that helps homeowners take out cash without assuming new debt, raised $60 million.
American Family Ventures led, and was joined by Bain Capital, Iconiq Capital, G20 Ventures, Pillar and General Catalyst.
Why it's the BFD: It's a model that is ripe for innovation. As its name implies, Hometap offers homeowners a way to “tap” into their home equity by taking on an investor in their property. That investor is essentially providing cash in exchange for a share of their home’s future value. When the home sells or the homeowner “settles” the investment, Boston-based Hometap is paid an agreed-upon percentage of the sale price or current appraised value.
Today - this is only doable through-bank-related loans or refinance options which can be difficult for those who are self-employed or who may be considered risky.
The bottom line: big innovation comes with big risk. But again this is a lending option that is ripe for change, and offering homeowners a different solution in this current market opportunity - could launch a next big fintech unicorn. Stay tuned.
Fintechs
Swan, a banking-as-a-service platform for other products and services, has raised an $18.7 million Series A funding round. 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 ->
Lessen, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based property services platform, raised $170 million in Series B funding. Lessen offers a very convenient service for anyone involved in property management. It offers what it says is an “end-to-end solution for property services” that includes connecting property managers to various carefully vetted service professionals that can help them to maintain and clean their buildings. More here ->
LoanBeam, an Addison-based income calculation and verification technology for the mortgage industry, was acquired by LoanLogics, via its financial sponsor Sun Capital Partners, for an undisclosed amount. More here ->
Fundbox, an S.F.-based small business lender, raised $100 million in Series D funding. The company aims to solve SMBs’ working capital needs through its credit and payments offerings. It is particularly focused on B2B-focused small businesses. And offers direct connections to these companies accounting solutions to help underwrite and decision quickly. More here ->
Anchor, a New York-based B2B autonomous billing startup, raised $15 million in seed funding. Launched this year, the startup is keen on solving the problems in billing, collection and payment by automating invoicing and remittance tasks — saving businesses the precious time spent prompting clients to settle payments. More here ->
Massive, a fully remote startup that provides a new way for users to pay for digital apps and services, has raised $11M in seed funding. The company offers a friendlier, better-performing alternative to ads, which cost users valuable personal attention and data yet generate low per-user revenues, and to paywalls, which are often unaffordable and lead to low conversion rates. More here ->
Solutions By Text, a Dallas-based text messaging platform for consumer financial services institutions, raised $35M of venture funding. The company’s technology is used by more than 1,400 consumer finance companies – ranging from auto finance and lending to banking – who use SBT’s compliant texting solutions to support origination, servicing, and collection operations. More here ->
Nearside, an online bank for SMBs, raised $58 million in Series B funding. Formerly called Hatch, Nearside offers business checking accounts with no monthly, overdraft or ATM fees, as well as a universal 1% cashback reward program that it says is a first in the SMB online banking space. It also recently launched Premium Cashback Rewards, which offer up to 5% cashback at merchants like Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, Squarespace and Zero. More here ->
Stride Funding, a Boston-based student finance startup, raised $12 million in Series A funding. More here ->
YouTrip, a Singaporean challenger bank, raised $30 million in Series A funding. YouTrip is an online bank that focuses on making multi-currency transactions less costly and more efficient. More here ->
PeopleFund, a South Korean P2P lending platform, raised $63.4 million in Series C funding. PeopleFund wants to address the structural problem involving the risk of high interest-rate loans in the near-prime loan sector and offer more personalized financial products to subprime and near-prime borrowers with its data-driven technology platform. More here ->
Simpl, an Indian BNPL startup, raised $40 million in Series B funding. Buy now, pay later services have existed in India for several years but have started to gain fast traction only in recent quarters as e-commerce and digital payments increase their reach in the country. More here ->
Bunq, an Amsterdam-based challenger bank, raised €193 million in Series A funding. They have also secured the purchase of privately held Irish lender Capitalflow, and are expected to complete more mergers or acquisitions in the near future. More here ->
Kueski, a Mexico City-based BNPL startup, raised $102 million in equity funding. StepStone Group led, and was joined by One Prime Capital, Glisco, Altos Ventures, Cathay Innovation, Richmond Global Ventures, Rise Capital, Tuesday Capital, Angel Ventures and Cometa. The company also secured $100 million in debt financing led by Victory Park Capital. http://axios.link/7vil
Insuretechs
ThreeFlow, a Chicago-based provider of software to insurance brokers selling employee benefits products, raised $45 million in Series B funding. ThreeFlow’s product falls within a new category of software that it calls a “benefits placement system” for insurance brokerages. Brokerages aggregate plans from insurance carriers and sell them to companies. In the past year, ThreeFlow facilitated over $600 million in transactions — double that of the year prior. More here ->
Azos, a Brazilian life insurance startup, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Founded in 2020 and led by CEO Rafael Cló, Azos is offering consumers coverage and benefit options that fit their individual needs. Additionally, the company offers policies with digital contracting in less than one business day. More here ->
From the Stash
American Express Taps Opy for Its First Us Third-party BNPL Offering — techcrunch.com Credit card companies are seeking to push further into the “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) market. American Express (Amex) announced today that it plans to partner with Opy, the U.S. subsidiary of Australian fintech Openpay, to allow all of its U.S. cardmembers to pay in installments for qualifying purchases in the healthcare and automotive segments. […]
FCA Boosts Open Banking by Removing 3-month Re-authentication Requirement — www.finextra.com Fintech firms will no longer need to re-authenticate customers every ninety days for continued access to bank account data, but they will need to prove customer consent, under modifications to Open Banking rules spelled out by the Financial Conduct Authority.
The Bank of the Metaverse? — www.producthunt.com
With MetaPass, Zelf is launching into Discord and “positioning itself as the first bank of the metaverse.” We told you to keep an eye out for a lot more products working on infrastructure to power the metaverse — Zelf is one to watch in this space.
Q2 Appoints New Chief Banking Officer — ibsintelligence.com Q2 Holdings, a leading provider of digital transformation solutions for banking and lending, announced the appointment of Kirk Coleman......
USAA Announces 2022 Multi-City Pitch Contest for Veteran Entreprenuers — www.inforney.com
USAA announced the launch of the "From Service to Start-Up" pitch contest to showcase, celebrate and support the next generation of military-connected entrepreneurs with a focus on veterans and military spouses.
Republic Acquires the UK’s Seedrs in $100m Deal to Push Into Europe — axios.link
UK equity crowdfunding business Seedrs – who's merger with rival Crowdcube was earlier blocked by competition regulators – has been acquired by start-up investing platform Republic in a $100m deal.
TD Bank Touts Digital Progress, Posts 20% Growth in 2021 — bankautomationnews.com
Noting its digital banking advancements, TD Bank Group reported net income 26% lower year over year for the fourth quarter, but up 20% overall for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31.
Reports / Webinars
The Leadership In Insurance Podcast with Richard King We had a great conversation this week where Richard and our host Alex Bond discussed all things from bringing connected data to a wider market and the fine line between being an insurtech and tech-enabled insurer to embracing new talent into the industry and reaching the finals in the Great British Wellbeing Awards!
Button’s PostTap SMS drove a 4.6x increase in App Downloads for Overstock’s Customer Day PostTap App technology efficiently routes users into the app. Customers become engaged with Overstock, generating higher revenue over a longer time.
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