Fintech Highlights - 2/8/2022
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Pinned to the Top
Apple are innovating. Again.
The tech giant is playing Square and Venmo at their own game and turning the iPhone into a payment terminal.
It could change the POS game completely. At the moment, Square charge merchants $49 for a contactless card reader. Apple will scrap the extra hardware and open themselves up to Android customers in the process. Plus, the feature will form part of a regular software update in the near-distant future. They’re really making it easy for us, huh.
It’s gonna be interesting. Apple aren’t a merchant business, but a lot of what they touch turns to gold all the same. And turning millions of iPhones into cash registers is a pretty mouth-watering prospect.
Checkmate?
The BFD
San Antonio-based FloatMe announced Monday it has closed $16.2M in Series A funding to help fuel the fast-growing fintech startup's expansion.
Led by Foundry Group, the funding round had participation from ManchesterStory, San Antonio-based Active Capital, Samsung Ventures, and notable fintech leaders including Michal Cieplinski from Pipe, Jordan Wright from Atomic, and John Henry from Loop.
What do they do? FloatMe gives employed customers an advance on their paycheck quickly, easily, and at much lower interest rates than typically found at payday lenders. The app’s balance monitoring service and educational features also help clients save money for emergencies.
Why is this the BFD? Easy - San Antonio's tech sector has had many solid companies come out of the city in the past. But there hasn't been a fintech focused company rise up from this city - and these guys have something here.
Kudo's to Josh, Ryan and the team - well done. Keep chargin'
Fintechs
Ramp, the New York-based corporate card and spend management platform, raised $200m at an $8b valuation. More here ->
KOHO, a Toronto-based personal savings and prepaid card startup, raised C$210m in Series D funding. The fintech company offers an app-focused no-fee savings account and pre-paid Visa card, as well as options for customers to receive some work pay ahead of schedule and a feature to build their credit score. More here ->
Mos, a challenger bank focused on student loans, raised $40m in Series B funding at a $400m valuation. Mos’ initial debit card has a few key features, including zero overdraft fees, late fees, or in-network ATM fees. There’s also no minimum balance required in order to open a Mos account. More here ->
OpenGamma, a London-based financial software-as-a-service firm, raised $21m led by Allianz X. The firm works with asset managers and hedge funds to increase investment efficiency. The company says it has earmarked the funding to pump into solving the hangover issues of outdated tech in investment portfolios. More here ->
Bold, a Colombian digital payments startup, raised $55m in Series B funding. Founded in the second quarter of 2019, Bogota-based Bold is a payment services provider, or independent merchant acquirer, focused on serving micro and SMB merchants. The company’s self-proclaimed mission is to promote financial inclusion by expanding the digital payments ecosystem in Colombia. More here ->
PalmPay, an Africa-focused payments company, raised $100m in Series A funding. PalmPay offers different financial services to individual consumers and merchants. It provides merchants, via its PalmPartner app, with online payment and offline POS-acquiring services and plans to introduce digital marketing services soon. There’s a gamut of services for consumers that include no-fee payment options, low-cost transfers, bill payments, rewards programs and discounted airtime. More here ->
Jar, an Indian savings and investment app, raised $32m in Series A funding. Jar, which raised $4.5 million from a range of investors including Tribe Capital and Arkam Ventures last year, operates an eponymous app that makes it very simple for users to start investing. The app fetches a tiny amount each time a user makes a transaction. It rounds up an individual’s daily spendings and puts some money aside as investment. Users’ investments in digital gold is backed by physical gold of the same amount and they can choose to withdraw that much gold or liquidate their investments at any time, said Misbah Ashraf, co-founder and chief product officer of Jar, in an interview. More here ->
Crypto
Tribal, B2B payments and financing startup focused on emerging markets, raised $60m in Series B funding. Crypto-facilitated cross-border payments services are gaining traction in Latin America — a region that has become a hotbed for the cryptocurrency industry. More here ->
Nestcoin, an African web3 app builder, raised $6.5m in seed funding. Nestcoin is a tech startup that creates and operates web 3 applications. The company also invests in other companies that do the same in a bid to facilitate the growth of crypto and web 3 on the African continent. More here ->
Dune Analytics, a Norwegian crypto analytics company, raised $69.4m in Series B funding at a $1b valuation. What if companies didn't report earnings quarterly—but in real time? That's the future Dune Analytics founder Fredrik Haga is imagining — a strange new world of radical transparency for companies. More here ->
Insuretechs
Casava, a Nigerian digital insurance startup, raised $4M. The digital insurance platform currently provides cover for health and job loss. Unlike the former, insurance around job loss is relatively uncommon in Nigeria. There’s undeniably a market for it: 20% of workers in Nigeria lost their jobs because of the pandemic; however, the country’s staggering unemployment rate places so much risk on the insurer. More here ->
Proptech
Homeward, a cash-based home financing platform, announced four executive hirings: Jamie Sampson joins as chief revenue officer, Chelsea Woodhead as chief people officer, Megan Tedfordas senior vice president of financial products, and Chike Farrell as senior vice president of marketing. These new leaders come to Homeward at a time of major growth. In 2021, Homeward saw four and a half times year-over-year growth in the number of homes sold, secured growth capital of $371M, and hired more than 250 new employees.
Billd, a construction financing company, announced the hiring of Devon Choo as the company’s COO. Billd has raised $90M to date from investors including LL Funds and Ulysses Management, while Choo was recently COO of With Clarity. More here ->
Not a funding announcement - but Flock Homes showed up on our radar recently. Flock’s mission is to help homeowners eliminate the hassle, reduce the risk, and lower the cost of ownership. Leveraging what’s called a UPREIT structure, Flock allows SFR owners to put their home(s) into the “Flock” via a 721 exchange. By doing so, the owners receive interest/shares in the Flock, which they’ll be able to sell for partial or full liquidity. Even better, Flock takes on the responsibility of property management, helps owners diversify their risk away from just their own home, and provides owners with an easy way to do a 721 exchange which enables them to avoid a tax hit. 721 exchanges aren’t new, but they have never been as simple and streamlined as they are with Flock’s technology.
From the Stash
Embedded Fintech Versus Embedded Finance: Jumpstarting New Product Innovation In Banks — www.forbes.com Banks can create new revenue streams from new products and services created by fintech startups—a strategy called embedded fintech.
Life Stage Products, Not Life Stage Marketing Fintech is forcing banks to put down their marketing budgets and build more tailored products. This is a win for everyone.
Reimagining Mortgage Servicing — newsletter.fintechtakes.com It's not technically broke, but we badly need to fix it.
The Case for Default Insurance — a16z.com It’s time to transition from a disjointed, time-consuming process to a one-click, “check box for insurance” experience at the time of purchase. Here's how.
Startups Names Stay Strange As Bad Spelling Proliferates — news.crunchbase.com Creatively misspelled words, long popular for startup names, continue to rank among the top choices for nascent companies. Other top naming trends include short brands, “ly” suffixes, puns and human first names, according Crunchbase’s latest deep-dive into startup brands.
Reports / Webinars
The Leadership In Insurance Podcast with David Fontain — preview.mailerlite.com In this week's episode of The Leadership In Insurance Podcast we are lucky enough to be joined by David Fontain, CEO and Founder of Foresight, the insurtech start up on a mission to improve safety and lower rates by providing smarter workers compensation insurance.
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