Fintech Highlights -5/3/2022

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Here’s what’s worth watching this week….. 👇

Pinned to the Top

Robinhood’s net revenue dropped 43% in the first quarter to $299 million as the brokerage app saw trading activity cool dramatically versus the previous year, when the meme-stock frenzy was at its peak.

The stock is down 45% year-to-date. The shares have fallen 73% since its July 2021 initial public offering, and 86% from its record of $70.39 set on August 8 last year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Also reflecting the company’s struggles, monthly Active Users (MAU) decreased 10% to 15.9 million for March 2022, compared with 17.7 million for March 2021 during which the company said it experienced high trading volumes and account sign-ups as well as high market volatility, particularly in certain sectors.

Robinhood leadership states: “….make no mistake, Robinhood is still playing offense and charging ahead. We are continuing to execute on our 2022 road map. And we’ve got several new products in flight that we believe will add value to customers while generating significant revenues,”

The BFD

Fidelity Investments, which provides retirement plans to 23,000 companies, will soon allow a portion of their contributions to be allocated in the world's most popular cryptocurrency.

Why it matters: Retirement plans are crucial pieces of U.S. workers' nest eggs, and excessive risk is sure to draw significant political attention.

• The U.S. Labor Department sounded the alarm on the issue in March— before Fidelity's announcement — in a statement aimed at "protecting the retirement savings of U.S. workers."

Yes, but: People want them.

• Fidelity said individuals increasingly want to mix cryptocurrencies into their long-term investment strategies. And in turn, plan sponsors want to offer them.

More here ->

Fintech Spotlight

Institutions grow their investments by billions by allocating more capital to alternatives.

But individuals have been precluded.

Until Gridline. The digital wealth platform allows you to invest in institutional quality funds with low minimums.

Learn more about Gridline here ->

Fintechs

Kard, a New York-based card API startup, raised $23M in Series A funding. Kard is a rewards platform that specifically services the entire spectrum of card issuers, including traditional banks, neobanks, banking-as-a-service providers, and the broader fintech market — anyone building a card experience. It enables users to build and offer a rewards program to their customers from scratch, which includes finding and integrating with retail partners, matching card transaction data to specific locations, negotiating ad rates, managing settlements, and more. More here ->

Fundguard, a New York-based investment management platform, raised $40m in Series B funding. FundGuard is a next-generation SaaS platform for investment management and administration that is powered by AI. FundGuard helps asset managers and fund administrators to manage mutual funds, ETFs, hedge funds, insurance products, and pension funds, supporting digital transformation, operations automation, AI-based insights, resiliency, and migration to the cloud. More here ->

JustiFi, a Minneapolis-based payment processing startup, raised $4M. JustiFi provides vertical SaaS platforms with a full suite of embedded fintech tools that can be deployed to their current customer base. Platforms that embrace fintech early can capture new revenue, create a better customer experience and dominate their vertical. More here ->

Streamlined, an Oakland, Calif.-based invoicing and payments startup foudned by ex-Chime engineers, raised $3m in seed funding. Streamlined’s mission is straightforward: to give businesses the ability to accept payments from their business customers “how they want and when they want,” whether it be via paper check, ACH or credit card. More here ->

Minka, a Colombia-based payments infrastructure startup, raised $24M. Minka is “a seamless payment network built from the ground up.” The network was designed to connect separate legacy systems through blockchain concepts and APIs “to simplify the movement of complex money flows.” More here ->

Taxfix, a Germany-based robo-tax service, raised $220M in Series D funding. The company’s concept is very simple, played out mostly simply for people who do not have complicated tax profiles with different assets or other money sources in the balance. Using the app to check out your tax situation is free, and to do so you simply take a snapshot of a payslip and fill out another few details and Taxfix does the rest of the work for you. To then file your taxes through that as an individual costs €39.99 or €59.99 as a couple. More here ->

Foodics, a Saudi payment platform for restaurants, raised $170M. The Saudi Arabia-licensed fintech firm operates a payments platform, serving a range of sites from dine-in restaurants and cafes, quick service restaurants, bakeries, food trucks through to cloud kitchens. More here ->

PayU, the fintech business controlled by Prosus with operations in 50+ countries — it’s been described as the PayPal of emerging markets — announced a double-deal today to expand its presence in Latin America. The company has acquired Ding, a mobile payments platform; and it has led a $46 million investment into Treinta, a financial “superapp” aimed at small businesses. Y Combinator alum Treinta, which launched only 18 months ago, has 4 million customers. More here ->

Open, an Indian neobank, raised a reported $50M at a $1B valuation. Open operates a neobank that offers small and medium-sized businesses as well as enterprises nearly all the features of the bank with additional tools to better serve the customers’ needs.  More here ->

Crypto

Lifestyle-focused neobank Cogni has made the pivot to web3. The mobile-based platform, founded in 2018 out of Barclays’ accelerator program (which is operated by Techstars), launched with the intent to offer personalized banking products suited to the lifestyles of those in the 18-to-35 crowd. More here ->

The Sandbox, a virtual asset trading and monetization startup backed by SoftBank, is seeking to raise $400M at a $4b valuation. The company allows users to trade and monetize virtual assets in the Ethereum blockchain. More here ->

Venly, a Belgian blockchain wallet startup, raised €21M in Series A funding. To increase its reach in the gaming industry, the Belgian startup will launch an accelerator track for game studios and web3 startups. More here ->

Insuretechs

Etap, a Nigerian auto insurance startup, raised $1.5M. The startup launched the beta version of its app in November last year, enabling people to buy insurance according to their needs; per trip, daily, monthly or yearly.  More here ->

Turtlemint, an Indian insurance comparison platform, raised $120M in Series E funding.  Turtlemint offers online training to insurance agents in smaller cities and towns, helping them sell coverage to consumers. More here ->

Proptech

Sumutasu, a Japan-based prop-tech startup, raised $8.2M in Series B funding. Sumutasu has adopted an iBuyer model — meaning it buys houses directly from homeowners, renovates them at scale, then resells them to buyers. More here ->

Radius, a San Francisco-based online real estate brokerage startup, raised $13M in Series A funding. More here ->

Autotech

🚙 Spotawheel, a Greece-based used-car marketplace, raised €100 million in equity and debt funding led. Spotawheel estimates that the Central and Eastern Europe used car market is worth €100 billion and claims it has attained leading market positions in Poland and Greece; and it is now launching Romania. The company claims it is on track to reach a €200 million revenue run rate by the end of the year. More here ->

From the Stash

Robinhood Announces Layoffs After Hypergrowth Period — news.crunchbase.com Stock trading platform Robinhood announced plans this week to cut about 9 percent of its workforce.

As Rents Rise, So Does Funding To Rental-Focused Startups — news.crunchbase.com From services to lower move-in costs to apartment comparison platforms to landlord-centered software tools, funding to companies focused on the rental space is going gangbusters. We take a look at where the money is going.

As Crypto Valuations Keep Increasing, So Do Environmental Concerns — news.crunchbase.com A couple of recent events highlighted one concern—energy consumption—that while unlikely to derail the industry, certainly has the potential to disrupt the digital currency sectors as ESG concerns become more prominent among investors and energy prices continue to spike.

Here’s why Brex just paid $90M for 10-person software startup Pry Financials — techcrunch.com Brex has bought financial planning software startup Pry Financials for $90 million to beef up its software offering for early-stage startups.

Fintech Roundup: Founders reinventing, startups buying and round sizes growing — techcrunch.com TechCrunch's weekly Fintech Roundup: Founders reinventing, startups buying and round sizes growing

Reports / Webinars

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