Fintech Highlights - 5/7/2024
Robinhood recieves SEC "Wells Notice." Ansa, a "wallet-as-a-service" business has raised another $14 million. And more….
Here's what we've been watching this week 👇
Pinned to the Top
Robinhood said that it has received a warning from the Securities and Exchange Commission stating that the agency has made a “preliminary determination” to file an enforcement action alleging its crypto unit violated securities law.
The retail brokerage app said it received the so-called Wells Notice from the SEC on May 4, according to a filing. The potential action may involve a civil injunctive action, public administrative proceeding or a cease-and-desist proceeding, the filing said.
Robinhood has previously disclosed that the SEC sent investigative subpoenas regarding its crypto listings, custody and platform operations. Other crypto firms, including Uniswap and Paxos, have said they received Wells Notices from the SEC.
M&A
Rasan, an online insurer focused on Saudi Arabia, hired Morgan Stanley and Saudi Fransi Capital to lead a Riyadh IPO. Backers include Impact46. More here ->
KKR agreed to buy the corporate trust and wealth management unit of Perpetual (ASX: PPT), plus its brand name, for over A$1.5b, per Australian Financial Review. More here ->
MAI Capital Management acquired Colorado-based Harbor Wealth Management. More here ->
MedRisk, a portfolio company of CVC Capital Partners, acquired the casualty claims solutions unit of Conduent (Nasdaq: CNDT). More here ->
Fintech
Infinity Fincorp Solutions, an Indian provider of loans for micro to mid-size businesses, raised $8m from Archerman Capital. More here ->
Ansa, a "wallet-as-a-service" business, has raised another $14 million. Ansa's platform enables companies to develop branded virtual wallets that can be launched within weeks rather than months. More here ->
Swypex, an Egyptian corporate cards platform, raised $4m. More here ->
Tuza, a London-based business card payments comparison site, raised £4m in seed funding from Connect Ventures, Northzone, Entrepreneur First, and Triple Point. More here ->
Crypto
Volta, a Las Vegas non-custodial crypto platform, raised $4.1m in seed funding. Fika Ventures and Haven Ventures co-led, and were joined by Soma Capital, Dispersion Capital, and Uphonest Capital. More here ->
Insuretech
Honeycomb, a Chicago-based digital insurer, raised $36m in Series B funding. Zeev Ventures led, and was joined by Arkin Holdings, Launchbay Capital and insiders Ibex Investors, Phoenix Insurance and IT-Farm. More here ->
Proptech
Flipping houses is not for the faint of heart, no matter how fun or easy HGTV might make it seem. One startup wants to make the process less complicated by offering a different way to borrow money to fund such a purchase. Backflip offers a service to real estate investors for securing short-term loans. Beyond helping users secure financing, Backflip’s tech also helps investors source, track, comp and evaluate potential investments. Think of it as a cross between Zillow and Shopify. And it just raised $15 million. More here ->
From the Stash
FIS launches embedded finance platform - Tech provider FIS debuted its embedded finance platform, Atelio, in its Investor Day presentation today as its tech leaders discussed growth strategies. Atelio allows software companies, enterprises, banks, fintechs and developers to embed financial capabilities into their platforms via API and software development tools. More here ->
CFPB fines Chime $3.25M - Chime Financial was fined $3.25 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today as the digital bank has failed to give timely consumer refunds. According to Chime’s refund policy, the company is required to issue consumer refunds within 14 days. The CFPB found that Chime has not adhered to this policy. More here ->
Grasshopper Bank begins rollout of SBA lending strategy - Small businesses demand efficient access to capital and Grasshopper Bank is meeting the needs of its small business clients through its latest digital lending solutions. The New York-based digital bank launched its digital Small Business Administration (SBA) loan application on April 18 to allow small business clients to start a loan application on their own. More here ->
Block shares CashApp, Afterpay integration update - Block’s Cash App profit and number of users grew in the first quarter as the payments provider integrated buy now, pay later provider Afterpay. Block, formerly Square, acquired Afterpay in August 2021 for $29 billion but it has had issues integrating the solution with its Cash App Card debit card, Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said. More here ->
Payments, cloud services contribute to Apple’s $23B services revenue - Tech giant Apple reported record revenue from its services businesses, which include payments and iCloud, and is going knee-deep in its generative AI foray. “We set an all-time revenue record in services with $23.9 billion, up 14% year over year,” Chief Executive Tim Cook said during the company’s second- earnings call. More here ->
Digital banking startup Mercury is layering software onto its bank accounts, giving its business customers the ability to pay bills, invoice customers and reimburse employees - The additional features put the company in even more direct competition with the likes of Brex and Ramp, two rival fintechs that have for years been fighting for market share in an increasingly crowded space. Mercury says that it has over 200,000 customers sending $4 billion in outgoing payments every month via its platform and that this move is a natural one for the seven-year-old company. More here ->
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