Fintech Highlights - 6/6/2022

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Pinned to the Top

Two fintech giants are partnering up.

Affirm is making its buy now, pay later technology available to businesses that use Stripe’s payments tech. This means that a whole slew of companies that were not previously able to offer their customers the option to pay in installments, now can.

The deal is significant for Affirm because Stripe, which was valued at $95 billion last year, has “millions” of customers. It processes hundreds of billions of dollars each year for “every size of business — from startups to Fortune 500s.” And this gives Affirm an opportunity to generate more revenue as it makes money in part on interest fees.

For its part, Stripe is able to offer prospective, and current, customers more payment flexibility.

And the timing of this deal is kind of spooky - landing JUST before Apple’s BNPL announcement Monday afternoon.

Dig deeper here ->

The BFD

Fidelity Investments said it plans to hire another 12,000 people by September. The bulk of the new hires will be in client-facing and technology roles.

Why this is the BFD: the company is doubling down on a bet that the individual-investing frenzy that began during the pandemic will outlast the market’s recent volatility.

The big picture: The Boston financial firm expects to end the year with as many as 68,000 employees, up about 19% from the start of 2022, building on a hiring spree that began in late 2020. Fidelity hired 7,200 associates that year and another 16,600 in 2021.

Dig deeper here ->

M&A

Kensington Mortgage, a portfolio company of Blackstone and TPG, is in talks to sell its platform for specialized mortgage loans, to Barclays(, per Bloomberg. More here ->

Embedded Fintech

Railsbank has become Railsr - the world's leading embedded finance experiences platform. The company is doubling down on the API-as-a-Service concept they envisioned when open banking was legislated by UK regulators. More here ->

Fintechs

Toronto-based Wealthsimple has launched a new, rebranded app that combines the company’s various financial offerings under one roof. The move, which has been anticipated for some time, ensures Wealthsimple users will be able to access the startups’ core services, from stock and crypto trading to spending, through a single interface. More here ->

Keep Financial, started by Kabbage co-founders Kathryn Petralia and Rob Frohwein, has developed a way to offer forgivable loans to employees as a retention tool. By signing up with Keep, employers will be able to distribute a cash bonus to employees on a regular basis, so long as the employee agrees to stay at the company for a designated period of time.More here ->

Ivella, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based couples banking startup, raised $3.5m. With Ivella, couples maintain individual accounts and balances, but get an Ivella debit card that is linked to both of those accounts. More here ->

Edge, a payments API startup for companies labeled as high-risk (including so-called vice companies), raised $2.4m. According to the founders, "current offerings for businesses mislabeled as high-risk are overcharging for poor user experience and a frustrating lack of critical features.” And therefore are "building a payments platform that has transparent pricing, is simple to use, and has best-in-class support so companies can finally focus on running their business." More here ->

Constrafor, a New York-based construction procurement SaaS with embedded financing, raised $106m in equity and debt funding. As a SaaS construction procurement platform with embedded financing, it streamlines information and documentation for how general contractors work with subcontractors, while its Early Pay Program assumes the risk for the subcontractor invoice, freeing up cash flow and reliance on traditional and costly lending options. The general contractor then reimburses Constrafor for the invoice. More here ->

Sanlo, a startup that offers app and game developers access to financial tools and capital, has raised $10m. The company offers small to medium-sized game and app companies access to tools to manage their finances and capital to fuel their growth. More here ->

Hourly.io, a Palo Alto-based payroll and comp app for hourly workers, raised $27m. The company has built an app that tracks working hours, generates payroll and then calculates and assigns workers’ compensation insurance to individuals based on that. And today has over 1,000 customers. More here ->

Tandym, a Chicago-based private-label credit card company, raised $10m in equity funding. Tandym "enables ecommerce businesses to drive loyalty and increase revenue with their own digital store card.” More here ->

HitPay, a Singapore-based SME payments startup, raised $15.8m in Series A funding. In addition to being an online payment gateway, it also offers tools like point-of-sale software with card readers, plugins, payment links and no-code online stores. More here ->

South Africa’s Talk360, a telecommunications firm, has raise $4M - to build a "single payment platform" for Africa. The goal - to open up businesses to the largest pool of localized payment options in Africa. More here ->

Slice, an Indian digital credit card provider, raised $50m in Series C funding at more than a $1.5b valuation. Launched in 2019, Slice offers credit card features including rewards with various popular merchants and flexible payment options to over 12 million Indians. More here ->

Mondu, a Germany-based B2B BNPL startup, raised $43m in Series A funding. Mondu’s BNPL for B2B solutions for merchants and marketplaces offers the main payment B2B payment options and flexible payment terms. More here ->

Koban, a Bolivian fintech, raised $2.3m in seed funding. Koban is the first mobile bank for the Andean region. More here ->

Crypto

Januar, a Denmark-based financial infrastructure partner for crypto businesses, raised €6m. More here ->

Paper, a crypto-focused payments processor, raised $7.3m in seed funding. The company is working to make buying, using and holding NFTs easier for the everyday customer or fan trying to buy a digital collectible. More here ->

Casa, a Charleston, S.C.-based bitcoin storage startup, raised $21m. The company also announced a new API that will enable third-party firms to interact with Casa wallets while users maintain full control of their private keys. More here ->

Zora, an NFT marketplace, raised $50m at a $600m valuation. Founded by three Coinbase veterans in 2020, Zora launched as a service that offered musicians and other artists the means to sell digital tokens tied to physical artifacts like cassettes. Since then, the startup has pivoted to focus on building an open source protocol that allows anyone to stand up an NFT marketplace. More here ->

JupiterOne, a Morrisville, N.C.-based cyber asset attack surface management platform, raised $80m in Series C funding at a valuation north of $1b. The company enables businesses to "easily identify, map, analyze, and secure cyber assets and attack surface, and to gain full visibility into complex cloud environments to uncover threats, close compliance gaps, and prioritize risk. More here ->

Talos, a New York-based crypto trading infrastructure startup, raised $105m in Series B funding. Talos provides tooling for institutional crypto investors across pre-trade, execution and post-trade stages. More here ->

Liminal, a Singapore-based digital wallet startup, raised $4.7m in seed funding. Liminal claims to be the first wallet architecture to provide secure multiparty computation, or MPC, and multisignature wallets, which require two or more private keys to sign for and send a transaction, to secure digital assets across different blockchains. More here ->

Insuretechs

Acrisure, a Caledonia, Mich.-based insurance brokerage once owned by Genstar Capital, raised $725m in Series B-2 funding at a $23b valuation.  More here ->

Take Command, a Dallas-based health reimbursement administration software maker backed by VC firms like LiveOak Venture Partners and SJF Ventures, acquired certain IP assets from SF-based health insurance startup Savvy. More here ->

Spot, who offers on-the-spot insurance coverage and instant approval features for pets / pet owners - raised $25m. More here ->

From the Stash

As fintech valuations fall, even Stripe isn’t immune to a changing market — techcrunch.com Why didn't these mega-unicorns with valuations north of $10 billion just go public when the markets were screaming for their stock?

Paypal finally enables cryptocurrency withdrawals — www.axios.com In a long-awaited announcement, PayPal is now giving users the option to take full control of crypto that they buy on the app.

US consumer credit surges again as loans, card spending jump — www.bloomberg.com US consumer borrowing surged again in April, following a record jump a month earlier, fueled by rising prices and the continued strength of American consumers.

TD Bank uses tech modernization to improve agility — bankautomationnews.com

The $1.4 trillion TD Bank is rolling out a new initiative that will modernize its IT infrastructure by shifting more to the cloud. Next Evolution of Work, or “NEW,” is not merely a technology project — the bank is hoping to shift its operating model as well.

The top tech banks are eyeing for adoption — bankautomationnews.com

The technologies banks are eyeing for future investments are in flux. What’s on the horizon for banking? Here’s a look at the new tech that bank leaders are considering investing in, according to a recent report by Forrester Research.

Venture’s mixed signals — techcrunch.com Is this a market correction or a shift to the way things should be? Maybe a bit of both. Either way, fintech continues to be somewhat of an outlier -- for now.

Meta, Amazon, Tesla: big tech’s stock selloff is long overdue — www.bloomberg.com The market collapse isn’t just the inevitable result of macroeconomic forces like high interest rates and inflation. It’s also the best opportunity in more than a decade to reckon with the tech industry’s excess.

Reports / Webinars

Axios Pro Live: Fintech Deals — axiosprolivefintech.splashthat.com

Join Axios Pro for an exclusive conversation on the rapidly changing fintech industry with Zachary Perret, Co-Founder and CEO of Plaid.

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