Fintech Highlights - 7/25/2023

Chime names a new Product officer. Worldcoin soars on Day 1. Tractable raises a round. Here's what we've been watching this week….👇

Pinned to the Top

Chime named Madhu Muthukumar as the company’s first chief product officer. Muthukumar joins Chime from Notion, where he was also the chief product officer. He had previously worked as a product executive and manager at Robinhood and Twitter.

Throughout its 11-year history, Chime has become known for its consumer-friendly banking products, such as no-fee checking accounts and early paycheck access.

Now, the online banking firm is trying to expand its revenue base beyond fees earned on debit card purchases. The company has been slowly rolling out a lending business.

The BFD

Worldcoin, the eye-scanning blockchain project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, launched its cryptocurrency on Monday.

As of midday, the tokens jumped 30% to $2.20 and had amassed a market cap of roughly $230 million. The company also said it would make 1,500 of its eye-scanning orbs available in 35 cities.

Why this is the BFD: The project has raised significant privacy concerns. Worldcoin uses its orbs to scan the iris of people’s eyeballs and then gives them a blockchain-based credential they are meant to use to prove their identity. The credential is also meant to help separate between online content that is generated by humans and content that is generated by artificial intelligence. Only people who participated in Worldcoin’s beta credentialing program are receiving Worldcoin tokens in the initial mint, though the token is not available to people in the U.S.

Will this sustain? The team behind Worldcoin last raised $115 million in May in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The group has raised $505 million in total and also counts Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital, and Khosla Ventures among its backers, according to PitchBook. Well backed. High profile co-founder.  We'll see.

M&A

Black Knight (NYSE: BKI), a Jacksonville, Fla.-based U.S. mortgage data vendor, agreed to sell its Optimal Blue business to Constellation Software for $700 million, contingent on its sale to Intercontinental Exchange closing.  More here ->

Digital Currency Group is nearing a deal to sell CoinDesk, its crypto-focused media unit, to an investor group led by Matthew Roszak's crypto-focused investment firm Tally Capital and Peter Vessenes of VC firm Capital6.  More here ->

Utah-based multifamily operating system provider Entrata announced on Thursday that it will acquire resident rent reporting and financial resources provider Rent Dynamics. More here ->

Frontline-focused HR tech company When I Work is purchasing fintech Lean Financial. Founded in 2010, When I Work was focused on building workforce management tools for shift workers, and their small business employers. But over the past 13 years, it has grown significantly, and it now serves 200,000 employers globally, both big and small – examples include MedTronic, Dunkin’ Donuts, SoundCloud, Ben & Jerrys and Wendy’s. More here ->

Fintech

Runway, a San Francisco startup financial planning tools maker, raised $27.5m in Series A funding led by Initialized Capital, with Elad Gil and Jason Tan also participating. Runway aims to replace spreadsheets with “intuitive” financial modeling, planning and reporting workflows. “Runway is the first strategic management platform for modern, high-growth technology companies,” More here ->

Cognaize, a New York-based fintech data processing startup, raised $18m in new funding. The company aims to build a better LLM for the finance sector, one that keeps humans in the loop. More here ->

Collectly, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based patient financial engagement software company, raised $29m in Series A funding. The company's platform enables customers to "accelerate cash flow, improve patient financial experience, and streamline patient billing with all-in-one platform that works with any EHR/PM." More here ->

Karat, a Los Angeles-based maker of fintech tools for content creators, raised $40m in Series B funding. Karat proved its concept with 50% growth from month to month and eight figures in transactions since launch last year. More than 30 creators have invested in Karat, including Jared Leto, 3LAU, Nas Daily and Josh Richards — that’s all without any spending on influencer marketing. More here ->

Certificial, a Raleigh, NC-basedinsurance verification company that has created the Smart COI Network, raised $15M in funding. Certificial is the creator of the Smart COI Network. This network unites the risk management community across all industries through a Certificate of Insurance (COI) platform, transforming the insurance verification process using real-time data to ensure businesses have continuous, compliant coverage. More here ->

Curvo, a Belgium based fintech tackling youth investing platform, has raised €500,000 in seed capital. More here ->

Investtech

MerQube, a US-based fintech start-up developing technology for indexing and rules-based investing, has raised $22 million in Series B funding. Launched in 2019 and based in San Francisco, MerQube operates a cloud-native Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform to offer design and calculation solutions for rules-based investment strategies and passive solutions, via API. More here ->

Insuretech

Tractable, a U.K.-based car and home assessment startup using computer vision, raised $65m in Series E funding.  More here ->  (Congrats Jimmy Spears!!!)

Proptech

InspectionGo, a Morgantown, W.Va.-based home inspection software startup, raised $5.5m in Series A funding. iGo aims to improve the home inspection experience by equipping the community of home inspection companies with a modern technology platform. More here ->

Colleen, an Israeli rent collection software maker, raised $3.5m in seed funding. More here ->

From the Stash

Bank of America AI-driven chatbot surpasses 1.5B client interactions - Bank of America’s AI-driven chatbot Erica has surpassed 1.5 billion client interactions since its 2018 launch, the bank said today in its second quarter earnings presentation. The chatbot totaled 166 million client interactions in the quarter, up 35% year over year, according to the presentation. More here ->

Capital One leans into tech transformation - Capital One continued to modernize its technology infrastructure in the second quarter. “Our investments to build and leverage a modern technology infrastructure are expanding our opportunities and driving value creation over the long-term,” Chief Executive Richard Fairbank said in today’s earnings release. More here ->

Fifth Third to modernize through automation, technology - Fifth Third Bank ramped up its modernization efforts in the second quarter as it looks toward automating its core platform to drive down expenses. The $211 billion bank aims to invest “in the core platform to bring automation,” which will bring intermediate positive expense outcomes. More here ->

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