Fintech Highlights - 7/5/2022

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Pinned to the Top

These past few years, we’ve seen products tackling remote work in all shapes and sizes.

One such company, Deel launched in 2019 as a way for companies to hire people from all over the world without needing to create an entity in each country or having to deel with the paperwork. It since skyrocketed into a $12B unicorn that also tackles other parts of the business, like payroll.

This latest feature allows companies to manage payroll across 90+ entities in one unified dashboard. This means you no longer have to pay your team using separate vendors, which, as Deel’s co-founder Alex Bouaziz put it, “makes it hard to analyze data, creates more room for error, and adds substantial operational cost, time, and complexity when running payroll each month.”

Deel’s payroll lets companies view and adjust salaries, benefits, bonuses, and expenses in the same dashboard. The product also integrates with HR tools like Workday, BambooHR, and Hibob to remove manual work and manage data inconsistencies.

A seriously smart platform for the way we work now, and well into the future.

The BFD

Mosaic, an Oakland, Calif.-based fintech that provides loans for residential solar projects, is raising over $200 million in Series D funding at over a $1 billion valuation co-led by Affinity Partners and J. Safra Sarasin Asset Management.

Why it's the BFD: This is the first major deal for Affinity, the private equity firm formed last year by Jared Kushner. So far it's secured around $3 billion for its debut fund, the bulk of which came from Saudi Arabia's government.

Details: JPMorgan and Citi are managing the process for Mosaic, which expects the round to close later this quarter and which says it's funded over $8 billion in loans since inception in 2010. Existing backer Warburg Pincus is expected to remain the company's largest outside shareholder.

The bottom line: Affinity appears to be one of several new funds that expect to benefit from their lack of a legacy portfolio — getting to make their first deals at relatively low valuations.

More here ->

Fintechs

Turnkey Lender, a cloud-based loan management system, raised $14.5M Series A. The company provides a lending infrastructure that allows creditors to launch and scale quickly. More here ->

Tesorio, a startup that develops tools to automate the process of collecting payments from business-to-business suppliers, has raised $17 million in a venture financing round. Tesorio attempts to capture this knowledge using AI models that look across a customer’s payment history and predict when, exactly, they’ll pay. More here ->

MarketWolf, a trading-first platform for new investors, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. MarketWolf differentiates from other investment apps with its gamified interface and a trading-first approach. More here ->

Buy-now-pay-later startup Zilch has raised a further $50 million, upping the total raise for its Series C fundraising to $160 million as it plans bolster US expansion plans. The London-based fintech, which allows users to pay for goods -- including groceries -- in installments, has now received total funding of more than $460m, according to a statement Thursday. More here ->

OppZo, a Miami-based SMB financing startup, raised $5m in equity and $255m in debt financing. The company makes affordable asset based working capital loans available to small to medium sized businesses. More here ->

Pave, an SF-based compensation platform, raised $100m in Series C funding.  And acquired a new company. Pave’s acquisition of Option Impact from Morgan Stanley increases their customer count to 5,700. More here ->

April, a New York-based personal income tax platform, raised $30m in Series A funding. April makes tax filing fast, easy, and frictionless for consumers with no hidden fees and “no errors.” More here ->

Tenet, a fintech startup that offers EV-specific auto loans, raised $18m in seed funding, per Axios Pro. More here ->

PINA, a wealth management app based in India, has raised $3 million in seed funding. While many of Indonesia’s investment apps are focused on hooking first-time investors with low fees and starting deposits, PINA is targeting the middle-to-upper classes with wealth management services. More here ->

Cleo, a Gen Z-focused fintech based in London, raised $80m in Series C funding. More here ->

Ophelos, a London-based debt collection startup, raised £5m. Founded in 2021, Ophelos uses machine learning technology to challenge what it considers to be poor practices in the debt collection industry, particularly during a time of increasingly high-interest rates and debt. More here ->

Sava, a spend management platform for African businesses, raised $2m.  Sava highlights two specific pain points businesses confront around spend management and reconciliations. One, businesses don’t have tools to enable them to control spending. Two, business owners and their teams spend a lot of hours engaging in manual record-keeping and reconciliations and lack sufficient data to lend prudently. More here ->

London fintech SumUp raises £507m at a £6.8bn valuation. Founded in 2012, SumUp provides payment solutions to small merchants. Its services include a free business account and card, access to an online store, and invoicing solutions. More here ->

Zilch, a London-based BNPL startup, raised $50m in Series C extension funding.  The company’s platform enables consumers to pay 25% upfront, then the rest in 3 installments over 6 weeks. More here ->

GetVantage, an Indian revenue-based financing startup, raised $36m in equity and debt funding. GetVantage gives SMEs equity-free capital between $10,000 to $500,000 USD, with applications processed in about two days, and funds made available in five. More here ->

Fitmint, an Indian "move-to-earn" startup, raised $1.6m in seed funding. The company describes itself as “the ultimate fitness app that tracks your workouts and rewards you with $FITT tokens for each calorie you burn.” More here ->

Crypto

BlockFi, the troubled crypto lender that raised around $1.2b in VC funding, agreed to an option to be acquired by FTX for up to $240 million. The acquisition figure would include performance incentives, with BlockFi declining to say how much would be an upfront payment. More here ->

Insuretechs

Konselio, a London-based commercial insurance broker and risk management adviser, raised £4.7m in Series A funding. More here ->

Proptech

Shubham, an Indian digital mortgage lender, raised around $112m. Founded in 2011 by Chaturvedi and Rupa Basu, Shubham Housing Development Finance claims to be one of the fastest-growing affordable housing lenders in the country with assets under management exceeding Rs 2,410 crore (around $300 million) across 9 states with 100 branches.  More here ->

Knox Financial, a Boston fintech, raised $50 million in funding. Knox plans to offer additional loan products including HELOCs, purchase loans, and its own mortgage product. More here ->

Stake, a New York-based provider of cash back and banking services to renters, raised $12m in Series A funding. More here ->

WiredScore, a New York-based real estate certification startup, raised $15m in Series B funding. WiredScore assesses, certifies and improves digital connectivity and smart technology in homes and offices on a global scale. More here ->

HomeLister, a digital brokerage and real estate site that gives homeowners a way to list and sell their properties online, has launched. The end goal is to give sellers more control of the sales process and a way to keep as much of their equity as possible. By automating the sales process, HomeLister says it “fixes the cost of the sell-side agent,” allowing sellers to save $21,000 on average and shortening the median days on market from 16 days to 9. More here ->

From the Stash

eToro to go public via merger with Betsy Cohen SPAC — www.axios.com It could help set an IPO price range for rival Robinhood.

Robinhood almost imploded during the GameStop meme stock chaos — techcrunch.com Robinhood was blindsided by the surge in interest from the first big "meme stock" after investors rallied around $GME and sent its price into the stratosphere.

Cash App lets users invest spare change in Bitcoin — cryptobriefing.com Block Inc.’s Cash App has added a new feature that will allow users to invest their spare change in Bitcoin and stocks.

GoCardless goes after Plaid with Nordigen buy — www.axios.com Nordigen acquisition positions it to take on Plaid

Drive now, pay later: Startup makes EVs more accessible by putting off the biggest bill — techcrunch.com As we wait for enhanced tax credits to make EVs more accessible in the U.S., Tenet is launching with claims that it can soften the upfront blow of EV ownership

Fintech investors appear to be favoring later-stage deals as sector takes a hit, recent data shows — techcrunch.com Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of […]

Reports / Webinars

How can we build a transformative and inclusive future for insurance? — content.11fs.com Nigel Walsh and John Bean are joined by a panel of guests from Innovate Finance and FinPro to talk through culture in insurance. All this and much, much…

Conferences

Bank Automation Summit | New year. New focus. Same great experience. — bankautomationsummit.com Bank Automation Summit Fall, taking place September 19-20 at the Hyatt Olive 8 in Seattle, is the event to discover the tools to enhance your financial institution’s strategy for successful automation and digital advancement.

Fintech Fest 1.0 The Best Fintech Experience of 2022 | Join 1k+ Fintech Professionals | Speakers from Celsius, Brex, Shapeshift, TaxBit, Checkout.com and many more

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