Fintech Highlights - 9/14/2021

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What’s In The Water At Zillow Anyways?

Former Zillow engineer Jason Tan now calls striking out in his interviews for Microsoft, Amazon and Google the best thing to ever happen to him. It’s what led him to Zillow, where he would develop a love for startups and eventually go on to become the founder of fraud detection company Sift (https://sift.com/) - which is one of several companies to be founded by former Zillow employees.

Those startups include Sift, proptech startup Divvy Homes, health care financial wellness company Amino, proptech startup Pacaso–which helps people own second homes–as well as career and salary website Glassdoor.

Zillow itself is the product of another network effect: Several of its early employees came from Seattle-based companies Expedia and Hotwire.

So why does this happen?

Well, people like working with certain people. And when they feel they are ready to move on, they bring folks they like with them.

As well equity grants and financial gains enable the seeding of new ideas, either by the person themselves or from the network they've created.

This is how tech hubs happen.

You can read more here ->

The BFD

PayPal agreed to acquire Paidy, a Japanese installment payments enabler, for around $2.7 billion.

Why it's the BFD: This sets up a global consolidation spree in the "buy-now, pay-later space," following Square's agreement last month to buy Afterpay for $29 billion.

Bonus: Addi, a Bogota-based "buy-now, pay-later" startup, announced $75 million in new Series B funding led by Greycroft.

The bottom line: "Japan is the third largest e-commerce market in the world, and so this is a significant move by PayPal to gain more market share both in the country and the region, specifically in the area of providing deferred payment services as an alternative to credit cards." — Kate Park, TechCrunch

Fintechs

Zebedee, a New York-based developer of "Bitcoin-powered payment rails," namely for gaming, raised $11.5 million. The Hoboken, New Jersey-based company hopes to transform games by adding new revenue streams powered by cryptocurrency, blockchain, and other technologies. More here ->

Ryd, a German in-car digital payments provider, raised €10 million. The fresh funds will help Ryd expand its service into international markets and build out its offering. More here ->

Jetty, a fintech company which aims to give renters flexibility when paying rent, has raised $23 million. The 100-person New York City-based startup has come up with a way to help renters make rent on time with an offering that resembles the “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) model that is increasingly used by consumers at the point of sale, online and in person. More here ->

Melio, a New York-based B2B payments platform for small businesses, raised $250 million. Melio’s partnerships include integration with Quickbooks allowing users to pay business bills. More here ->

Ribbon, a New York-based homeownership platform, raised $150 million. Ribbon provides a homeownership platform that allows real estate agents and lenders with the ability to design winning cash offers, empowering their everyday homebuyers — while providing sellers with on-time closing. More here ->

Xendit, a payments infrastructure startup focused on Southeast Asia, raised $150 million. Xendit has experienced more than 200% year-over-year increase in total payments volume, and now has a total payment volume (TPV) of $9 billion processed per annum. More here ->

Pacaso, an SF-based real estate platform for second homes, raised $125 million. Pacaso (pronounced like “Picasso”) uses software and data to make it easier for more people to own a vacation home by splitting ownership into several different pieces as part of an LLC — anywhere from two to eight owners. More here ->

Peach Finance, an Oakland-based loan serving SaaS, raised $20 million. Peach bills itself as “the first all-in-one SaaS platform addressing the full range of evolving needs of FinTech companies and established financial institutions ... through its loan management, servicing and Compliance Guard product offerings. More here ->

PassFort, a London-based provider of financial crime regulation and compliance automation SaaS, raised $16.2 million. PassFort helps business meet compliance requirements such as KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) reporting. More here ->

Grow Credit, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based financial inclusion platform, raised $6.3 million. Grow Credit aims to transform corporations and small businesses into financial inclusion-focused organizations by providing a platform, which reduces employee turnover while simultaneously improving their workforce's credit score, in addition to offering exclusive discounts on popular subscriptions. More here ->

Lean, a fintech startup that gives gig workers access to financial products has raised $4.5 million. Founded by Tilak Joshi, the former head of Mint, supports gig workers with a platform that offers access to financial products that he says are “custom built” for their needs. More here ->

SPAC's

Home Plate Acquisition, a fintech and embedded finance SPAC led by Dan Ciporin (ex-Canaan Partners), filed for a $200 million IPO. More here ->

From the Stash

QED Investors closes on $1.05B across two funds to invest in fintech companies globally QED Investors announced the closing of two new funds totaling $1.05 billion, capital that it will be using to back early-stage startups, as well as growth rounds for later-stage companies. Specifically, today QED is announcing a $550 million early-stage fund and a $500 million growth-stage fund, both of which are aimed at backing fintech companies […]

Fintech is transforming the world’s oldest asset class: Farmland – TechCrunch While farmland is among the oldest investment classes around, the average investor hasn’t had access to farmland the way that billionaires and institutional investors have. That's changing.

Podcasts

The Leadership in Insurance Podcast with Siddhartha Jha — preview.mailerlite.com In this episode, we speak to Sid Jha, Founder and CEO, Arbol, the provider of parametric coverage which allows clients to access reduced risk and hassle-free protection using their automated processes and facilitates a straightforward experience for the customer.

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