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Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for your subscription and vote of confidence. If you are reading this as a post on our site, please register over here So you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I look at the hottest fintech news from the previous week. This includes everything from funding rounds to trends to niche analysis to hot takes on a particular company or event. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it – and understand it – so you can stay informed. – Mary Ann
Last month, Andreessen Horowitz – one of the biggest and most prominent players in venture capital – announced that its “headquarters will be in the cloud”.
In the year Founded in 2009 in Menlo Park, California, the company — also known as a16z — has been a Silicon Valley investment icon for years.
In this post-Covid era of remote working, his new philosophy is that centralized headquarters are no longer needed. This philosophy extends to the fintech team. And let’s face it, fintech in general is opening up a lot of doors – being able to do a lot more in terms of running a company or in general globally. Many may underestimate how much the pandemic has pushed this pace in the world of financial services and people are now commenting, “Oh, there’s this slowdown and look how much investment in fintech has slowed down.” You’ve got to put it in perspective – we’re well on our way from 2020 to how much money is going into this space. And fintech is still taking a fifth of all capital dollars. I believe this is because it affects everyone on a daily basis. If it’s easier to access financial services or easier to do business or make payments or receive payments, it’s all because of fintech.
I sat down with 16z General Partners Angela Strange and Anish Acharya to learn more about why the pair believe we’re experiencing a “Silicon Valley crowd,” which fintech sectors have the most potential, and what’s new? The age of remote work has created many opportunities for financial technology startups.
Read more here.
Reporter’s note: The interview with Angela and Anish took place weeks before publication, and I learned after publication that in a recent analysis of the 42 companies in the firm’s fintech portfolio, only four had female co-founders. I met with the partners on the topic this weekend but have not heard back by the time this newsletter goes live. Of course, since it was the weekend, I didn’t expect a reply so soon. If I hear back, I will present it to you next weekend!
Weekly news
My fintech partner in crime, the oh-so-talented Natasha Mascarnhas, rounds out the week with a sneak peek. Scratch Laying off some employees who supported TaxJar, the tax compliance startup it acquired last year. According to Natasha: “Last month’s strike was related to Strip’s decision at the end of July to scale back Taxjar-focused market-to-market efforts. Sources estimate that between 45 and 55 employees will be affected by the layoffs, at least a portion of which will be given 30 days to apply for internal jobs at Stripe. In July, people in the sales, marketing and partnerships teams will follow. Read more here.
The world of expense management just got (even more) competitive. Corporate expense and financial management company Rho It announced that expense management will add “custom controls designed to make spending painless” to its offerings.
In an email, the company told me that it believes that in today’s fintech world, “offering the whole package” is critical. Specifically, a spokesperson said: “When you look at the landscape, there are ten different providers for each individual process: expense management (eg Brax), expenses (eg Expenditure) and banking services (eg Mercury). Converging different platforms for these different activities creates conflict for financial users. Rho believes in the power of integrating expense management and commercial banking services. Every corporate finance process – AP, merchant banking, expense management/cards, treasury management – works better when they work together in a single, connected view.
The startup in December raised $75 million in Series B funding led by Dragoneer Investment Group.
Speaking of cost management, Air Base announced the appointment of Philippe Lacour as Chief Revenue Officer. Lacor most recently served as CRO for no-code platform company Unqork, overseeing all go-to-market efforts, including sales, pre-sales consulting, customer success, revenue operations and channel partners. He also led the organization’s expansion into APAC. Prior to that he was CRO at Envoy.
Mexican fintech KovaltoA U.S. stock exchange that serves Mexican SMEs and was formerly known as Credijusto has agreed to a public listing through a SPAC at a valuation of $547 million. The transaction is believed to be the first time a Mexican fintech has agreed to publicly list on a US stock exchange. According to the press release, the company has acquired LIV Capital Acquisition Corp. from Mexico City-based fund LIV Capital. He stated that he is merging with II. Upon closing of the transaction, LIVB will be renamed Covalto and will remain listed on Nasdaq under the new ticker symbol “CVTO”. The company said Origin has grown at a CAGR of 152% from 2015 to 2021. More here.
While we’re on the topic of public markets, something interesting is happening. Fintech stocksaccording to F-Prime Fintech Index. The index rose 41%, ahead of the EMCloud 19.5%, the Nasdaq 15.6%, and the S&P 12.2%. Notably, Affirm is leading the pack and is up 67 percent. Insurance stocks led by Lemon and Oscar Health rose 46% overall. Payment shares are 44% led by Wise and Mercado Libre. Shares of wealth and asset management, led by Coinbase and Bakkt Holdings, rose 32%. Meanwhile, bank and credit reserves increased by 24%.
When he spoke prove it. The purchase is now, after payment, the giant has announced an expanded, multi-year partnership BigCommerce According to the two companies, “BigCommerce makes Affirm the preferred and recommended part-time payment partner for tens of thousands of merchants.” As a result of this partnership, BigCommerce merchants can activate Affirm checkout as a payment option directly in their BigCommerce merchant dashboard.
On August 12, PayPal All eligible PayPal account holders in the US have announced that they can now transfer, send and receive cryptocurrency with PayPal. TechCrunch reports that the move will take place in early June.
Robin Hood It released two new features last week. For one, it launched Advanced Charts with the goal of “providing all customers with customizable, fast, easy, and in-depth analysis directly within the app.” The company says advanced charts are the “number one most requested” item from their active customers. The company launched a new benefit Cash Card offering that allows all Cash Card customers to “automatically” earn cash back when they spend at retailers such as Chevron, Nike, Five Guys, Macy’s and others.
from Pitchbook On Payments: “The accelerated digitization of financial services, as well as the shift to online services, has benefited fintech startups over the past few years. The Covid-19 pandemic has helped accelerate these trends as consumers turn to digital financial services to replace face-to-face interactions… One such area is digital payments, which continue to see rapid disruption. Checkout platforms have benefited from demand for online and contactless transactions, remote work has driven demand for payroll software providers, and corporate credit card providers such as Ramp and Brax have reportedly seen revenue increases.
Hello Alice“Helping Over 1,000,000 Small Businesses Grow,” New Small Business MasterCard Announces The card launched Aug. 16 in partnership with Mastercard and First National Bank of Omaha and offers small business owners the ability to earn points as part of a rewards program for completing “business-promoting tasks” on the Hello Alice platform. The company recently completed a Small Business Access to Capital study and found that 78% of owners who claim access to capital is limiting their ability to manage their day-to-day operations are black (84%) and multiracial (82%) owners. An overstatement on this claim. In words, Hello Alice designed the card to “meet the needs of small business owners wherever they are and break down long-standing barriers to people traditionally denied access.”
Funding and M&A
Featured on TechCrunch.
Pomelo comes out of stealth mode with a $20M seed to rethink global money laundering
Tiger Global is doubling down on India’s savings and investments app Jar
Pastel, a Nigerian digital platform for accounting and merchants, has raised $5.5M led by Telkom.
Highbeam raises $7M to shed light on e-commerce-specific banking needs
Funding Club co-founder unveils new Super Payments fintech startup with $27m investment
Rocket Space has raised $9 million in seed funding to build ‘Fidelity for crypto’
Social investment platform eToro to acquire fintech startup Gatsby for $50M
YC-backed Arc, a digital bank for ‘high-growth’ SaaS startups, has secured a $20M Series A.
Seen elsewhere.
Toll company AtoB has raised $155 million in Series B to ‘modernize the trucking industry’
Ecuadorian ‘unicorn’ Kushki buys financial services start-up with Mexican expansion. TechCrunch topped the company’s $100 million in revenue in June with a $1.5 billion valuation.
Agora has raised $20M Series A led by Insight Partners to accelerate the growth of real estate firms through digital transformation.
Closinglock announces a $4M funding round led by LiveOak Venture Partners
ICYMI: Digital Credit FinTech Capital Raises $30 Million in Debt and Equity to Grow in Mexico and Colombia
Another busy fintech week in the books. Thanks as always for your support in reading and sharing my newsletter! Have a wonderful week ahead. xoxo, Mary Ann
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