W
you’re welcome Exchange! 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 specific 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
As this year draws to a close, it’s obviously the right time to look back at some of the highlights (and lowlights) in the world of fintech news.
We started 2022 on a relatively high note. The mega rounds were still going on! Decacorns were born. Venture capital was still readily available. Then, sometime in the second quarter, things turned sour. And they’ve been touring ever since.
I was curious to find out which of my stories did the best in deciding how to approach the final issue of this newsletter for the year. So I asked the amazing audience development manager, Alisa Stringer, to pull my top 15 stories based on the number of page views. In conclusion, dear readers, it seems that all of you are interested in knowing the coverage of companies in the top tier and the bottom tier companies. It was the best time. And then it felt like the worst time. And oh, many of you have been curious about the concept of fractional real estate investing.
Here are my 15 most read stories on the TechCrunch site in 2022:
- Better.com’s CEO told employees at a layoff meeting, “We probably lost $200 million.” Zack WhittakerWe have heard the staff of Vishal Garg address for ourselves. . . And it wasn’t pretty.
- Closes doors quickly after slow growth, prevents high burnout Fundraising options: Collaboration with my dear friend, TC+ editor and co-host of the Equity Podcast Alex Wilhelm. Watching one-click checkout startups crash and burn was certainly one of the biggest stories in fintech this year.
- Ramp confirms valuation of $8.1B after ‘nearly 10x’ YoY revenue increase: Corporate spending starts to double valuation from August 2021 to March 2022; Meanwhile, the company has expanded into new business lines.
- Fintech Roundup: Better.com staff to leave due to CEO Vishal Garg’s return ‘on the way’ This is especially meaningful to me, as it was the soft launch of what would eventually become The Interchange. Also, one of the many Better.com related scoops.
- PayPal Closes San Francisco Office This one surprised me, because it didn’t hit me like it did. That’s what he said. Major news, but perhaps a sign of things to come later in 2022.
- Previous, Bezos is Back, a Startup That Lets You Buy Single-Family Rentals for ‘As Little as $100’: This is linked to the PayPal piece above. He had a lot of interest – perhaps the most compelling business model and was a supporter of Jeff Bezos.
- Better.com employees learned about layoffs when severance checks showed up on Payroll, another one that made many of us shake our heads in surprise (and not in a good way).
- Fintech Klarna has reportedly raised $6.5B in valuation, giving new meaning to the phrase ‘bottom round’: this could mark a tipping point in 2022. , people pay attention. The tide was turning in the fintech space, and this news worried many people as it seemed to confirm that the party was over in 2021.
- Better.com will lose several top executives as employees brace for another mass layoff, another one that has many of us scratching our heads in surprise (and not in a good way).
- The fintech layoffs keep on coming: As 2022 begins, I’ve been covering a series of layoffs taking place at Better.com. But by early November, it was painfully clear that layoffs were rampant in the fintech industry.
- Alchemy, which aims to be the ‘de facto platform’ for developers to build on Web3, is now valued at $10.2B.I write this while still doing some crypt reporting. Alchemy grew very quickly. Given all that has happened in the crypto space after that rise, it might be a good time to check them out.
- Fintech Breaks secures $12.3B valuation, hires Meta exec to serve as chief product: This was published in January. In October, I wrote about the company’s layoffs. A lot has happened between them, including the company’s controversial decision to stop serving SMBs.
- Better.com plans to lay off about 4,000 people this week, sources say: You guessed it, another scan.
- Fintech startup Jeeves raises $180m, quadrupling its valuation to $2.1 billion in half a year The pace of Jeeves’ growth and valuation has been impressive. A BaaS company in the corporate card and expense management space. But in early March, the startup’s CEO said of the fundraising process: “The market looks very different in January and February compared to December.
- Landa can make you a landlord for just $5.Like I said, it seems like you all want to invest in fractional real estate, or maybe a lot of people secretly want to be a landlord.
This event was bigger than all of the above and at times nerve-wracking. As with other sectors, venture dollar flows into fintech have slowed. The characters are brought into question. But I hope so. In the year Companies that have been doing meaningful work in 2021 and 2022 will continue to do so. They may be spending more carefully and operating a little more quietly – but IMHO, that’s not a bad thing. Fintech innovation remains more important than ever, especially when it comes to inclusion and access. There are many startups doing amazing things. We can’t let a few bad apples contaminate them all. I know there is a long road ahead. In the year We are not done overcorrecting in 2021. But I, for one, am excited about what fintech will bring in 2023.
Missed meeting transcript/Better.com Image Credits: TechCrunch
Weekly news
Banking application Copper launched a teenage investment product
Visa plans to invest $1 billion in Africa over the next five years.
Why Checkout.com lowered its internal valuation
Chime made two offers to buy DailyPay, paying $2 billion, but was rejected.
Robinhood has raised interest rates for Gold members – to 4% APR
Insurtech Voucher launches Web3 Protection Policy, the first insurance specifically designed for Web3 companies.
London-based Wiz said it is profitable and plans to hire more than 250 new employees at three U.S. offices.
Auto Finance adds rental and utility reporting to its portfolio of credit building products
Capchase, which provides ‘unbundled’ financing to SaaS companies, says it expects revenue to grow by 250% by 2022.
Microsoft is to take a 4% stake in the London Stock Exchange group as part of a 10-year cloud partnership.
Highnote expands platform capabilities by verifying payment solutions with Visa ships
India Paytm will spend up to $103 million to buy back shares.
Funding and M&A
Pulit Raises Millions in VC, Private Equity Fund to Turn Accredited Investors into LPs
Nilus lands 8.5M to automate financial operations led by Bessemer
Vic.ai raises $52 million, showing that automating accounting processes can be profitable
London-based B2B fintech Bondaval raises $15M Series A
DataVisor Raises $40M Strategic Growth Fund.
Pluto Closes $20M Series B to Help SMBs Manage Cash Flow
Oyster has raised $3.6M in seed to launch a platform to sell private insurance
Barcelona-based fintech Novicap raises €200m loan facility to accelerate growth for businesses and organizations
Friendly PSA: We want you to join us at TechCrunch Early Stage 2023 on April 20th in Boston, and we’ve got a great end-of-2022 offer to help you with your holiday shopping for the rest of 2022. Register with this link Reserve a Founder’s Pass on December 31 at 11:59 PST for just $75 — regularly $149! Early Stage is TechCrunch’s one-day founding conference, where you’ll get actionable advice and actionable action from top experts, meet other entrepreneurs on similar journeys, share your own experiences, and build the confidence to take the next steps to growing your business. Don’t wait — reserve your pass with this founder for just $75 Connect!
And with that, I sign off. This is my last newsletter in 2022. I don’t know where he fit in this year, and to be honest it was really hard in a lot of ways. But there were many bright spots, including growing this newsletter’s audience and having the honor of sharing this content with all of you. Thanks again. Happy Holidays everyone, and a happy and healthy New Year! Have a better, brighter and more wonderful year. xoxo, Mary Ann
