Welcome to The Swap! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for your subscription and vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, subscribe here for future direct access. 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 make sense of it so you can stay in the know. Let’s be excited! – Mary Ann
Hey, hey — this is going to be a slightly abbreviated edition of this newsletter, because Monday the 5th is a holiday here in America and the news was a little slower than usual last week. But there is no rest for the weary, so here we go!
In Friday’s Equity Podcast episode, Natasha, Alex, and I discussed what a small world this venture community is.
A few hours after the recording on September 1st, we got wind of another example of this.
Forbes’ Alex Conrad reports that Brax’s chief revenue officer, Sam Blond, is becoming a Founders Fund partner.
Now, it’s not uncommon for executives or founders to move into full-time investment roles. But there were two things that caught our ears in this news.
Earlier this year, Brax reached the milestone of DecaCorn in a $300 million raise. The prolific startup started life by offering corporate cards to startups and later evolved the model by incorporating software and serving large corporate clients with little focus on SMBs and startups. (The move was a bit controversial, surprisingly and with some disappointment in the startup community.)
Now, if you’re the chief revenue officer at a startup on a growth trajectory, well, it looks small. Unusual Time to leave. Especially since Blund was said to be one of the company’s first 20 employees.
Conrad wrote: “At the time, Brax only had a placeholder website and less than $100 in sales… Four years later, the business has several hundred million dollars in annual revenue.
Notably, Blond left Brax to join a venture capital firm that was a ramp investor in the company’s biggest rival, the corporate services space.
For the uninitiated, brakes and ramps have been gone for years.
Blond told Forbes that he made the decision to start “full-time startup investing” earlier this year. According to the article: “He interviewed with several firms, but ultimately went with his partner, Midas List investor Keith Rabois, who helped him embrace the local tech scene. ‘I’ve always been impressed with the kit and reputation of Founders Fund,’ says Blond. ‘When I decided I wanted to get into VC, it was clear that Founders Fund was a top option for me to explore.’ “
I reached out to Blond to get the news from a fintech lens. He was about to board a plane, but we managed this quick Q&A:
TC: When exactly did you leave Brex?
SBI am still a full-time employee at Brakes. My last day as a full-time employee is before I start at FF. We left and hired a new CRO, Doug Adamic, to replace me and I was helping with the transition.
They told Forbes earlier this year that they decided to go into startup investing full-time. What led you to make that decision, and how long have you been angel investing?
I have been doing angel investing for about four years. I decided that I wanted to be a full-time VC: (a) I really enjoyed doing angel investing, I learned a ton, and I believe I was able to help the companies I invested in chart their journeys. Marketing. (b) I have had success joining two of the fastest growing technology businesses (Zenefits and Brex) with some great founders (Parker, Pedro and Henrik). The combination of (a) and (b) gives me some confidence that I’ll be good at being a VC (picking the right companies and helping them scale revenue). (c) Brakes is a truly incredible experience, and the success we’ve had will be difficult to replicate if I join another company. I am ready for a new challenge and motivated.
What will be your focus on Founders Fund? Do you invest in fintech?
This question was answered by Founders Fund comms head Erin Gleason:
for example Like all of our partners, Sam will be a generalist investing across levels, sectors and geographies, but he is particularly interested in early stage corporate deals.
What do you think about Founders Fund being an investor in Ramp, one of Brax’s biggest rivals? Is that an issue at all?
I see it as a coincidence that Ramp is an FF portfolio company. It didn’t affect my motivation to join, and my focus will be on investing in and helping new portfolio companies. I am loyal to Brex and all the people I have made close friends with there.
You were one of the original employees of Brex. What do you think about the future of the company?
I am very bullish on Brax’s future. The team is incredible, and the strategy with Empower has been identified and is seeing a lot of early success in winning large enterprise clients.
Image Credits: Founders Fund
Weekly news
How profitable is the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) market? It requires a TC+ editor Alex Wilhelm. “The new data from Klarna and the recent earnings from Affirm make it clear that building a global business in the fintech space is not cheap. The two companies, Affirm American and Klarna Sweden, are among the most important players in the BNPL market today. Both are now equal in value. And both recently reported financial results.
TechCrunch’s writes Ivan Meta: “The Block (formerly Square) Cash app is allowing users to make payments on e-commerce sites outside the Square network. Until now, users could only make payments at Square terminals or online through Square merchant partners using Cash App Pay. The company has partnered with American Eagle, Erie, Tommy Hilfiger, Finish Line, and JD Sports, and has partnered with more retailers such as Romwe, Savage x Fenty, SHEIN, thredUP, and Wish in the coming months.
Despite the announcement of several exciting funding deals from Africa this week (see the next section for more on those), the man on the ground; Take Kane-OkaforHe writes about how Cuda, a challenger bank based in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, joined forces with tech companies in Africa. News of the layoffs, first reported to TechCrunch by sources, was confirmed by email at Cuda, which said it laid off less than 5% of its workforce of 450, or about 23 people… The bank, which offers zero-to-low fees on cards, account maintenance and transfers and is one of Africa’s Sunnycorn, has raised $55 million.
Funding and M&A
Featured on TechCrunch.
$63 million for solid banks to easily deploy embedded fintech products
Fintech startup Alloy has grown into fraud prevention to secure a new $1.55B valuation.
Landa can make you a homeowner for just $5.
Nigerian YC-backed startup Anchor raises $1M+ to grow banking-as-a-service platform
Duplo Digitizes Payment Flows for African B2B Enterprises, Receives $4.3M in Seed Funding
Kenyan FinTech Pezesha Raises $11M Backed by Women’s World Bank, Cardano Parent IOG
Nigeria’s Gray raised $2M for cross-border payments and regional expansion
And elsewhere
17.3 million to expand RentSpree rental management tools
Wealth management technology startup VRGL has raised $15 million to help companies find customers and manage ideas.
Well that’s it for this week. Again, thanks for reading! If you’re here in America, hope you’re enjoying this long holiday weekend and getting some rest and relaxation. And if you’re not in the US, I hope you’re still getting some rest and relaxation. xoxoxo, Mary Ann
