What goes up must come down • TechCrunch

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 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

Like many of you, I’m sure, I was caught up watching the FTX collapse unfold last week. It’s been an amazing development in the crypto world, and while I haven’t covered the space directly, I can’t help but be fascinated by the process – and not in a good way.

For more on that debacle, check out our crypto-specific Chain Reaction podcast here and our comprehensive coverage here.

I couldn’t help but watch Elon Musk’s train wreck Twitter And meta’He released 11,000 people. But I will break down.

Last week, I ended the newsletter by saying that I hope this week brings lots of uplifting news. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Real Estate Fintech Redfin It announced on November 9 that it was laying off 13% of its workforce, or 862 people, in response to the continued slowdown in the housing market. This followed Open door A week ago, 550 people or 18% of the workforce were laid off Zillow A reduction of 300 at the end of October. It follows Redfin laying off 470 workers in June.

Specifically, Redfin said it is shutting down its iBuying division, Redfin Now. To this end, CEO Glenn Kellman wrote in an email to All Hands: “The first problem we can say for iBuying is that they are becoming increasingly confident when we issue stock dividends, especially now that our offerings are so low… The second problem is that iBuying has an incredible amount of money and is now unproven.” Benefit is risk. We have tied up hundreds of millions of dollars that you don’t want to own right now.

Kelman went on to say that the company’s June layoff of Redfin in 2016 It expects to sell fewer homes in 2022.

Redfin, Zillow, and Opendoor’s layoffs aren’t the only ones in the industry. Digital mortgage lender Better.com In the past couple of weeks, it has led to another layoff or two. A source told me 240 employees were laid off on November 4. And San Francisco Business Times reporter Alex Barrera He tweeted. In the year Sharing colorful details of the company’s WARN notice on Nov. 11 that dozens of employees were being let go, Better.com said the layoffs were the result of a “dramatic deterioration” in the company’s business and could not provide earlier notice. . When I contacted the company about the offers, a spokesperson wrote in an email: “Better is focused on making decisions that are prudent in light of current market dynamics.

Okay, back to Redfin. What stood out to me most about the company’s latest round of layoffs was the candor with which Kelman spoke to his employees. He said in an email: “Thank you to every employee who has shown your faith in Redfin. I’m sorry we don’t have enough sales to pay you.”

Interestingly, Kelman also invested in Far Homes, a Seattle startup founded by Redfin alumni in September. Markets,” as reported by GeekWire.

CEOs especially regretted that their companies were going bankrupt or laying off employees. In addition to Kelman, other examples this week include Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitting that he misjudged how long the post-pandemic revenue boom would last, saying, “I got it wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”

Also last week, FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried admitted that before FTX filed for bankruptcy and “should have done better,” he stepped down from his role. This happened after the crypto exchange was valued at $32 BILLION at the beginning of this year. In early August, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said the company was responsible for laying off 23 percent of its workforce, saying, “That’s on me.”

Even Vishal Garg, CEO of Better.com, once admitted that he had not been disciplined for the past 18 months, telling employees: “Last year we made $250 million, and you know what, we probably lost $200 million.”

What does this tell us? CEOs are human, yes. Just like the rest of us flawed humans. In some cases, decisions such as over-hiring are made out of a genuine (or foolish) belief that people will be needed in the coming years. In other cases, decisions were less dignified and more to further the executive’s agenda.

Unfortunately, either way, thousands of workers are paying the price.

Weekly news

Months after the gamified finance mobile app launch got the long game, Truist Financial Corporation He introduced an innovation unit called Trust Foundry that “works like a startup within the bank,” he said. The goal will be to deliver “game-changing projects” and serve the bank’s business lines. Specifically, TrustFoundry works on “building software solutions that drive value and market leadership for the bank,” a spokesperson told me in an email. In other words, one of the United States’ largest banks appears to be getting more serious about its digital efforts.

Instacart He bought Dutch bills We killed To serve as an “Additional Payment Processing Partner”. As part of the new partnership, the companies said in a press release that Instacart will use Adyen’s functionality, including enabling PINless debit transactions, “to improve authorization rates for a more seamless customer experience.” Pymnts has more here.

Another example of fintech for good. Bank-as-a-service startup Synthera It is in collaboration with SolventA fintech company that is building “affordable financial services” to support the formerly incarcerated. One aspect of the link is Synctera’s recently announced smart charge card, which doesn’t require a credit check or company to fund customers’ balances. Overall, Synterra said Solvent is helping “a collection of personal finance and banking tools, products and services designed to empower and build wealth for an underserved and underserved group of Americans.”

BNPL player prove it It reported mixed financial results last week. While revenue for the fiscal first quarter beat analysts’ estimates of $361.62 million, the loss of 86 cents per share was better than expected. The stock hit a new 52-week low of $11.94 last week before rebounding to $15.88 on Friday morning. The company tried to put a positive spin on the results by sharing via email that active shoppers grew 69% year-over-year and total transactions increased to 13.3 million, representing a 97% year-over-year growth. It also noted that delinquencies and net charge-off rates were at or below pre-pandemic levels in the quarter.

From Sarah Perez: “Elon Musk outlined Twitter’s vision for entering the payments market during a live meeting with him last week. Twitter Advertisers hosted on Twitter Spaces. The new owner of Twitter suggested that prospective users could send money on the platform, withdraw money to verified bank accounts, and later, possibly give them a high-income money market account. Move their money to Twitter.

Also from Sarah Perez: “Google announced that it is expanding its user-choice billing pilot to allow Android app developers to use payment systems other than Google’s. The program is now available in new markets including the US, Brazil and South Africa, and Bumble will now join Spotify as one of the pilot testers. Google has also announced that Spotify will now start rolling out its app from this week. The company first announced plans to launch a third-party billing option in March of this year, with Spotify as the first tester. More here.

From Tage Kene-Okafor: Love, a London-based and Nigerian-operated start-up is expanding into the UK by offering existing employees in the country a suite of mobile-first and personal banking services, delivered to Nigerians in the diaspora. The digital bank has seen some success since launching in Nigeria in 2019. Kuda says it has up to 5 million users, more than triple the number it had last August after raising a $55 million Series B round to expand into other African countries. Like Ghana and Uganda this year. Expansion into those countries is yet to be implemented; Instead, Cuda chose to launch in the UK.

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Funding and M&A

Thomson Reuters to buy tax automation company SurePrep for $500M.

Pet insurance startups chase market as pet ownership grows among Gen Z and millennials

150 million for the super application led by Yasir Bond

Quona Capital Invests $332M in Financial Inclusion Startups

Former Tink employees launched Atlar, a payment automation startup

Travel app Hopper raises $96M from Capital 1 to double down on social commerce.

Blnk, a fintech offering fast consumer loans in Egypt, has raised $32M in debt and equity.

Powered by A16z, Tellus wants to offer consumers a much better savings rate. Here’s how.

And elsewhere:

Savvy Wealth completes $11 million in capital raising:

Hrithik Malhotra (CEO) and Muller Zhang (CTO) founded Savvy after Malhotra went through a financial blaze after selling two startups (Stream was acquired by Box in 2014, and Elf was acquired by Brakes in 2019). Long story short, he was advised to look for a financial advisor, and after researching many different options, he was inspired to start Savvy in 2021 – a management firm focused on modernizing human financial advice for the national Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), which the company describes as a “digital first wealth”.

Before I close, just a reminder that we here at TechCrunch love scoops. So if you have gA news tip or inside information about what we’ve covered (or haven’t yet but should). I would love to hear from you. You can reach me on Signal or DM at 408.204.3036. Or you can drop a note at tips@techcrunch.com. If you prefer to be anonymous, Click here to contact usSecureDrop (including)Instructions here) and various encrypted messaging applications.

That’s it from me for this week. Here’s more good news than bad next week! Until then, take good care…xoxo, Mary Ann