?? The Super App Shift

Hello crunchers, and welcome back to another crunch.

The app economy is booming. In 2022, consumers have downloaded over 250 billion mobile apps in total... which is quite the number.

So it’s no wonder that mobile and web app service companies are seeking to capitalize on this by creating innovative solutions. But what do consumers want from their apps? And how will the tech landscape shift in response?

Read on to find out.

TODAY'S MARKET MOVES

SOME FAMILIAR FINTECH STOCKS

WHAT’S NEW IN FINTECH?

• The second cohort of Saudi Arabia’s Fintech Accelerator is coming to a close after 12 fintech companies presented their innovative solutions, hard work, expertise, and knowledge.

• This year’s market conditions are way different than last — fintech included. While last year more than 20% of venture dollars went into fintech startups, this year’s pace is noticeably slower… but that doesn’t mean fintech is failing. In fact, about 18% of global venture dollars went into fintech startups in Q2 2022 alone. TechCrunch interviewed 8 fintech VCs to discuss the shifting investing landscape and how to pitch them in Q3 2022.

• Benefit, a Bahraini fintech company, announced that its launching an annual fintech internship program called Masar in collaboration with the Supreme Council for Women. The program’s mission is to empower and upskill Bahrain’s female youth to participate in the Kingdom’s thriving fintech sector.

• FinTech Wales, the non-profit membership organization for the fintech and financial service industry in Wales, just opened applications for the third season of its accelerator program, the FinTech Wales Foundry. The 12-week program provides world-class mentorship to help incubate, accelerate and scale startup organizations in the finance and fintech industries. Applications close on August 19.

THE SUPER APP SHIFT: HOW CONSUMERS WANT TO SAVE, SHOP AND SPEND IN THE CONNECTED ECONOMY

A broad range of recent technological changes — from advanced mobile devices to AI-powered standalone applications to new payments technologies — have changed the parameters of the possibilities for retailers, financial institutions and consumers.

Real-time connections between payment rails, retailers, essential and nonessential activities and digital identities power today's consumer experiences. We call this decentralized, evolving global infrastructure built for efficiency, security and intuitive user experience the ConnectedEconomy.

Within the ConnectedEconomy, consumers engage in a range of core activities that power day-to-day life. For example, shopping online can lead to ordering from restaurants via an app, which can normalize app-based grocery delivery, opening the door to many other connected undertakings.

Though these actions are intertwined, the current infrastructure is anything but. The channels consumers use to engage in the ConnectedEconomy are disjointed, a nest of separate apps and websites from myriad providers that can clog smartphone home screens and necessitate the creation of overwhelming numbers of accounts.

A super app may fix this. A super app provides a user interface through which consumers can shop, order food, check social media, bank and so on — all within a single solution. It can help solve the current ecosystem’s decentralization problem and address consumers’ universal desire for consistent, secure and frictionless interactions throughout the pillars of their lives.

In a collaboration report, PayPal and PYMNTS look at how consumer demand for streamlined payment experiences has created widespread interest in a super app to manage everyday life.

? QUICK INVESTMENT ROUNDS

• Pakistani fintech company Dbank raised $17.6 million — the country's largest early-stage fundraising round — co-led by Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia and Kleiner Perkins. This investment round also marks Sequoia Capital's entry into Pakistan's startup economy.

• Vienna-based fintech startup Helu.io raised $10 million in fresh Series A funding round. The company’s mission is to build a new way for European SMEs to manage finance, reporting and budgeting.

• Bunch, a tech platform that allows investors to syndicate deals across private markets, has raised €7.3 million in seed funding led by European early-stage fund Cherry Ventures alongside Embedded/capital.

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?? REPORT OF THE DAY

Decentralised Finance (DeFi)

Decentralised Finance has emerged as a blockchain-based form of finance that leverages innovations in cryptocurrencies and smart contracts to build fair, inclusive, and robust financial systems that do not rely on central financial intermediaries. The European Blockchain Observatory and Forum has just published a report that takes a dive into this financial system that powers Web 3.0 crypto economy, offering an introduction to DeFi and explaining DeFi applications that allow people lend, borrow and trade financial assets without intermediaries.

The EUBOF report, coordinated by the Institute for the Future, offers a comprehensive review of the fast-evolving blockchain innovation of DeFi, which can be considered as a subset of FinTech. The report studies the similarities and differences of DeFi and traditional or conventional finance (TradFi) in four main areas: Intrinsic characteristics, functional differences, operational differences and the regulatory landscape.

? BEFORE YOU GO…

• Metaverse: Meta just announced that its metaverse division suffered losses of $2.81 billion in Q3 2022.

• Metaverse: Earlier this month, Mark Zuckerberg told Meta’s employees that the company is in a “very deep, philosophical competition” with Apple as the two tech giants are neck to neck in selling hardware for augmented and virtual reality.

• Crypto: We’re reading many headlines about how crypto is crashing and how Musk is pulling out… yet many American investors — like Edward Snowden, Snoop Dogg, Kevin O’Leary and Mike Tyson — are still encouraging investors to remain bullish through the bear trend.

• NFTs: One of Japan’s largest banks, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, announced that it’s working together with blockchain startup HashPort to “support the development of the NFT market.”

?? THE LATEST ON COUCHONOMICS

For my latest episode of Couchonomics with Arjun Singh, I have Tammer Qaddumi joining me on the #couch as we discuss the Investment ecosystem in the MENA region among other things. Please tune in if you haven't already heard or watched the podcast/ videocast

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Deezer

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