Welcome to?your?daily?FinTech?news!
- Varo Bank could run out of funds by year-end, filing shows. The bank, which raised $510 million at a valuation of $2.5 billion last year, reported $263 million in equity and a burn rate of $84 million in 2022’s first quarter. In an email to Banking Dive, Varo Bank CEO Colin Walsh said the bank does not need to raise capital. “We remain very well capitalized and have sufficient capital to reach profitability, without having to raise additional capital,” Walsh said. Link here.
- The Klarna Card is now available to US consumers, and comes amid Klarna's rapid growth in the US, which continues to be Klarna's fastest-growing key market by volume. Link here.
- 6 FinTech Soonicorns with African Origins. Link here.
- South African financial services group Sanlam has bought a controlling interest in payment solutions provider Q LINK Holdings (Pty) Ltd, its first fintech investment. Link here.
- Paris-based VC firm Alven has raised €350m for its latest fund to back pre-seed to Series A startups all across Europe. It’s the largest early-stage fund raised in France to date. Link here.
- slice, a fintech startup that is bringing credit card features to millions of Indians, has raised $50 million in a new financing round as it looks to scale its recently launched UPI payments product and push to make its core credit business profitable. Link here.
- The Beanstalk App, an app that allows families to invest in their children’s future, has secured a “six-figure” sum in a crowdfunding round to further its market reach. Link here.
- The fintech M&A boom is heating up. European fintech lender October has acquired a rival Credit.fr, the second-largest lending platform for French SMEs. No details of the deal’s financials have been made public but as part of the deal Tikehau Capital, the sole shareholder of Credit.fr, is investing fresh cash in the new venture.
- Much of the world’s attention around blockchain is on the highs and lows of cryptocurrency values. Startups like FlexID Official remind us that distributed ledger technology has the potential to play other roles, including offering trusted records of identities without the need for a centralized authority. Link here.
- HitPay has raised US$15.75m in a Series A funding round, led by Tiger Global Management and joined by returning investors Global Founders Capital and HOF Capital. Link here.
- Finqware, a European fintech startup based in Bucharest, received from the National Bank of Romania the payment institution license to act as regulated account information and payment initiation service provider. Link here.
- Bitpanda registers as a Virtual Asset Services Provider with the OAM in Italy. Orlando Merone, Bitpanda's Country Manager Italy: “Registration with the OAM in Italy is a natural step for us, in line with our broader strategic approach.” Link here.
- Stripe, a global financial infrastructure platform, announced that Stripe Terminal is now available in Singapore, making it easy for businesses to build custom checkout experiences for accepting in-person payments, as well as unifying both customer experience and data across online and in-person transactions. Link here.
- Mercuryo's newest report, "Opportunities in a Bear Market: Proof of Viability", delves into the underlying use cases and tech that will contribute to a project's success, when hype and price action no longer can. Link here.
- Genesis, one of the crypto market's biggest lending and trading firms, is ramping up its decentralized finance footprint by contributing $75 million to Maple's Solana-based lending platform. Link here.
- Binance raises $500 million fund to invest in 'Web3' as crypto slides into bear market. Web3 is a movement in tech that aims to create a new version of the internet based on blockchain technology. Link here.
- Fireblocks, a provider of crypto custody technology, hired Varun Paul, the former head of fintech at the Bank of England, as its first director of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and market infrastructure. Link here.
- Melio announced the launch of international payments, enabling U.S. small businesses to make payments abroad with ease and build resiliency in their supply chains. Link here.
- Prove Identity, Inc., the leader in digital identity, recently announced it has joined the Visa Ready for BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) program. Link here.
- Mocapay announced that it has added Shawn Sinner, a former Visa Payment Executive, and Issuer processing industry veteran, as President and Chief Revenue Officer. Link here.
- BUX appointed Niek van Rens as its new Chief Operating Officer. An ex-ABN AMRO Clearing executive, Van Rens brings with him the knowledge and expertise to strengthen operations and achieve further growth across Europe. Link here.
- FinTech startup Brim Financial has appointed Arthur Zhao as its chief financial officer (CFO). Zhao joins Brim with over 20 years of experience in the FinTech industry. Link here.
- Mexican start-up Flink México said on Monday that it will buy local brokerage Vifaru Casa de Bolsa for $25 million in a bid to give its clients wider investment options. Link here.
- Just over two months after announcing its C Series and its arrival in Brazil, Jeeves, a startup that offers management and financing solutions for fast-growing companies, kick-started its operations in the country. Link here.?
- In a recent community survey on startup bosses, 83% of the 138 Sifted readers who responded said that a minority or none of their bosses were equipped to manage. 67% said that they had been micromanaged in the past, while 48% felt like they’d never had a manager at a startup who’d given them clear goals. Link here.
- A recent report from Andreessen Horowitz illustrates a sad state of affairs for the FinTech industry, which has gotten clobbered in the tech-stocks downdraft. A chart included in the report shows fintech valuations in sharper decline than any other sector, by a significant margin. Link here.
- Some of India's biggest banks are in discussions about setting up "buyer platforms" to let their customers place orders for goods and services over the Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC), which the Indian government soft-launched in April, the sources told Reuters. Link here.
- Revolut has long been known for its early bet on crypto. Its most recently rumoured iteration of this appetite for all things blockchain-based is the launch of its own native token focused on loyalty dubbed ‘Revcoin’. Link here.
- N26 is not an ordinary bank. There are no tellers, no bank branches. You never have to wait in line. Instead, in eight minutes on the N26 mobile app, you can open an account with a full range of functionality: checking, savings, transfers, direct debits. But customers are notoriously hesitant to change banks. Link here.
- Yolt, Europe’s leading independent and data-driven open banking provider, announced a collaboration with October, Europe’s leading SME lending platform. Link here.
- In Switzerland, banks and financial institutions have been slow in embracing the open banking movement, a delay that can partly explained by institutions’ conservative corporate culture as well as an overarching fear of losing customers to third parties. Link here.
- Tandym, a digital private-label credit card issuer, launched Wednesday backed by $60 million in venture capital funding, aiming to help retailers recoup the cost of accepting credit cards by funding merchants’ own loyalty programs. Link here.
- Impressive numbers from Nubank ?? Link here.
- Save? announced that they have signed an agreement with Webster Bank, N.A., a leading bank in the Northeast that provides a wide range of digital and traditional financial solutions to consumers and commercial clients. Link here.?
This ends?Your?Daily?Fintech?News. Let me know if there are any questions or comments. Until the next!
Thank you Marcel for the kind mention!