Welcome again to The Interchange, the place we check out the most popular fintech information of the earlier week. If you wish to obtain The Interchange instantly in your inbox each Sunday, head right here to enroll!
What a 12 months
That is the final version of The Interchange for 2023 — it’s arduous to consider that the 12 months is sort of over.
It was an eventful 12 months, even when funding was down. We noticed a bunch of M&A exercise (examine it right here, right here, right here and right here), BNPL made a comeback (form of), new fintech-focused enterprise agency capital raises (Flourish and Vesey), some startup shutdowns (Daylight is one instance) and extra layoffs than we might have preferred.
And, keep in mind when FedNow went dwell within the U.S. in July? On the time there have been 35 monetary establishments on the record, and 5 months later, greater than 330 of them are within the community.
It’s by no means a uninteresting day on the earth of fintech. For a broader look again, keep tuned earlier than 12 months’s finish for a deeper dive into the highest fintech tales we reported on.
Till then, we wished to take this chance to provide heartfelt because of all of you, our readers, for supporting us all year long. We all know you may have a plethora of fintech newsletters to select from, so the truth that you signed up for this one, and maintain coming again, means the world to us.
As we head into 2024, we want you and your households an exquisite vacation season and a New 12 months forward full of a lot love, peace and happiness. We’re grateful for you. — Mary Ann and Christine
Weekly information
Christine reported on layoffs at Bolt, an e-commerce and fintech firm, which was at one time the topic of a federal probe. The corporate, by way of a spokesperson, confirmed the one-click checkout firm laid off 29% of its employees. In an emailed assertion, the Bolt spokesperson mentioned the corporate made the cuts to get Bolt to “an working mannequin optimized for sustainable development and effectivity” and so it may set itself up “with the pace and agility required for the following section of our enterprise.” We’ve been following Bolt for years, and this new spherical of job cuts is the most recent in a handful of different layoffs made since 2022. In Might 2022, Mary Ann reported not less than 185 workers, or one-third of its workforce, had been let go. Bolt, which offers software program to retailers to hurry up checkout, raised round $1 billion in whole venture-backed funding and at one time was valued at $11 billion.
Mary Ann reported on a few high-profile govt departures this week. She broke the information that Credit score Karma co-founder Nichole Mustard could be stepping down after greater than 16 years on the firm. Mustard’s choice to step down marks the third recognized high-profile govt departure at Credit score Karma in 2023. Then she wrote about how Opendoor co-founder Eric Wu is leaving the actual property fintech firm after 9 years to get again to his startup roots. Notably, Wu has been investing in startups throughout his time at Opendoor. In keeping with Crunchbase, Wu has backed dozens of firms, together with Airtable, Scribe, Roofstock and the now-defunct Zeus Dwelling.
Over on TC+, Jacquelyn Melinek wrote about the truth that whereas Robinhood’s foray into crypto isn’t essentially new, the firm remains to be making an attempt to broaden its efforts there — even in teams which have usually strayed from the platform. “I believe crypto has at all times been made by very technical folks and for technical folks,” Johann Kerbrat, the final supervisor of crypto at Robinhood, mentioned on the Chain Response podcast. “On the finish of the day, I believe prospects, once they use crypto, they don’t actually care what’s the protocol underneath it? What’s the community that you simply’re utilizing? They simply need the factor to work.”
Different gadgets we’re studying
Google Pay so as to add BNPL choices early in 2024 (In October, Apple made Apple Pay Later obtainable to all customers in the USA, after initially releasing it to a restricted variety of customers again in March.)
Visa acquires Brazilian fintech Pismo in USD$1 billion deal (See TechCrunch protection on how the Pismo/Visa acquisition initially took place.)
Dallas’ Apex Fintech Options information for IPO in its second go-public bid
Melio rolls out real-time funds
HR tech platform Checkr strikes into funds for gig employees
Deel launches a compliance hub
Repay companions with Inexperienced Dot to allow cash-based invoice cost
Klarna plans to switch employees with AI to drive profitability
Neobank Dave’s new chatbot achieves 89% decision charge, CEO says (Head right here to learn a Q&A Mary Ann performed with Dave’s founder in March.)
Funding and M&A
As seen on TechCrunch:
SumUp faucets €285M extra in development funding to climate the fintech storm
Comun channels native banking method to serve Latino immigrants
British Worldwide Funding backs India’s Aye Finance in $37M funding
Hyperplane needs to deliver AI to banks
Kapital secures $165M in fairness, debt to offer monetary visibility to LatAm SMBs
Prevu’s residence sale course of provides credit score to residence consumers with cash-back rebates
Seen elsewhere:
Stairs Monetary platform launches to assist first-time homebuyers
Waste administration funds agency CurbWaste raises $10M
Fintech startup Pontera raises $60 mln, plans extra hiring in Israel
January closes $12M Sequence B funding
Necto raises $8M in seed funding
HSBC backs Aii’s decarbonization grant fund
E-commerce lender SellersFi secures Citi-led credit score facility
Picture Credit: Bryce Durbin
