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☆ Brex: 2024 CNBC Disruptor 50
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-14 | by ( Cnbc.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Since SVB, Brex has continued to invest in differentiated services, including AI-powered tools to help streamline expense reporting, booking and management capabilities, accounts payable and procurement management. Within 36 hours, Brex signed up nearly 4,000 companies, taking in close to $2 billion in deposits. It has since backtracked on that position, and has doubled down on its roots serving tech startups. The spend management space has become more crowded, with fellow Disruptors Ramp and Navan, as well as Expensify, Mesh Payments, Airbase and Center competing for market share. Tech companies laid off more than 191,000 workers in 2023 — a trend that has continued into 2024.

Persons: Brex, Henrique Dubugras, Pedro Francheschi, Francheschi, Ben Gammell, PitchBook Organizations: Ribbit, DST, San, Airbase, Center, Tech Locations: Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Navan

☆ Kasa Living, which partners with KKR and TPG, wants to become the Amazon of hospitality. See the 33-page slideshow it used to raise $70 million
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Kasa Living has made a habit of raising funds at some of the hardest times for the hospitality and proptech industries. Kasa Living CEO and founder Roman Pedan points to the shares of Marriott and Hilton, which are up over the last five years, as an indication of what Kasa could be. Kasa Living is now working with some investment firms to help locate and buy buildings that Kasa Living will operate, a model known as OpCo/PropCo. Instead of having to hire someone to handle bookings and finances for each property, Kasa Living handles it all centrally, "removing that fixed cost." Some financial information has been redacted from the deck by Kasa Living.

Persons: Roman Pedan, Kasa, Pedan, Pendan Organizations: Marriott, Hilton, KKR, Sonder, TPG, Amazon Web, Citi Ventures, FirstMark, New York Life Ventures, Fireside Investments, RET, Zigg, Ribbit, EBay, Kasa Locations: Brookfield

At stake is the role of a wide spectrum of players, from fintech firms to card companies and established banks. Walmart's Fintech startup One is now offering BNPL loans in Secaucus, New Jersey. Buy now, pay later has gained popularity with consumers for everyday items as well as larger purchases. A Capital One Walmart credit card sign is seen at a store in Mountain View, California, United States on Tuesday, November 19, 2019. Meanwhile, Walmart said last year when its lawsuit became public that it would soon announce a new credit card option with "meaningful benefits and rewards."

Persons: Joe Raedle, Goldman Sachs, Omer Ismail, Hugh Son, BNPL, Jason Mikula, Amazon's, Karma, John Furner, John David Rainey, Dot, " Rainey, Rainey, Morgan Stanley, Walmart's, Yichuan Cao Organizations: Walmart, Getty, CNBC, New Jersey Walmart, Apple, Electronics, Adobe Analytics, Bank of Walmart, Robinhood, Walmart U.S, Coastal Community Bank, Capital, PayPal Locations: Hallandale Beach , Florida, Bentonville , Arkansas, Manhattan, Secaucus , New Jersey, New Jersey, U.S, Mountain View , California, United States

☆ Bitcoin's next gen tokens are here. Inside the Silicon Valley hacker house where 17 coders helped build the new memecoin market
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-22 | by ( Mackenzie Sigalos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

Magic Eden coders gathered in an Airbnb in San Jose, California, to hack in preparation for the so-called bitcoin halving. Their goal was to spend a week hacking to prepare for the so-called bitcoin halving — an event that is baked into the chain's code and helps to stave off inflation through programmatic monetary policy. watch nowTechnically speaking, runes just enables asset issuance of fungible tokens on bitcoin's base chain. The reason this is significant to developers is because of its efficiency relative to existing BRC-20 tokens, bitcoin's widely-used fungible token standard that has already received a ton of traction. "There's definitely been an awakening of capital interest in the bitcoin layer two space," said Muneeb Ali, who co-founded Stacks — an open-source blockchain network that brings smart contracts to bitcoin.

Persons: Eden coders, Amil Husain, Magic Eden, Bitcoin, Eden's, Zedd Yin, Eden's coders, Yin, blockchain, Casey Rodarmor, Rodarmor, Casey, Nic Carter, Bill Barhydt, bitcoin, Barhydt, I've, Carter, PitchBook, There's, Muneeb Ali, Ali, Christopher Calicott, Amil Husain DeFi, Hong Fang, Fang, Goldman Sachs, Stacks's Ali Organizations: East Foothills, Fighter, Engineers, solana, Island Ventures, Venture, CNBC, Magic Eden, Austin, Trammell Venture Partners, Labs, Ribbit Capital Locations: San Jose , California, U.S, Northern California, solana, ethereum, Abra, bitcoin, San Jose, Bitcoin

☆ Revolut strikes share deal with SoftBank to remove barrier to UK licence - FT
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The logo of SoftBank Group Corp is displayed at SoftBank World 2017 conference in Tokyo, Japan, July 20, 2017. Revolut and SoftBank had been locked in months of negotiations, with the Japanese investor demanding stiff compensation for giving up its priority class of shares, the report said. The fintech startup can only win a UK banking license if it gets rid of preference shares held by investors including SoftBank. The standoff was one of the reasons Revolut could not immediately get a banking license. The BOE and SoftBank did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment on the report, while Revolut and the FCA declined to comment.

Persons: Issei Kato, Revolut, SoftBank, The BOE, Akanksha, Maju Samuel Organizations: SoftBank, REUTERS, Financial Times, Bank of England, Tiger Global Management, Balderton, Ribbit, Financial, Authority, The, Thomson Locations: Tokyo, Japan, TCV, Bengaluru

☆ India’s fintech partygoers nurse a needed hangover
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-11 | by ( Shritama Bose | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

MUMBAI, Sept 11 (Reuters Breakingviews) - India’s financial technology industry is suffering from overindulgence. And it was on full display at a sombre Global Fintech Festival in Mumbai last week. The South Asian country is the world’s third-largest fintech market by number of unicorns. Poster child Byju’s is squabbling with lenders as investors walk away and financial reports get delayed. Follow @ShritamaBose on XCONTEXT NEWSThe Global Fintech Fest organised by the National Payments Corporation of India and industry association Payments Council of India was held between Sept. 5 and 7 in Mumbai.

Persons: securitisation, ’, hesitatingly, Vishwas Patel, they’re, fintechs, Mukesh Ambani’s, Antony Currie, Katrina Hamlin, Thomas Shum Organizations: Reuters, Founders, Boston Consulting Group, Venture, Reserve Bank, One97 Communications, FSN, Commerce Ventures, Innoven Triple Blue Capital, XV Partners, Financial, National Payments Corporation of India, Thomson Locations: MUMBAI, Mumbai, India, fintech, Sequoia Capital’s India, Southeast Asia, Rwanda, Japan, Germany, Peru

☆ Walmart pumps $200 mln in Indian fintech PhonePe in ongoing fundraise
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BENGALURU, March 17 (Reuters) - Indian digital payments firm PhonePe said on Friday it has raised $200 million from majority backer Walmart Inc (WMT.N) at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion. PhonePe, already India's most valuable payments firm and among the country's most highly-valued startups, said the investment is part of its ongoing fundraise of up to $1 billion. American retail behemoth Walmart, which acquired a majority share in PhonePe in 2018, will continue as a majority investor, the Indian company said, without disclosing its stake. PhonePe said it plans to deploy these funds to build and scale new businesses including insurance, wealth management and lending. The relocation, according to some reports, was to ensure an easier entry into the country's highly-regulated financial services industry, especially lending.

☆ The unraveling of fintech darling Vise
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +28 min

It was April, and more than two dozen salespeople who worked for the fintech startup Vise had been ordered to a multiday off-site at the W Hoboken hotel in New Jersey to share exhaustive reports on their performance. Even salespeople at bigger, established, top-tier investment-management firms typically wouldn't close $250 million in a year, multiple sales employees said. (K-means clustering is an unsupervised machine-learning algorithm often referred to as a form of AI, Vise's founders said). (Vise's founders disputed this, saying the company received updated financial data only once a day for its portfolio-construction engine.) And to address its "leaky funnel" of overestimating prospective sales, Vise was to stop outreach to new clients while it onboards and upsells to existing clients, the document said.

☆ Indian digital payments firm PhonePe raises $100 mln at $12 bln valuation
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BENGALURU, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Indian digital payments firm (WMT.N) PhonePe said on Tuesday it has raised $100 million from Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global and TVS Capital Funds in a funding round that valued the Walmart Inc-backed company at $12 billion. The latest round is part of PhonePe's primary fundraise that took place last month through which the company raised $350 million from General Atlantic. Having raised $450 million in six weeks, PhonePe said it expects to raise the rest from global and Indian investors in due course. Despite a funding winter, the Indian digital payments space has been a bright spot due to the popularity of online payments and startups' ambitions to branch into the lucrative financial services space. PhonePe, in which U.S. retail giant Walmart has had a majority stake since 2018, completed its separation from Indian e-commerce major Flipkart last year.

☆ Walmart-backed fintech startup plans to launch its own buy now, pay later loans
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Melissa Repko | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Buy now, pay later allows customers to gradually pay off a purchase with fixed monthly payments, along with interest. The news about the Walmart-backed startup's interest in buy now, pay later was first reported by The Information. Buy now, pay later has become a more crowded space, with companies including Affirm, PayPal , Klarna and AfterPay all offering their own versions. Apple also announced plans to launch its own buy now, pay later option, Apple Pay Later. Ahead of last holiday season, it ended its layaway program and replaced it with the buy now, pay later financing.

☆ Walmart plans to offer BNPL loans through its fintech venture - report
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Dec 8 (Reuters) - The fintech venture backed by Walmart Inc (WMT.N) is planning to launch buy now, pay later loans as soon as next year, the Information reported on Thursday, citing three people familiar with the matter. Walmart did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The retail giant last year entered a strategic partnership with investment firm Ribbit Capital to create the fintech startup, known as "One". Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak DasguptaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Leaked memo: Here's how Walmart is enticing its 1.6 million employees to sign up for its newly acquired online bank
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Ben Tobin | Carter Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

But some Walmart employees are skeptical. A Walmart employee from Michigan who wished to remain anonymous asked, "What does Walmart get out of this?" The memo sent from One to Walmart employees specified that users aren't required to have a One account to get their paychecks from Walmart. The rollout of One to Walmart employees comes as current users of the neobank have expressed frustration that features they liked have disappeared in the wake of the acquisition. Many said they received little or no communication about changes to their accounts and described fears of being left behind as One execs turned their attention to Walmart employees and customers.

☆ Google's former payments chief just unveiled his plans for a digital family office that relies on AI and already has $90 million in funding from backers like Ribbit Capital and Coatue
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Caesar Sengupta spent 15 years at Google and was its payments chief before leaving in 2021. Arta is backed by investors such as Sequoia Capital India and Ribbit Capital. Sengupta left Google in April of last year with seven other Google employees to start Arta: Charles Dong, Chirag Yagnik, David Shapiro, Edward Chiang, Felix Lin, Mark Striebeck, and Zelidrag Hornung. "This is so different from what Google does, we left and Google was extremely supportive," said Sengupta. Sengupta and other former Google executives on the Arta team left in the midst of a series of exits of high-ranking Google employees.

☆ Google veteran launches 'digital family office' backed by Betsy Cohen, Eric Schmidt
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Hannah Lang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Nov 2 (Reuters) - Arta Finance, a fintech that aims to replicate the family office experience for a wider audience through artificial intelligence, debuted on Wednesday with $90 million in funding from investors who include Betsy Cohen and former Google (GOOGL.O) chief Eric Schmidt. While family offices cater to those with hundreds of millions in assets, Arta is targeting those with $100,000 to several million dollars in investable assets, Sengupta said. BNY Mellon's (BK.N) Pershing will serve as Arta's broker and custodian and offer credit lines to eligible investors. "We're actually really trying hard to scale as much as we can to get to as many people who we can serve," said Sengupta. Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Lananh Nguyen and Cynthia OstermanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ A Walmart-backed fintech has been making changes to an online bank it acquired. Long-standing customers are getting fed up.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Carter Johnson | Ben Tobin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

But once the Walmart-backed fintech venture Hazel acquired One and adopted its moniker in January, some of the features that drew Gastley to the bank disappeared. The page has become, in some cases, the first place customers turn to for information about product changes. (Like most neobanks, One has partnered with a sponsor bank, the Washington-based Coastal Community Bank, to provide financial services.) But then One customers received an email from the bank on May 12: It would be closing current credit lines, effective immediately. That's not the only change to Pockets for which Joseph, who has dozens of the virtual bank accounts, didn't receive a notification about, he said.

☆ Treasury management startup Payflows raises $5.5 million in round co-led by Coinbase-backer Ribbit Capital
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Ribbit Capital has co-led a $5.5 million round into French startup Payflows, Insider understands. Payflows, which is still in stealth mode, is developing treasury management software. Payflows, a fintech startup focused on treasury management, has raised $5.5 million in a round co-led by US investing giant Ribbit Capital, Insider understands. Coinbase and Plaid-backer Ribbit co-led the round, four sources familiar with the deal told Insider. "We are excited to partner with amazing finance teams of top European scale-ups to build the next-gen treasury management software," she said.

☆ Special interest groups representing Amazon to Uber oppose possible crypto regulation in California
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Caroline Haskins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Industry groups representing Amazon, Apple, Block, Coinbase, Genesis, Google, GrubHub, Lyft, Facebook/Meta, Uber, and other companies wrote to the state assembly opposing the law. Nine organizations representing consumers and advocating for economic justice wrote to the state assembly expressing support for the law. Several tech industry groups representing major companies and venture capital firms wrote in to oppose the law. Several organizations advocating for consumers and economic justice wrote to the state assembly expressing support for the law. Interest groups argued that regulation presents an "undue burden"on crypto companiesBlockchain Advocacy CoalitionThe Blockchain Advocacy Coalition wrote to Assemblymember Grayson on August 26.

☆ Walmart's secretive fintech ONE is the new disruptor in consumer banking, and the retailer has nabbed talent from Wall Street mainstays like Goldman Sachs.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Aaron Weinman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

In January last year, the retailer said it was pursuing a partnership with venture-capital firm Ribbit Capital, which backed Robinhood. The next month, Walmart lured Omer Ismail and David Stark, two executives from Goldman Sachs' Marcus, over to work on a fintech initiative. Insider's Ann Gehan, Carter Johnson, and Ben Tobin have identified the key people shaping this effort at its fintech called ONE. Done deals :Acrisure, a fintech company that operates an insurance broker and real-estate services company, has acquired B2Z Insurance. Aditxt, a biotech company developing tech around monitoring the immune system, raised $20 million after selling 3.33 million shares on Nasdaq.

Leadership has come to ONE from firms like Goldman Sachs, Apple, and Lyft. Meet the 13 key leaders manning the helm of ONE, from C-suiters to product-and-engineering talent. Legacy banks are also increasingly responding to the threat from fintech startups with varying levels of success. From JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America to Marcus, top financial firms have revamped digital offerings throughout the pandemic and emphasized tech-forward approaches. The departures of key executives leading these changes, then, can have consequences for incumbent players.

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