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☆ Goldman Sachs just upgraded an AI-powered tool that's part of its plan to simplify options trading for its clients
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Goldman Sachs is building out a tool used by institutional clients for pricing derivatives. Goldman Sachs is expanding on a tool aimed at simplifying the complex world of derivatives trading for its institutional clients. At its core, Visual Structuring is making it easier to translate an idea about the markets into a potential options trading strategy. Screenshot of Goldman Sachs' Visual Structuring tool used to price options. Visual Structuring helped them explain the risk they're taking in a way that's easy to monitor and understand.

☆ Fintech dealmaking is ready for prime time
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

It seems the time has finally come for some M&A, and one group is ready to go. I wrote last week about how a couple of blockbuster deals could kick off a spree of dealmaking after a long drought. Insider's Paige Hagy and Bianca Chan identified a bunch of acquisition targets in a segment of the market that is in need of some deals: fintech. One could make the point that every industry has a backlog of potential deals, but fintech seems particularly ripe. For the complete rundown on the 16 fintech and consumer-facing deals JPMorgan has made since 2020, click here.

☆ Here's the 13-page pitch deck Stratyfy, a fintech using AI to help lenders work with the underbanked, used to raise $10 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Stratyfy uses AI to help lenders extend more credit to underbanked communities. Here's the 13-page pitch deck Stratyfy used to raise its so-called "institutional seed." Stratyfy works to help lenders eliminate biasStratyfy uses machine-learning algorithms to help lenders remove sharp cutoffs — like those based on credit history lengths or current income — that are often used in their credit decisioning. The core engine uses a lender's traditional credit data, in addition to alternative data, to offer a breakdown of factors in a given borrower's profile. Here's the pitch deck Stratyfy used to raise $10 million.

☆ 27 fintechs that could be acquisition targets, and the firms that might buy them, according to VCs, investment bankers, and analysts
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Paige Hagy | Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Why it's on the market: SMB lenders saw valuations skyrocket during the pandemic years fueled by cash-strapped businesses struggling to secure loans amid tightening lending requirements. "These sorts of businesses almost certainly got way over their skis on valuation," a partner at a California-based venture firm, told Insider. SMB lenders are potential acqui-hires or acquisition targets unless they can raise more capital, according to one New York-based partner at a large venture firm. A spokesperson for Pipe cited the fintech's hiring of Luke Voiles, a former Square and Intuit executive, as CEO earlier this year. Both experts expect to see consolidation throughout the segment, with larger consumer and SMB lenders like Ramp and Brex as potential buyers.

☆ Fintech has a fraud problem, and the onus is on you to figure it out
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Fintech's fraud misfortune. Which brings us to a story by Insider's Bianca Chan and Paige Hagy about concerns over the prevalence of fraud within consumer-facing fintechs in recent years. Click here to read more about fintech's fraud problem. We've also got the deck StellarFi, a fintech that helps users improve their credit score, used to raise $15 million. For more than 50 different decks used by fintechs to raise fresh funds, check out our library.

☆ It's becoming increasingly clear that fintech has a fraud problem
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Bianca Chan | Paige Hagy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

"With fast growth comes fast fraud," Frank McKenna, a longtime fraud expert who works with banks, lenders, and fintechs, told Insider. Cash App only requires a zip code, debit-card number, and either an email or phone number to create an account. Cash App's alleged fraud problem could also be the result of its large, active customer base, which numbers some 44 million, according to the company's 2022 annual report. The fact that Cash App offers peer-to-peer payments exacerbates the fraud issue, according to McKenna, the chief fraud strategist at Point Predictive, an anti-fraud software company. Digital-only bank Chime has had its own issues with fraud, Jason Mikula, a fintech analyst and consultant, told Insider.

☆ Goldman Sachs is exploring use cases for large language models, the same AI fueling ChatGPT. Here's 3 areas where the bank is experimenting with the tech.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Large language models, the form of AI behind ChatGPT, could transform how Wall Street does business. With advances in generative AI and large language models, the realm of possibilities have been blown way open. Argenti and Tsementzis outlined three ways Goldman is experimenting with large language models. Summarizing and extracting data from documentsGoldman's document-management process stands to improve from the use of generative AI, Argenti said. Helping engineers parse through code documentationA big time suck for software engineers is figuring out other peoples' code, Argenti said.

Employees have been working around the clock to onboard as many startups as possible in the wake of the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank. Silicon Valley Bank, which had more than $175 billion in deposits and served nearly half of US VC-backed startups, was taken over by US regulators on March 10. "That said, I am worried that this bias towards a Big Four bank is a double-edged sword," Shekar added. "SVB did not think like a big bank. They could understand your operating plan when a big bank would balk at it," Ashley Tyrner, CEO and founder of FarmBoxRX, told Insider.

"You're going to see every board member tell people to keep your money in multiple bank accounts," said Wesley Chan, cofounder and managing partner at FPV Ventures. "I'm not concerned about Bank of America," one business owner said as they left a Bank of America branch on Monday. Big banks can be less competitive, for example, on interest rates because of the security they offer. I think you'll see startups, in particular, questioning moving to the big banks given just how much more expensive it is," Matheson added. "The big banks are in very good shape, and so it probably is a stabilizing decision to move those deposits.

☆ 9 startup founders who banked with Silicon Valley Bank share where they're moving their money: 'We will not get caught like this again'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Stephanie Palazzolo | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Silicon Valley Bank's failure has left startup founders scrambling for a new home for their money. Last Friday morning, the startup founder Mang-Git Ng zipped up the interstate before sunrise to a Silicon Valley Bank branch in St. Helena, in California's wine country. Ng's plight is similar to countless other founders following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, who waited with bated breath over the weekend on whether they'd ever get their money back. DiversificationSilicon Valley Bank's collapse could forever change how startups stash their cash, at least two investors told Insider. Silicon Valley Bank had exclusivity clauses with some of its clients, according to a CNBC report, forcing them to use the firm for most or all of their banking services.

☆ A startup founder sat in an airplane bathroom trying to move his company's funds out of Silicon Valley Bank after its collapse. Here's how 7 other founders reacted to the bank's implosion.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( April Joyner | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by US regulators on Friday. It's been a chaotic day for the startup world following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. Insider spoke with eight startup founders about how they're responding to the crisis. Other founders weren't as fortunate: They still had their company's funds at Silicon Valley Bank as the FDIC announced it had taken control of the bank. A couple of early-stage founders told Insider they did not hold accounts with Silicon Valley Bank.

Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by regulators on Friday. The news has made startup founders worried that they won't be able to pay their employees next week. Startup founders still reeling from Silicon Valley Bank's implosion have something new to stress about: whether they'll be able to access enough money to cut employee paychecks next week. "Lots of startups are missing payroll in 2-4 weeks if a) Silicon Valley Bank doesn't have the deposits b) SVB doesn't get sold or c) SVB isn't rescued." "If you're a startup founder dealing with this, I'm here to help any way I can," Ayush Sharma, founder and CEO of payroll and compliance startup Warp, tweeted.

☆ More pain for the crypto industry means a chance for startups to pivot
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

After an awful 2022 that saw one of the industry's high-profile figures implode, the crypto market is looking for a bounceback. McDermott laid out to Insider's Bianca Chan and Dakin Campbell how tough times for crypto startups mean more realistic valuations and, in some cases, a reevaluation of the business model. Once of the most common critiques I hear about crypto is "It's a solution looking for a problem." The most recent crypto winter could force startups to be a bit more pragmatic about the specific problem they are looking to address. "If you can solve fraud in crypto, you can solve fraud in basically any part of finance," Meier told Insider.

☆ BNPL Sezzle had a brutal 2022. The fintech's CEO lays out its comeback plan amid a competitive field in payments.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Paige Hagy | Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Fintech Sezzle is betting on a comeback after a miserable year for not only itself but the wider buy now, pay later market. Murphy's LawTrue to Murphy's Law, anything that could go wrong did go for Sezzle, Charlie Youakim, Sezzle's CEO, told Insider. In February of 2022, Sezzle announced it would be bought by Zip, another Australian-traded BNPL. The shift leaves room for a "proliferation" of BNPL and other payment options, Savage said. That way, Sezzle can still extend credit to the customer, who can theoretically build on their credit score with short-term payments.

☆ Goldman Sachs' head of digital assets says there's still 'a little bit more pain' to come for crypto startups. Here's how he's looking for the silver lining in the industry.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Bianca Chan | Dakin Campbell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Mathew McDermott oversees Goldman Sachs' crypto and blockchain efforts. He says the worst isn't over for crypto startups. The worst isn't over yet for the crypto industry, according to Goldman Sachs' global head of digital assets. "We're going to see a little bit more pain this year as we see more people struggle" in the crypto industry, Matthew McDermott, global head of digital assets at Goldman Sachs, told Insider. But there may be a silver lining to the crypto carnage: startups running out of runway may be looking for an exit.

☆ These 8 execs are leading teams at Stripe, Apple Pay, Visa, and other top payment players to stay ahead of the competition
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Bianca Chan | Paige Hagy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Payments are off to a red-hot start in 2023, with action from big banks, Big Tech, and fintech. Insider identified the people helping established payments firms stay ahead of the innovation curve. With competition bubbling up in the payments sphere and downward macro pressure on fintechs and tech companies broadly, the rat race to come out on top has begun. For the well-established payments players looking to defend their turf, sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Here are the people at the bleeding edge of innovation at eight top payments companies.

☆ As PayPal searches for a successor for its CEO, these 6 high-profile executives could be prime candidates to run the payments giant
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Paige Hagy | Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Payments giant PayPal is in search of a new CEO. On February 9, PayPal's president and CEO, Dan Schulman, announced his plans to retire at the end of the year. The search for the new CEO comes at a critical time for the company, which has been on a cost-cutting crusade. In August 2022, PayPal estimated that savings from cost cutting would reach $1.3 billion in 2023, on the back of 2022 savings to the tune of $900 million. Insider spoke with seven analysts, VCs, and industry insiders to discuss who they think would be prime candidates to succeed Schulman.

☆ Chime is building its own version of ChatGPT to speed up its engineers' work. The fintech's CTO laid out his strategy and why he's not going with OpenAI's or Google's generative AI offerings.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Bianca Chan | Dakin Campbell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Chime is in the early stages of building its own private version of ChatGPT that is set to launch this year, Insider has learned. If done successfully, Chime would unlock a competitive advantage of launching new products and features faster and more cost efficiently. The bot uses generative AI, which refers to artificial intelligence that can produce content, from creating art to coding software for engineers. He declined to disclose hiring goals and the size of Chime's tech organization. Barrese said he sees the tech as an assistant to the engineers and said the AI won't replace engineers.

☆ Meet 12 tech execs helping top private-equity firms like Apollo and Blackstone use AI and alternative-data to cut deals
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Bianca Chan | Rebecca Ungarino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The people responsible for private-equity firms' internal tech have never been more important. Alt-data and AI capabilities are emerging as ways for firms to make deals and win new business. But that's starting to change as some of the largest PE firms take the plunge to invest in their own internal tech. Private equity has largely taken a wait-and-see approach to investing and building internal tech operations. Here is a list of top tech execs to know in the private equity industry.

☆ Private equity is finally stepping up its tech game. Here's who is leading the charge.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

What's the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the term "private equity?" PE firms do plenty of things quite well (and they are certainly compensated for their work), but their internal tech has never been a top priority. What I find most fascinating about the so-called "digitization" of PE isn't so much the actual tech but the culture. Click here to learn more about the 12 executives helping PE firms get up to speed on cutting-edge tech they can use to source and close deals. Silicon Valley Bank, which is the go-to bank for tech startups, is under pressure amid the market downturn, the Financial Times reported.

☆ Who's going to run PayPal? Industry insiders highlighted 6 potential candidates to succeed Dan Schulman at the payments giant.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Paige Hagy | Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Payments giant PayPal is in search of a new CEO. Insider spoke with seven industry experts for their thoughts on who might be tapped for the role. On February 9, PayPal's president and CEO, Dan Schulman, announced his plans to retire at the end of the year. In August 2022, PayPal estimated that savings from cost cutting would reach $1.3 billion in 2023, on the back of 2022 savings to the tune of $900 million. Insider spoke with seven analysts, VCs, and industry insiders to discuss who they think would be prime candidates to succeed Schulman.

☆ PayPal's CEO search amid an uncertain economy will be no easy task
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

In case you missed it, PayPal CEO and President Dan Schulman announced his plan to retire at the end of 2023 earlier this month. Coming off an extremely difficult 2022, and with competition seemingly coming at them from every which way, PayPal has to find a new CEO. I hesitate to compare this to the seemingly never-ending CEO search at Carlyle, but it's easy to see how a difficult quarter or two could complicate this entire search. The rich stay rich thanks to another loophole that helps them save on taxes. Elliott Management's Paul Singer and Two Sigma's David Siegel both played second fiddle to Haidar Capital's Said Haidar in 2022 when it came to comp.

☆ These 8 execs at payment powerhouses like PayPal, Stripe, and Visa are leading innovative teams and projects to stave off competition from banks and startups
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Bianca Chan | Paige Hagy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

☆ Here's who's keeping top payment players like Stripe, PayPal, and Square ahead of the competition
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Fun fact Friday: The only letter of the alphabet that doesn't appear in a US state name is "Q." There are plenty of reasons to want to get in (money changes hands A LOT, whether it's between people, companies, or both). This list from Insider's Bianca Chan and Paige Hagy looks at the people pushing top payment companies to stay ahead of the innovation curve. Bianca and Paige spoke to more than a dozen industry insiders to identify executives who are making sure companies like PayPal, Stripe, Apple, and Visa are keeping the competition at bay. Click here to check out eight executives ensuring the top payment players stay ahead of the competition.

☆ Here is the 14-page pitch deck a fintech helping SMBs get approved for loans via alt data used to raise $1.8 million from ATX Venture Partners, Rex Salisbury, and others
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Here is the deck Uplinq used to raise a $1.8 pre-seed extension round. One financial-technology startup trying to bring alternative data to small-business lending is catching the attention and dollars of some of the most notable fintech investors in the space. The latest round brings Uplinq's total funding to $5.6 million, with the startup raising its initial $3.5 million pre-seed round in April 2022. And is the credit score really an accurate reflection of their true credit worthiness?" Here's the 14-page pitch deck Uplinq used to raise $1.8 million.

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