REPORT
Jake Anderson has conducted a recent consumer research study on NFTs and Web3, surveying 5,118 consumers.
👉 Check out the results here.
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Fintech Meetup, the breakout U.S. fintech event which was founded by event industry disruptors and fintech industry insiders, Anil D. Aggarwal and Simran Rekhi Aggarwal, announced that the next Fintech Meetup will take place in person at the Aria, Las Vegas, on March 19-22, 2023.
The 2023 in-person event follows incredibly successful virtual Fintech Meetup launch events that facilitated more than 50,000 online meetings for over 4,000 individuals from over 2,000 organizations.
👉 Read more here.
🔦 Would you like to bring your company/service to the attention of tens of thousands of FinTech enthusiasts?
👉 Sponsor my newsletters and/or podcast episodes!
📊 INFOGRAPHIC
The payfac model continues to gain popularity as a preferred model for enabling payments.
👉 Read the full Flagship Advisory Partners article by Joel Van Arsdale here.
📰 ARTICLE
How Greenwood Became the Most Hyped Startup in Black America
Founders Paul Judge and Ryan Glover knew little about banking, but 700,000 believers joined their exclusive waitlist. So can their fintech company actually repair centuries of racist banking?
👉 Read the full Bloomberg article Brett Pulley and Jordyn Holman here.
👨💻 BLOG
💡INSIGHTS
2022 marks Andreessen Horowitz's third year releasing the Marketplace 100, a ranking of the largest consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies.
The third edition of the Marketplace 100 uncovers the top companies and categories of the year, and also highlights how each startup’s ranking has changed since 2021.
Read the full article, with more stats and figures, by Olivia Moore and Brandon Barros here.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🇺🇸 NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Check out Financial Technology Partners / FT Partners latest FinTech industry research: “The Blockchain Economy”. Link here.
⭐️ Brex has acquired Y Combinator-backed Pry Financials for $90 million, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. Link here.
⭐️ Impression Ventures, a Toronto and Montreal, Canada-based venture capital firm, raised $64m for its fourth Fintech fund. Link here.
⭐️ In 2021, Miami-headquartered companies raised a record $2.6 billion across more than 150 disclosed-size seed through late-stage rounds. The pace looks to be accelerating in 2022, with over $1 billion invested across at least 67 disclosed rounds. Link here.
😇 Do you want to have access to the best deal flow in FinTech? And/or do you want to invest alongside me and 1000+ other FinTech Angel investors?
👉 Join my Angel Investors Syndicate!
DIGITAL BANKING
A banking app built for online creators, Creative Juice announced its $50 million fund to underwrite creator businesses. Link here.
Cross River’s one-stop-shop technology opens up the first personal loans for U.S. Revolut consumers, with more offerings slated to launch in the coming months. Link here.
Welcome Tech, a startup aiming to build “an operating system” for immigrant families in the U.S., has raised $30 million in new capital to help these individuals not only adjust to but feel comfortable and “thrive” in their new environment. Link here.
VC FUNDS
Andreessen Horowitz has advised numerous (FinTech-) startups from seed to pre-IPO on how and when to raise debt.
In this post, they cover the most common questions we hear, starting with the basics of how debt works, before breaking down the different debt options available at different stages and the current ecosystem of lenders.
👉 Read the full article here.
PAYMENTS
Mark Zuckerberg — or rather, his avatar — excitedly extolled the potential of a virtual marketplace last week on Meta video, giving the world a first glimpse of the company's plans for payments after it sold off the assets of its Diem stablecoin. Link here.
Ugami, a Miami, FL-based provider of a financial rewards solution for gamers, raised $4.8M in Seed funding. Link here.
Dwolla, a fintech company powering innovation with sophisticated account-to-account payment solutions, announced the release of Virtual Account Numbers (VANs), a highly anticipated feature to unlock the connection between banks and fintechs. Link here.
BNPL
Slope announced a new round of funding, $24 million in Series A financing, co-led by Union Square Ventures and Monashees, with participation from Tiger Global Management, Global Founders Capital and a group of founders and executives. The new investment gives the company total funding of $32 million. Link here.
CRYPTO
Coinbase (COIN) is launching its long-awaited NFT marketplace Wednesday with a focus on trying to create a social community for buyers and sellers. Link here.
E-commerce checkout fintech Bolt is to acquire crypto infrastructure provider Wyre as the firm looks to “decentralise and democratise commerce” through integrating Wyre’s crypto stack, giving developers blockchain protocols to build financial crypto products. Link here.
Step, the all-in-one financial solution for the next generation, announced a waitlist and unveiled plans for its new crypto and stock investment product, becoming the first financial app that will allow both teens under 18 and young adults to buy, sell, hold and receive crypto. Link here.
METAVERSE
The metaverse is one of the hottest buzzwords in tech, and this far-reaching vision of a next-gen internet will rely upon an entire ecosystem of companies to make it a reality. CB Insights cuts through the noise to explain what the metaverse is, how it's being built, and who's building it. Link here.
INVESTMENT
Splitero, a San Diego, CA-based financial services company giving access to home equity, secured $5.8m in seed funding. Link here.
GIG ECONOMY
Formations, a Bellevue, WA-based financial management solution that maximizes the financial wellbeing of the self-employed, closed an $8m Series A funding. Link here.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
DriveWealth, LLC, a pioneer in fractional investing and embedded finance, announced the appointment of Gayathri Rajan as Chief Product Officer (CPO), and Harshal Deo as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Link here.
If you are a fintech startup and have over 100 questions send me an email, maybe I can answer a few.