REPORT
Buy now pay later (BNPL) has become an important part of consumers’ purchase decisions and payment behaviour, and the industry has reached a critical stage of development.
👉Read the full report by Francesco Burelli, Steven Jacob, and Oliver Leimbach here.
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Forever21’s parent company sues Bolt but settles for becoming a shareholder.
A lawsuit that was filed against one-click checkout startup Bolt by one of its biggest customers will be dismissed as the two parties have agreed on a settlement.
And interestingly, that same customer — Authentic Brands Group — is now a shareholder of the company.
👉 Link to the full article here.
📰 ARTICLE
Loflin and Odima founded Tabbi as a social mobile app and fintech platform mixed together, which the team refers to as a “social fintech.”
This addresses two main pain points associated with going out for a night on the town: How can you best meet up with someone and how do you split the bill at the end of the night?
👉 Link to the full article here.
💬 INTERVIEW
💬 INTERVIEW
“This is not a turnaround. This is not a reset of everything. It’s about connecting the ingredients,” Chime CMO Vineet Mehra said of the new role.
Vineet Mehra joined Chime as the challenger bank’s chief marketing officer at the end of May.
How do we take Chime from having lots of great pieces, which I’m very humbled and very honored to lead, and connect all of this into a full-stack modern marketing machine? It’s a rallying cry that I call performance storytelling.
👉Read the full American Banker interview article here.
💡INSIGHTS
Meta recently announced that it was rebranding its payments system Facebook Pay to Meta Pay, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg promising future metaverse-friendly features.
But how close is Meta Pay to realising this?
👉Read the full article here.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🇺🇸 NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️OppZo, Inc. announces over $260M in debt and equity funding. Link here.
⭐️Stake closed a $12m Series A financing round. Link here.
⭐️Crescent raised $5M in Pre-seed funding. Link here.
⭐️Neomoon closed its $850k seed funding. Link here.
👀 Are you interested in funding news from the FinTech space?
💡 Read all about it in my weekly overview article and get the latest funding news from the global FinTech space in your inbox every week.
PAYMENTS
Kasheesh, has launched in the US allowing users to split payment of online purchases across combinations of debit and credit cards, without added costs or interest increases. Link here.
Usio Inc. sent a letter to shareholders announcing that New Jersey partner Voyager Digital is hitting the brakes on trading, deposits and withdrawals — which could cause Usio's revenue to take a hit. Link here.
Stripe announced that Revolut will use Stripe to support payments in the UK and Europe and accelerate its expansion into new markets. Link here.
Finli closed a $6m Seed funding round. The company intends to use the funds to expand the team and business banking capabilities, moving towards becoming a holistic financial services solution. Link here.
BNPL
Openpay hits pause on U.S. market as interest rates climb. Link here.
CRYPTO
Meta is officially closing all accounts on its digital wallet, Novi. The closing of Novi can be interpreted as a move away from cryptocurrency for Meta, though there is still an indication that it will use the technology from the financial app in future projects. Link here.
The U.S. federal government is working on stablecoin legislation with Congress that could become law by the end of the year. Link here.
Block Inc.’s Cash App has added a new feature that will allow users to invest their spare change in Bitcoin and stocks. Link here.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network does not consider cryptocurrencies to be legal tender but considers cryptocurrency exchanges to be money transmitters on the basis that cryptocurrency tokens are “other value that substitutes for currency.” Link here.
BLOCKCHAIN / DEFI
PennyWorks raised $2M in Pre-Seed funding. The company intends to use the funds to bring the platform to market, as well as to expand platform development. Link here.
INVESTMENT
The embattled startup, Better.com, announced several new hires of senior executives, including a new chief growth officer and a new head of sales. In case you missed it, Better.com has seen a flurry of execs depart the company in recent months during which it let go thousands of workers across multiple rounds of layoffs. Link here.
Knox Financial plans to expand its lending business and loan products with $50 million in funding it received from a real estate advisory firm. Link here.
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