Fintech Update, 12/6 - 12/12
Hi! It’s Monday, December 13, 2021.
The Rundown
Klarna had another busy week! The Swedish giant launched a new desktop browser extension powered by its acquisition of Piggy, which surfaces coupons and cashback offers when shoppers buy online. The browser extension allows consumers to use Klarna as a payment method even when they are not presented at checkout and automatically applies coupon codes at checkout. Furthermore, Klarna expanded its partnership with Marqeta into 13 new European markets: the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Norway, Finland and Denmark.
Visa announced that it has launched a crypto advisory practice for its clients and partners, offering advice on everything from rolling out crypto features to exploring NFTs. Visa’s head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield, said that Visa has seen “an incredible amount of inbound calls from hundreds of clients and partners and traditional financial institutions” who are “looking to integrate crypto into their offerings.” This announcement represents the payment network’s latest move to push deeper into the industry and for mainstream adoption, after making waves buying a cryptopunk NFT earlier this year and developing products geared towards stablecoins.
American Express expanded its partnership with Nova Credit so that U.S. immigrants can use their home-country credit history to apply for AmEx cards. Nova Credit's Credit Passport technology “converts foreign credit data into a score and report similar to the US underwriting process… [the] data is delivered in real time to banks and is integrated directly into Amex's online card application process.” We here at TFU are big fans of Nova Credit and really enjoy seeing this headline as it can help a large underserved group in the U.S. - immigrants and expats - as it can take “up to five years” to build an equivalent credit history in the US that they had in their previous country of residence.
As tighter regulation looms, crypto firms are beefing up their lobbying efforts. Prominent ex-regulators like the SEC’s Jay Clayton, OCC’s Brian Brooks, and CFTC’s Chris Giancarlo have joined crypto firms, and those firms spent $2.5M in lobbying between July and September of 2021, quadrupling spending over the same period in 2020. Firms are looking to preempt rules by offering their own proposals: a16z has pressed for self-regulation, while Coinbase has argued for a new industry watchdog.
Monzo raised $500 million in funding at a $4.5 billion valuation (3x the down round earlier this year). While we covered this story when the rumors surfaced in late October, it is now confirmed - quite the bounce back for Monzo, which has had a tough year including raising a down round, reporting a £115 million annual loss, and abandoning plans to acquire a US bank charter.
Nubank raised $2.6 billion in a U.S. initial public offering at an implied valuation of $41.4 billion, making it the most valuable financial institution in Latin America. Shares closed up nearly 15% in its market debut giving the company a market cap of ~$50 billion.
Whatsapp is piloting cryptocurrency payments in the US, using Novi’s digital wallet and facilitating payments in Paxos’s stablecoin. Pour one out for Libra.
Affirm launched a Cash Back Rewards program, which will give consumers the “option to pay in full upfront at hundreds of merchants while earning rewards in the process.”
Afterpay and Rakuten are teaming up to launch a program that combines Afterpay’s flexible payment schedules with Rakuten’s cash-back rewards.
UK based BNPL provider Butter became the latest company in the space to launch a physical card that will allow customers to spread out the cost of purchases anywhere.
Crypto company Ledger, which is best known for its hardware wallets, is launching a crypto debit card. The Crypto Life card will give card users the ability to pay cryptocurrency to more than 50 million retailers and online stores.
The New Yorker checked in on James Howell, the Welshman who lost ~$500M in bitcoin to his local landfill.
More fundings:
Resolve, the BNPL for B2B transactions, raised $25M in an equity funding round led by Insight partners.
Tipalti, the company which automates accounts payable, raised $270 million in Series F funding at an $8.3 billion valuation.
Lydia, the aspirational French super app, raised $100 million in Series C funding at a ~$1 billion valuation.
Mobile banking service for US immigrants MAJORITY raised $27 million in Series A funding.
AML software provider Hummingbird raised $30 million in a Series B funding round led by Battery Ventures.
London payroll automation provider Pento raised $35 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Tiger.
Automated crypto investing platform for passive investing Stacked raised $35 million in Series A funding.
Pleo, the Danish business expense management tool provider for SMBs, raised $200 million in new funding at a $4.7 billion valuation.
Corporate spend and cash management solution provider Rho raised $75 million in Series B funding.
Conversational AI and NLP technology development company Posh raised $27.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Canapi Ventures.
Developer of identity devtools Burrata raised $7.75 million in a seed funding round which included participation from Stripe.
Hong-Kong based fintech WeLab, provider of virtual banking and consumer financing solutions, raised $240 million in new funding and acquired Bank Jasa Jakarta, an Indonesian commercial bank.
Cloud-native core banking system Mambu raised $266 million in new funding at a $5.5 billion valuation.