Weekly Fintech Newsletter | 2021 #8
I’m looking for early-stage FinTech startups:
⭐️ (Open-) Banking and Payments
⭐️ (Pre-) Seed stage
⭐️ Global
Are you interested to have me as an investor?
CHAT
John Detrixhe, Senior Reporter at 🇺🇸Quartz, Chung-Man Tam, SVP Product Development at 🇺🇸Affirm, and Jason Mikula, Publisher at 🇳🇱Fintech Business Weekly, hosting a 🇺🇸Clubhouse chat on "Does buy now, pay later make business better?" - Thurs, Mar 25 at 11:00 am US Eastern Time.
👉 Join the event here.
PODCAST
Listen to what Hubert Rachwalski, CEO at 🇵🇱Nethone, and Floor Tuinstra, Head of Product at 🇩🇰UBsend, had to say about the future of this payment method, where the fraud is in all of this, and what to expect in 2021.
👉 Listen here.
If you haven’t checked it out, we highly recommend you listen to the Crowdfunding Champions Podcast hosted by Rob Wilson. This episode’s guest is Phil Zeidler, Co-Founder of 🇬🇧DeadHappy. 🇬🇧DeadHappy raised over £2.7 M from 1,200 investors on Seedrs.
👉 Listen here.
FINTECH MAPS
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S FINTECH SPACE
FINTECH SPOTLIGHT
Throwback to 2020’s breaking 🇩🇪Wirecard story: Where is Jan Marsalek?
Check out the full 🇺🇸Bloomberg Quicktake report video ”The Double Life of Wirecard’s Fugitive Executive”.
👉 Watch here.
FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
OEM Pay contactless transactions, driven by 🇺🇸Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and 🇺🇸Google Pay will reach more than $1 trillion in 2022, finds Kaleido Intelligence. Link here.
Fintech services in the Netherlands had the highest rate of digital adoption by consumers in Europe, at 73%. Link here.
In 2020, e-commerce in the Netherlands amounted to €26,6 billion which is 7% more than in 2019 Ecommerce News has found. The rise in online shopping by Dutch consumers is directly linked to the COVID-19 outbreak. Link here.
Read the FinTech Futures ICYMI funding round article. Link here.
Based on the Office Of National Statistics data, the research shows that if both men and women started investing in 2020, men would make a £1,147 greater return on their investments. Link here.
The Y Combinator Winter 2021 batch has been record-breaking for Latin America, with 28 companies making the cut. Link here.
In Brazil, 56% of consumers claim to struggle when it comes to saving money, a survey held by the platform 🇧🇷Acordo Certo, a fintech-focused on online negotiating debts, found out. Link here.
OPEN BANKING
🇬🇧BOPP Payments, a brand-new payment platform that removes the need for cards, and uses Open Banking to facilitate immediate, secure payments directly from one bank account to another. Link here.
PAYMENTS
Due to the integration between 🇺🇸Flutterwave and 🇺🇸Paypal, Flutterwave merchants in Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique & Senegal are able to easily accept payments from PayPal users worldwide. Link here.
🇨🇦Mobi724 Global Solutions Inc., a fintech enabler of AI-enhanced payment card-linked incentives, announces that on March 18, 2021, it signed a binding term sheet with 🇨🇦Keira Capital Partners Inc. to jointly implement a commercialization strategy for the Chilean market. Link here.
🇬🇧Wise Ltd., a $5 billion-valued money transfer fintech that grew out of the UK, is reportedly mulling a rare direct listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). Link here.
🇬🇧Perkbox, Europe’s rapidly growing ‘employee experience’ platform, has united with 🇦🇺Zip Co to provide flexible payment solutions on shopping for employees. Link here.
🇲🇽Higo is out to transform B2B payments for SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) in Latin America, starting with its home country. Link here.
🇺🇸TomoCredit, Inc., a new startup offering access to credit for millions without credit histories, announced the launch of the TomoCredit Mastercard, a high limit offering that does not require FICO or soft or hard inquiries to apply. Link here.
🇺🇸Sincere Financial Ltd, a Californian start-up, is gearing up to launch a debit card for “pet parents”. Link here.
BNPL
Corporate executives are talking more than ever about “buy now pay later”—the slick digital lending that is a hit with Gen Z and millennial shoppers. Link here.
The 🇦🇺Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has launched its own buy-now-pay-later product, two years after the bank first dipped its toes in the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) waters with a strategic investment in 🇸🇪Klarna. Link here.
INVESTMENTS
One of the biggest gripes about investing apps is that they are not acting responsibly by not educating users properly and allegedly letting them fend for themselves. Link here.
Millennials and Gen Zers seem interested in investing more than ever these days. As a result, a number of startups have emerged in recent years to give them more options. Link here.
🇨🇳 Tencent has suffered a two-day decline in share prices worth $65 billion as investors worry the firm is the next target of regulatory scrutiny. Link here.
🇮🇱 eToro, which made its name with the social trading feature, is planning for a merger with a blank-check acquisition company to publicly list its shares on Nasdaq. Link here.
CRYPTO
Crypto infrastructure provider 🇺🇸Fireblocks has raised $133 million in a Series C funding round to fuel its efforts to bring traditional banks and fintechs into the digital asset arena. Link here.
🇺🇸Gemini announced this week that it now has more than $20 billion in cryptocurrency under custody. Link here.
Cryptocurrency exchange 🇦🇺Coinstash.com.au has announced hopes to leverage a multimillion-dollar raise to evolve into what they aim will become Australia’s first all-in-one cryptocurrency platform. Link here.
FUNDING
🇫🇮Enfuce has raised €7 million in Seris B funding, including a €5 million investment from Chinese behemoth Tencent. Link here.
NFT marketplace 🇺🇸OpenSea raises $23m in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Link here.
🇦🇺Zeller, an early-stage fintech start-up founded by the former local boss of Jack Dorsey’s payments technology company Square, has banked a $25 million funding round led by a top Silicon Valley investor before it has even launched its new product. Link here.
🇦🇺SumUp has scooped a €750m debt facility from both new and existing investors. Link here.
🇺🇸Chime has held preliminary talks with investment banks about launching a stock market flotation, which could value the financial services startup at more than $30 billion, as soon as the end of 2021, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Link here.
FOUNDERS & INVESTORS
🇺🇸Flourish Ventures has opened a new office based in Nairobi as it targets to invest in startups across Africa who are building fintech solutions for consumers and small businesses. Link here.
🇦🇺Capdesk, an equity management platform, has raised a £5 million Series A extension led by Fidelity International Strategic Ventures and MiddleGameVentures. Link here.
As recessions commenced in 2020, younger companies with fewer capital reserves to insulate them from external black swan events such as the global pandemic were expected to struggle the most. Nonetheless, new angel & seed startups tackling rapidly evolving challenges demonstrated resilience as they built their valuations and secured capital from investors seeking the next big opportunity. Link here.
🇬🇧Forward Advances, the revenue-based finance subsidiary of early-stage venture fund Forward Partners, announced a raise of £2.2m and the appointment of a new leadership team, to provide bespoke fundraising for entrepreneurs. Link here.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS:
JOB ALERT: Store Manager – Experience Center, Amsterdam - myPOS Netherlands B.V. Link here.
🇦🇺Cape has bolstered its leadership team once more, appointing Tanya Ward as its first CFO. Link here.
🇺🇸Robinhood has hired former Google executive Aparna C. as its first chief product officer. Link here.
🇩🇪Dreams announced the appointment of Lucia Hegenbartova as its new Chief Commercial Officer. Link here.
Building a successful startup is a huge challenge. Only 1% of startups have a future. What are three of the biggest challenges that every young company has to face in order to succeed in the market? Link here.
🇳🇱Ohpen announced the addition of Leni Boeren to its supervisory board. Link here.
🇳🇴Opera has hired PayPal and WeChatPay veteran Allen Hu to run its recently launched fintech arm, Dify. Link here.
This ends my weekly digital fintech newsletter. Thank you for reading to the end! If you liked it, I invite you to like, share and/or leave a comment below. You may find more information regarding my newsletter here.
If there is anything else you think I’m missing, please don’t hesitate to reach out by email at bonjour@marcelvanoost.nl.
If you are looking for my weekly digital banking newsletter (the one divided by regions), you may find it here.
Let me know if there are any questions or news/insights worth mentioning in next week's newsletter. Until the next!
Regards,
Marcel van Oost