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Hi all, Julie here.

Writing this at 6am since WE CLOSE ON OUR HOUSE TODAY! I have to say, the worst part of the mortgage process wasn’t all the paperwork, it was getting all of our money into one account and then wiring it to the correct party. Woof. Talk about stress. Orum et al working on real time payments, I salute you.

Lastly, Charley and I had a good recap of Robinhood’s first day of trading yesterday, so we’ll skip covering that in the news today. Only new thing I’ll point out is that apparently Ark’s Cathie Wood is bullish on the company and scooped up a bunch of shares. Guess this means I own Robinhood too since I own some Ark funds.

Today's Partner, Socure

Have you heard? Socure, the leading provider of digital identity verification and trust solutions, yesterday announced the introduction of several technologies as it further expands its KYC solution, used by 4 of the top 5 banks, 100 of the largest Fintechs, and 7 of the top 10 credit issuers.

Socure’s reinvented KYC solution enables progressive organizations to onboard customers in the hard-to-identify demographics faster, reduce abandonment and drop-off rates, and verify key population segments that are signing up for services for the first time. Their unique, unparalleled accuracy and coverage deliver auto-approval rates of up to 98% for mainstream populations, and up to 94% for the hard-to-identify populations such as Gen Z, millennial, credit invisible, thin-file, gender neutral, and new-to-country.

So, is your KYC/CIP vendor helping or hurting your growth? Schedule a call to gauge where your solution stands now.

Company News

Marqeta x Google

Big news for Marqeta, with the issuing platform announcing it will power the new virtual Google Pay balance card. Could mean that Square will start making up a smaller portion of Marqeta’s revenue too, which will give investors some ease. The new product will let users spend their Google Pay balance through a virtual card tokenized into a mobile wallet and used at accepting merchants. Before this, Google Pay balance users could use their balance for person-to-person payments, purchases on YouTube, or they could transfer their funds to their bank account. And in case you missed it, here is my podcast with Marqeta CEO and Founder Jason Gardner.

Bad News For Monzo

The British challenger bank disclosed that it’s facing a potential civil and criminal money laundering investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The firm also made some financial disclosures. The good? Customer deposits more than doubled to £3.1B. The bad? Monzo reported a £130M loss ($181.68M) for the year to February, up from £114M the previous year, and fewer customers were using their accounts on a weekly basis - 55%, down from 60%.

Viral Fintech

Not news, but a great story by Anna from Reuters talking about how fintech companies are trying to “go viral.”

Funding and Deals

Mercury’s Interesting Funding Move

Business bank Mercury announced a $120M round at a $1.62B valuation, but with a catch: it set aside $5M for customers. From the release:

“As we gain momentum, we want the customers who have supported us from the beginning to have a stake in our growth. So we're doing something new: we've set aside a $5M allotment in our Series B to let you into the round.”

The round was quickly oversubscribed. As one community member said in our Slack Channel, “Never seen a startup turn its raise into an acquisition channel. Well played.”

Ramp Raising Again?

Remember when we talked about Ramp raising a bunch of funding like last week or something? Well, supposedly it’s doing so again. According to The Information, Founders Fund and Iconiq are valuing Ramp at $3.8B in a new round. This would be it’s 4th round of funding in 8 months, and more than double the valuation it set back in March. We did a deep dive into the company here if you’d like to learn more.

BlockFi Troubles

This is a good segue into our Crypto section from the funding section. While there were reports that Third Point was going to co-lead a new funding round in BlockFi, my friend and former colleague Eric Newcomer has learned that it’s backing out of the deal. But a lot has happened since this deal was rumored to be happening. On July 19, Forbes reported that the New Jersey Attorney General’s office planned to issue a summary cease and desist order to BlockFi, which is based in New Jersey. Then, other states followed suit (FTT Expert John Collins did a good recap of all of this in his post for us last week). BlockFi then told investors in a recent call that Third Point and some other investors would no longer be participating in the financing round. Despite the uncertainty as to who exactly was still participating in the funding round, BlockFi asked investors to wire it money for the financing this week and the valuation hasn’t changed.

Crypto Watch

Thiel Backs Vauld

Global crypto platform Vauld announced a $25M funding led by Valar Ventures with participation from Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, CMT Digital, and more. Vauld has a suite of products that offers users many ways to earn and build crypto wealth through lending and trading. Will be interesting to see what happens with regulators across the world looking ever more closely at crypto.

Wealthfront Adds Crypto Funds

Wealthfront is adding two cryptocurrency trusts: Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and Grayscale Ethereum Trust. Though in true robo advisor fashion, you can’t fill more than 10% of your portfolio with these new options.

Together With LendIt Fintech Nexus

Nexus is a high-end partnering event for fintech decisionmakers to pitch, partner and get deals done. High quality networking designed specifically for senior executives is at the center of the Nexus experience. We've built 24 VIP meeting blocks and three social events into two days at the luxurious oceanfront Loews Miami Beach. At Nexus you can expect high-quality, double-opt-in, one-on-one meetings with our curated audience. There are no panels or keynotes. Just business.

If you are:

• A Bank or Credit Union executive seeking technology solutions and partners to upgrade or replace existing tech stacks;
• An equity investor looking to meet fintechs;
• A fixed income investor looking to meet lending platforms; or
• A fintech executive seeking partnerships with or capital from established financial institutions and/or investors,

Then you need to be there. Learn more and apply to join here!​

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Julie VerHage-Greenberg is the co-founder of Fintech Today, where she focuses on editorial content and brand. Prior to joining, she was Bloomberg’s first fintech reporter, covering Robinhood from before it was a billion dollar company, breaking the news that Plaid was acquiring Quovo, and interviewing executives on Bloomberg TV and at several large conferences.

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