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Hi all, Julie here.

Our first Crypto Tonight newsletter comes out tomorrow! Sign up here if you haven’t yet. In non crypto news, we have a new podcast out with Masterworks founder Scott Lynn! I did ask about NFTs, so I guess there is “some” crypto in the episode.

We also just organized our first founder Q&A for all of the students that have signed up for our new FTT product! Huge thanks to Modern Treasury Founder and CEO Dimitri Dadiomov! If you are a student (high school, undergrad, grad) and you haven’t yet, you still have a week to sign up before this first event :)

Lastly, here’s your chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card for filling out a funny survey for Money 2020 from Green Dot. Fill it out before Wednesday if you want to be entered to win! I just filled it out and it took me two minutes. It’s just a bunch of fun fintech predictions and your personal answers won’t be shared, no worries :)

Today's Partner, Laika

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Company News

Klarna Makes A Few Tweaks

Swedish BNPL giant Klarna is making a few changes following regulatory scrutiny of the sector in the UK. One is stronger credit checks, where there will be a new (voluntary) tool that allows users to share income and spending data from their bank accounts in order to help determine what they can afford. Another feature will allow users to pay in one instant payment vs installments. I don’t really think that’s BNPL, but what do I know.

Funding and Deals

N26’s New Round

German Challenger Bank N26 announced a new $900M funding round with a valuation of $9B (a big jump from its last round). Third Point and Coatue led the round. And of course, part of the funding will go towards launching crypto trading. Honestly if you are a B2C fintech now and don’t offer crypto, are you even a fintech? I’m only half joking...Anyways, N26 says it now has 7M customers across Europe and the U.S. and is on track to process $90B in transactions this year. It also just acquired a banking license in Brazil and plans to roll out its app publicly in the country within the next year. Despite all of this, it’s still not profitable. Its European business lost 110M euros in 2020, down from 165M a year earlier though.

Let’s Make A Deel

San Francisco-based Deel announced it has raised $425M in a funding round that gives the remote hiring startup a valuation of $5.5B. This is merely six months after raising $156M at a $1.25B valuation. I guess remote work is kinda a thing now? Coatue at least thinks so since it led the latest financing. Just since April, the company says it has seen its global customer base jump from 1,800 to over 4,500 and includes customers like Coinbase, Dropbox and Shopify. When Deel announced a September 2020 funding round, it said it had 500 customers.

Crypto Watch

Bitcoin Futures ETF Debuts Tomorrow

It would have been shocking for something to get in the way after Friday, but Bitcoin believers can truly breathe a sigh of relief now as ProShares will launch a Bitcoin futures ETF tomorrow (Tuesday). On Friday, we told you that the SEC had given its approval and it would have been a wild card for something to happen last minute that derailed it. But hey, the year is 2021 and nothing surprises me anymore.

Square Exploring Mining

After our newsletter went out on Friday, Square’s Jack Dorsey said that the company might jump into the Bitcoin mining business. He used his other company, Twitter, to announce that Square is considering a “Bitcoin mining system based on custom silicon and open source for individuals and businesses worldwide.” Dorsey’s goal would be to make crypto mining more accessible, and a team run by hardware lead Jesse Dorogusker will begin studying the technology necessary to take this project on.

NYAG and Redaction Mishap

While a Bitcoin Futures ETF is coming, it doesn’t mean regulation isn’t still an issue in parts of the crypto space. Early Monday, NYAG Letitia James ordered two crypto lending platforms to cease their activities. The statement said that the platforms are in violation of offering securities and/or commodities without having registered with the Office of the Attorney General (not a good look). On top of that, three other platforms were asked to provide information about their activities and products. The irony of it all is that while the NYAG redacted the company names in the statement, the file names associated with the letters initially identified Nexo and Celsius Network before being changed. Oops….

Together With Fintech Meetup

Why are leading fintechs, banks, networks, investors and others joining Fintech Meetup? Simple--they know it is the easiest and most efficient way to find new solutions, partners and customers! Fintech Meetup doesn’t have speakers and content so it can focus 100% on facilitating double opt-in, 1-1 speed date meetings (30,000+ of them, actually).

Don’t miss out--join hundreds of organizations who have already signed up:

• Fintechs including Akoya, Alliance Data, Alloy, Alviere, Argyle, Autobooks, Azimuth, Botdoc, Certa, Checkout.com, Dave, FISPAN, MANTL, Nuance, Nymbus, PPRO, Ripple, Signal Intent, Sila, Socure, Synctera, Urban FT (to name just a few!)
• Banks including Bank of America, Citi, Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan, Santander, Wells Fargo & more
• Networks including American Express, Discover, Mastercard & Visa
• Investors including Bain Capital, General Atlantic, Mosaik Partners, Next Level, Point 72, Vestigo & more
• Plus Credit Unions, CUSOs, Community Banks, Tech Cos and more!

Online, March 8-10. Qualifying Startups get special startup rate tickets, qualifying Banks & Credit Unions eligible for FREE tickets. GET YOURS HERE!​

​Head of Customer Success, Settle:​

On a mission to help small and medium businesses thrive by taking the worry out of cash flow management, Settle is looking for a Head of Customer Success. Backed by Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Max Levchin's SciFi Ventures and others, Settle is building software that’s making it super easy for finance teams to track, pay, and reconcile invoices. It then pairs that with lending products that give users the power and flexibility to choose who, when, and how to pay their customers. In this role, you’ll represent the voice of customers, work with them directly to identify issues and find solutions, build out the product roadmap with the engineering and design teams, and more. If this sounds like you, apply in the link above!

This might be one of my favorite editions of community highlights to date. Congrats to Charley Ma and Ana! I remember getting breakfast with Charley shortly after I got engaged and him asking about rings, proposals etc ;) Based on the photos I’ve seen, you did well, Charley!

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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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