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Hi all, Julie here.

Plaid's John Pitts and I interviewed FDIC Chairwoman Jelena McWilliams for our podcast recently, and the episode is now out! She's going to continue to be one of the most important people in the US Government when it comes to the future of fintech, so I highly recommend listening.

Also, big event announcement. We’re co-hosting a “Breaking Into Fintech” webinar with Zeit next week! Tune in on the 10th to hear from Alloy’s Charley Ma, Rho’s Colleen Wenk and Current’s Trevor Marshall! It’s all free, and will be recorded so you can also watch later (though you won’t get a chance to ask questions that way). Sign up here!

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Company News

Cash App for Teens

It’s now all about Gen Z and whatever comes after them. Cash App is now available to anyone over the age of 13.

Funding and Deals

Chipper’s New Round

Congrats to our friends at Chipper Cash! The African cross-border payments company announced a $150M Series C extension led by crypto exchange FTX. This new funding took its valuation slightly above $2B. Today, Chipper operates in seven African countries — Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya. In May, it expanded to the U.K., allowing people to send money from the European nation to Chipper Cash’s African markets. The company said it now has more than 4M users and is the platform of choice for Twitter’s new Tips feature for African creators through its payments link. In terms of getting the funding from FTX, it shows how big of a market Africa can be. This past year, crypto adoption in Africa grew more than 1,000% from peer-to-peer transaction volume totaling $105B, according to Chainalysis. To hear more about Chipper and African fintech more broadly, check out my podcast with them here :)

Klarna Makes An Acquisition

BNPL giant Klarna announced the acquisition of PriceRunner, which will be used to build out new features such as product reviews, product discovery and price comparisons to the Klarna app. Basically this shows that simply offering BNPL as an option isn’t enough anymore. You have to think about continuously making the experience better for customers as well as the merchants on the platform.

Clamouring Over Paytm Shares

BlackRock, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and sovereign wealth funds are among bidders for the $1.1B of shares Paytm is seeking to sell to institutional investors as part of its IPO, according to Bloomberg. Paytm is looking to sell some 82.5B rupees ($1.1B) of shares to more than 50 so-called anchor investors, with this round due to close November 3.The size of the anchor book would be the largest ever in India so far, with the digital payments company aiming for a mid-November listing.

Cross River Acquisition

Cross River Bank is buying Betterfin, a startup backed by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Betterfin’s workforce is joining Cross River’s nearly 700 employees globally. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but some people in the Fintech Today Slack Community said it sounds like an acquihire.

Crypto Watch

DCG’s New Round

First up: Digital Currency Group. The cryptocurrency-focused capital market company announced $700M in new funding led by SoftBank, CapitalG and Ribbit, with a valuation of $10B. DCG is the parent company to asset management firm Grayscale, trading-based Genesis and the news company CoinDesk. It also is a strategic investor in 165 early-stage investments in the crypto space. Founder Barry Silbert told the WSJ that the funding wasn’t about getting new money, but about letting early backers take profits (Silbert says he didn’t sell and still owns about 40% of the company). I have no idea who did sell, but congrats to FTT friend Matt Harris who led the seed round!

Investing in NFTs and the Metaverse

Investment firm Sfermion, which is led by a crypto podcaster and analyst, announced $100M for a new fund focused on NFTs. Marc Andreessen, the Winklevoss twins, and Digital Currency Group are participating. The company told CoinDesk that this fund will focus on the “experiential infrastructure that involves the NFT space.” The podcaster added that NFTs are key to metaverse infrastructure since they can provide a form of digital ownership.

Coinbase Subscription Service

Newly public company and crypto exchange Coinbase is testing a subscription-based service that would give users access to enhanced features, according to The Block. Tentatively called Coinbase One, it’s going to be beta tested with a small group first, and benefits include zero-fee trading and prioritized phone support. The Block didn’t have info on how much Coinbase will charge for the new service. The subscription will also include additional account protection where "if any funds in your Coinbase account are stolen by someone you don't know due to an account takeover, you may be eligible for a reimbursement of up to $1M in losses," the exchange noted.

NYC Election and Crypto

In case you weren’t aware, NYC elected a new mayor yesterday. The previous one didn’t really care much for crypto, but the new one wants to take a page out of Miami’s playbook. Good idea imho.

Together With Fintech Meetup

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​Director of People, Papaya:​

With backers like First Round, Sequoia and F-Prime, Papaya is shaking up online mobile bill payment. As theDirector of People, you will lead daily functions of the HR/People Services and Recruiting departments and manage a team of 2 recruiters and an HR consultancy to hire high quality talent and enhance the employee lifecycle. Success in this role means implementing a people strategy that aligns with Papaya's resourceful and impact-driven culture. This role is based in Los Angeles and requires the ability to go into the Papaya office in Sherman Oaks on a consistent basis. The team is looking for someone with 5+ years of experience in HR and a passion for maintaining a diverse group of talent. If this sounds like you, click the link above!

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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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