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Hi all, Julie here.

The first of two podcast episodes coming out this month with a focus on international markets. Huge thanks to Kiaan Pillay of Stitch for coming on and talking about fintech adoption and misconceptions about Africa. This is one of my favorite regions to learn more about.

Today's Partner, Pilot

Startup founders: are you paying yourself the right amount?

Pilot.com works with more than 1,000 startups, helping them tackle their finance and accounting needs at every stage of growth. It's the only provider operating at this scale, which means that it also has access to unique insights. One of the questions it gets on a regular basis from founders is: what should I be paying myself?

After surveying founders globally, they’ve put together a report on salary insights and trends based on employee count, funding stage, geography, and more.

Check out the findings from Pilot’s founder salary report here.

Funding and Deals

Oxygen Funding Talks

The challenger bank business is still booming. Oxygen, which focuses on freelancers and SMBs, is in talks to raise a new round at a valuation of over $500M. According to TechCrunch, London-based Tribe Ventures is in talks to lead the round. The company most recently reported having north of 600K customers. Guess you could think of this as going after the underserved on the business rather than consumer side.

Making An Imprint

I’d like to think inflation is the reason that funding rounds are so big these days, but I think it’s a bit more than that…Imprint, a one-year-old startup offering branded payments and rewards products, announced a $38M Series A co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Stripe. You also know things are getting crazy when you add in the fact that the Late Show host James Corden and Lloyd Blankfein also participated. This is sort of like a rewards credit card, but in debit card fashion (think Starbucks’ app). The user doesn’t have to undergo a credit check or pay interest and fees, and as they spend, their balance draws down. At the same time, the customer will be part of a rewards program, and the merchant will cut its payment processing fees.

Crypto Watch

Bitcoin ETF Denied

On Friday, the SEC said it has rejected a Bitcoin ETF that would have directly tracked the currency’s price moves. Filed in March by the Cboe BZX Exchange, the SEC said the Cboe had not done enough to demonstrate it could prevent fraudulent trading to protect investors.

This isn’t anything new, since a slew of other proposed ETFs with similar guidelines have been denied as well. Companies have been trying to release the first U.S. Bitcoin ETF for almost 10 years.

Nic Cage Meets Web3

Did you watch National Treasure as a kid and wonder what it would be like to own [steal] a treasured piece of US history, such as the Constitution? Enter ConstitutionDAO, a group of nearly 5,000 individuals who are attempting to buy 1 of 11 remaining original copies of the document when it gets auctioned by Sotheby’s on Thursday. As of writing, the DAO has raised just over $3M, which it will use in an attempt to submit the winning bid. In exchange for donating, individuals are awarded a number of governance tokens ($PEOPLE). If you want to learn more about governance tokens, check out a piece we published on ENS last week.

Together With Fintech Meetup

An Online Event that Delivers Real Results? Hell Yeah! Fintech Meetup’s meetings-only format is focused on just one thing--getting you the opportunities you need to drive your business forward. With 30,000+ meetings, you can fill your pipeline, create partnerships, close deals, get funding, find investment targets, make announcements (and many other use cases).

Who’s coming? Everyone. Meet with 3,000+ participants from:

• Fintechs including Akoya, Alliance Data, Alloy, Alviere, Argyle, Autobooks, Azimuth, Botdoc, Certa, Checkout.com, Dave, FISPAN, MANTL, Nuance, Nymbus, Revolut, 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 Ventures & more
• Plus Credit Unions, CUSOs, Community Banks, Tech Cos and more!

Online, March 22-24. Qualifying Startups get special startup rate tickets, qualifying Banks & Credit Unions eligible for FREE tickets. Get Your Ticket!​

​Senior Product Designer at Praxent

Praxent is a digital product agency that designs and builds software for financial service companies. Through its work it helps people prepare for retirement, apply for small business loans, create financial plans, make and share smart investments, and a whole lot more.

As it continues to grow, one of its biggest challenges is leading the design on a variety of projects. Its design engagements are often its clients’ first experience with Praxent, and it needs to set the bar high. Your work requires the right blend of design strategy, planning, stakeholder partnership, peer mentorship, passion for finance/fintech, and of course top notch UX and UI design. If this sounds like you, apply 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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