FTT Update: How You Shouldn’t Fire 900 Employees
Hi all, Julie here.
I literally started to write “Happy Friday” before realizing it is not, in fact, Friday. One of those weeks. Thanks to Brex for inviting me to their Austin event last night. Props on the drink menu. Can anyone guess which one I went with?
Elsewhere, the final Policy Podcast with Plaid for 2021 is out now! John and I got to talk to Wise’s Global Head of Policy Nick Catino about what happened in 2021 and what we should expect in 2022. Wise has a super interesting strategy around policy and campaigns so it was really fun to dive into it.
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Company News
AWS Goes Down
So, a lot of companies in fintech and elsewhere use AWS. Safe to say that Tuesday was a bit of a rough day for Venmo, Robinhood, Coinbase and many more.
Better.com Has Seen Better Days
I mean, I don’t even know where to start with this one. Here’s a YouTube video of the CEO firing 10%+ of his staff on a Zoom call. Here’s several of his executives quitting. And here’s it delaying its SPAC. The business apparently isn’t doing as well now that, you know, the housing market has started to normalize a bit.
Funding and Deals
Hummingbird Humming Along
Congrats to our friends at Hummingbird! The team announced a new $30M round led by Battery Ventures, with participation from Flourish, Homebrew and more. The anti-money laundering software company set out to build a specialized CRM for compliance and risk teams that would make things more efficient and capable of handling high volumes. The company serves the likes of Stripe, Coinbase and Etsy.
Hong Kong M&A
Hong Kong fintech WeLab announced its acquisition of Bank Jasa Jakarta, an Indonesian commercial bank. The move will help it launch a digital bank in Indonesia. How’d they do it?
A consortium led by WeLab raised $240M from existing and new investors, which will go toward acquiring BJJ’s stakes and “tech investments.” WeLab opened its first digital bank in Hong Kong last year and currently operates a suite of consumer fintech products across Asia, including the virtual bank and a lending product in its home city, as well as several types of lending services in mainland China and Indonesia.
Tipalti’s New Round
Tipalti, a fintech that automates payments to suppliers and vendors, raised $270M at a $8.3B valuation to build out its products and start serving more geographies. The 11 year old company, which was previously valued at $2B in October 2020, said it currently serves more than 2,000 customers and processes more than $30B in total annual payments volume.
Crypto Watch
Lots of Testimonies
Top executives from the crypto industry testified before the House Financial Services Committee in a hearing entitled "Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding Innovation in the United States." Congress heard from Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Bitfury Group CEO Brian Brooks, Paxos Trust Company CEO Charles Cascarilla, Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon, and Coinbase CFO Alesia Jeanne Haas. I didn’t watch all of it, but FTT Expert John Collins will have a recap of it for you tomorrow :) Coindesk has a good live blog on it too if you wanna search through that.
Visa Wants to Be a Crypto Advisor
I’m old enough to remember when Visa and other payment providers hated crypto and blocked transactions in the space. Oh how times have changed. Visa announced a global crypto advisory practice to help financial institutions develop their cryptocurrency businesses. Its crypto advisory team will work alongside the company’s consulting and analytics group to advise banks on their crypto strategy and execution, Visa said.
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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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Older messages
FTT Guest Post: Jillian Williams on the Intersection of Fintech and Healthcare
Tuesday, December 7, 2021
Hey Everyone, Jillian here! With it being Open Enrollment period, I figured I'd talk a bit about a space that I've been excited about for several years and the pain points and opportunities
FTT Update: More Crypto Hacks to End 2021
Monday, December 6, 2021
Hi all, Julie here. Like I said on Friday, it's so weird to have it be warm outside in December. I'm used to big puffer jackets and I haven't even had to wear a jacket yet! We're
FTT Update: CeFi Pays Heavy Toll Going DeFi
Friday, December 3, 2021
Hi all, Julie here. Happy Friday! It's very weird to have it be 70+ degrees outside in December, but it sounds like other areas of the country are seeing abnormally high temps too? Anyways, I
FTT+: What PayPal's Next Move Should Be
Thursday, December 2, 2021
Hi all, Julie here. Another big tech company is changing its name: Square. The new name, Block, is symbolizing how it's going to continue focusing on blockchain technology. I'm not here to
FTT Update: What Rhymes With Square...Block?
Wednesday, December 1, 2021
Hi all, Julie here. I just got the booster this morning, so I have no meetings planned for tomorrow in prep for a day in bed lol. Fingers crossed it's not too bad though. In other news, since y
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