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Hi all, Julie here.

I hope everyone has had a great week :) Jordan and I were able to meet up with David of Coinledger last night after I told him in the newsletter a couple of weeks ago that he needed to hire more than just white guys for his leadership team lol. He’s a cool guy and I’ve gotta admit that I was impressed with what the team is working on.

In other news, John and I have a new podcast out! In this episode, we talked to Daniel Gorfine, Founder of Gattaca Horizons and former director of the CFTC’s innovation lab. As usual, I learned a ton in this episode.

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Company News

Nubank Soars

Thanks to my buddy Warren Buffett for sending my shares of Nubank higher this week. According to filings, Berkshire Hathaway bought $1B in shares of Brazilian digital bank Nubank in the fourth quarter of 2021. Safe to say the other stocks in my portfolio didn’t fare quite as well…

Piermont x Unit

Cool collaboration alert. Piermont Bank and Unit are entering a partnership that will allow the two to help fintech companies quickly embed banking services. “By expanding our partnerships with top-tier BaaS players like Unit, we are putting fintechs and brands front and center; we strongly believe in letting them choose the best BaaS technology platform and banking partner for themselves,” Piermont founder and CEO Wendy Cai-Lee said in a press release. Based on the release, the two have big plans for 2022.

Plaid x Marqeta

So many partnerships to talk about today! Marqeta and Plaid are working together to simplify ACH transfers. The pair will be enabling customers to authenticate their bank accounts and fund their accounts to power more immediate spending. It’s a step in the right direction for more real time money movement. This will also enable Marqeta customer’s cardholders to easily initiate ACH transactions to send money between customer accounts and external accounts. They will also be able to verify and link external accounts more quickly, making it easier to fund their accounts and start spending sooner.

Funding and Deals

Coast’s New Round

Congrats to our friends at Coast on the new funding round! The team announced $27.5M in financing led by Accel and Insight Partners. I interviewed founder Daniel Simon back in August so if you want to learn more about him and the team, definitely check it out. Coast works in the fleet space, offering a simple and smart way for companies to control fuel and fleet spending. The company also announced a collaboration with Visa to launch a Visa Fleet card program, enabling Coast Visa Fleet cardholders to make payments at North American merchants wherever Visa is accepted. Coast will use the new funding to expand the platform's capabilities and offer a wider range of financial products to fleet operators.

Check Gets A Check

The mafia Stripe is leading a new round in Check, which provides software tools for digitizing payrolls. The $75M in fresh funding gave the company a $725M valuation. Tons and tons of fintech companies are disrupting the payroll space in different capacities. Check works with platforms serving small businesses to help them build, launch and scale payroll products that they're offering to their small business customers. Through its clients, Check says its technology reaches 4M employees across 250,000 small businesses.

Circle’s New Valuation

It wouldn’t be an FTT newsletter anymore without some big new crypto valuation. Circle announced a termination of its previous agreement with SPAC Concord Acquisition Corp, and that it reached a new agreement with Concord that would value it at $9B. The merger was initially launched more than 6 months ago and was supposed to close in the final quarter of 2021. The previous valuation was $4.5B. Circle is best known for Circle is better known for the Centre consortium with Coinbase, which manages USD Coin (USDC). In July 2021, Circle said that there was $25B worth of USDC in circulation. That figure has more than doubled as USDC circulation has reached $52.5B. Circle also provides several APIs and yield-generating products.

Crypto Watch

Yotta x Crypto

The NYC based fintech announced that it’s launching a new product called “Crypto Buckets” that allows any Yotta user to earn an average 4.0% APY along with the chance to win $10M every week (a feature that already existed and Yotta is known for). For the new product, the company will be converting users’ funds into USDC to earn higher yield, and Yotta passes on the higher interest in the form of more sweepstakes tickets.

Deel Launches Crypto For Remote Workers

Another startup we’ve had on the podcast before, Deel, is getting deeper into crypto. The company, which helps businesses hire and pay talent remotely all around the world, is now allowing companies to pay international workers in crypto. From the blog post:

“It’s 2022, and the demand for Crypto payroll is soaring, both from businesses who want to pay their team using their company’s Crypto balance and from team members who wish to receive their earnings in digital currency. At Deel, we’ve seen a 10% month-to-month increase in demand for Crypto salary payments. Just last year, we enabled Crypto Withdrawals for contractors, allowing anyone paid through Deel to withdraw their earnings right to their Coinbase account in Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC, Solana, and Dash for almost instant withdrawals. Today, we’re taking things a step further by enabling businesses to fund payroll in USDC. Companies that hold their money in USDC can make a payment directly to Deel via their Coinbase account to cover payroll and payments for their global team. Once the business has paid the money into Deel, contractors can withdraw in over 150 currencies, including Crypto. ✌️”

Together With Fintech Meetup

Less than 3 weeks left to get a Fintech Meetup ticket! 1,000+ organizations have already signed up. Join thousands of fintech and banking industry professionals from:

• Fintechs, including Alloy, Argyle, Array, BitPay, BlockFi, Boomtown, Bread Finance, Cash App (Square), Checkout.com, Dave, Dwolla, Equifax, Emburse, Feedzai, NIUM, Pipe, Ripple, Sila, Socure, Stripe, Thought Machine & Upstart (and many more!)
• Payments, Networks and Tech Cos, including American Express, Discover, Finastra, FIS, Fiserv, Mastercard, SWIFT, The Clearing House, Visa & Western Union
• VCs, including Bain Capital Ventures, Commerce Ventures, General Atlantic, Mosaik Partners, Next Level Ventures, Oak HC/FT, Point 72 Ventures & Tribeca Venture Partners
• Major banks, including Bank of America, Citi, CIT Bank, Cross River, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, Santander & USBank
• Plus Retailers & Merchants, Media and many others

Virtual, March 22-24. Discounted startup rate available for qualifying companies. Qualifying Banks & Credit Unions can get FREE tickets. Get Your Ticket Now!

​Payments & Risk Data Analyst, nate​

Nate, the universal shopping app, just closed it’s series A round, raising $38M from Renegade, Forerunner Ventures, Coatue and others. nate was created based on the principle of “humans inspire, machines execute”. It guides its team to create a product and company that is truly consumer and privacy first, and that will play a part in online shopping solutions from moment of inspiration to purchase. Payments are at the core of nate, including its recently launched Pay Later anywhere on the internet. As its lead Payments & Risk Data Analyst, you’ll provide insight into its complex web of payments and user data. You will drive product and financial decisions related to new features and fraud detection, and be a leader in evaluating the health of its payments business. If this sounds like it's up your alley, apply above!

​Senior Manager, Fraud & Risk Operations, nate​

Same company, different role. nate is also looking for a foundational Sr Manager of Fraud & Risk Operations to build its team and processes from the ground up. nate is growing incredibly quickly, and it needs someone ready to stay ahead of trends to keep nate secure from fraud. You will build and manage a team of Risk Operations Analysts, Underwriters, and other essential roles completely how you see fit. You will also have the opportunity to develop, define, and implement the overall fraud strategies and process for nate. You will use data and analytics to identify opportunities, implement solutions, and work cross functionally to build an industry leading team and infrastructure to effectively manage its risk. Again, if this sounds like you, click the link above!

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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