Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! It’s good to be again.
This week, we’re wanting on the wild experience that was Bench’s shutdown and acquisition; dozens of firms which can be hiring within the fintech house; lawsuits towards PayPal; an IPO replace; and extra!
This version is a bit longer than regular since we have been on a hiatus for just a few weeks. Completely satisfied New Yr, btw! Right here’s hoping for a peaceable and joyful 12 months for us all.
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The large story
It’s all the time information when an organization that has raised greater than $110 million in enterprise funding suddenly folds. Nevertheless it’s much more eyebrow-raising when days later, that very same firm — on this case, Bench — gets acquired. Sadly, hundreds of shoppers and a whole lot of workers alike should be feeling the whiplash.
On this deep dive, TechCrunch’s Charles Rollet breaks down the main points of what led to Bench’s shutdown and simply who swooped in to purchase this fintech, which was backed by the likes of Shopify and Bain Capital Ventures. One tidbit: The transfer was so sudden that one buyer who saved years of information on Bench’s web site, and was even featured on its entrance web page earlier than it went offline, discovered of the shutdown solely when TechCrunch known as him for a response.
{Dollars} and cents
We kicked off the brand new 12 months with information that Thomson Reuters had acquired tax automation company SafeSend in an all-cash transaction valued at $600 million. Based in 2008, Ann Arbor, Michigan-based SafeSend serves a cloud-based platform designed to streamline the processing and sharing of delicate monetary paperwork.
TechCrunch EIC Connie Loizos interviewed Robinhood CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev about his firm being named Yahoo Finance’s “comeback stock” of the year, and far more. Catch up here.
ICYMI
Uzbekistan’s mobile-exclusive financial institution, TBC Financial institution Uzbekistan, raised $37 million in a brand new funding spherical to bolster its dominating digital presence within the Central Asian nation by growing new AI and tech merchandise and attracting extra tech-savvy clients.
Tyme Group, a South African fintech, secured $250 million in a Sequence D spherical, pushing its valuation to $1.5 billion. Notably, the funding was led by Nu Holdings — which owns Latin America’s most respected fintech, Nubank — investing $150 million for a ten% stake.
What else we’re writing
Final week wasn’t an awesome one for PayPal. First, Dominic-Madori Davis broke the information that PayPal is being sued by the founding father of enterprise agency Andav Capital, Nisha Desai, who claims she was excluded from the cost big’s range and fairness program as a result of she is Asian. Then one other new lawsuit alleges that the PayPal-owned browser extension Honey is dishonest creators out of cash.
In the meantime, Zack Whittaker reported {that a} U.S. on-line reward card retailer, MyGiftCardSupply, has secured a web based storage server that was publicly exposing a whole lot of hundreds of buyer government-issued identification paperwork to the web.
And, Tage Kene-Okafor wrote about how Africa’s tech ecosystem lately acquired a lift of consideration, with South Africa’s TymeBank and Nigeria’s Moniepoint each raising funds in latest weeks at valuations of over $1 billion, becoming a member of the coveted unicorn pantheon.
IPO information
Is 2025 the 12 months for the fintech IPO?
Earlier than 2024 got here to an in depth, Manish Singh wrote about how shares of digital funds agency MobiKwik surged 82% to ₹507.5 ($6) on their first day of trading and the way the Indian fintech’s $69 million IPO comes amid fierce competitors from bigger rivals. He additionally checked out the truth that Aye Finance, a lender concentrating on small- and medium-sized companies in India, is looking for to boost $171 million from its initial public offering.
In the meantime, Julie Bort reported on how digital financial institution Chime filed its confidential paperwork with the SEC, a second the corporate has been prepping for because it employed banker Morgan Stanley final September, with a watch to IPO in 2025.
Excessive-interest headlines
- Whereas fintechs are nonetheless hiring, a lot of them don’t have as many open roles as they did only a few months in the past. Nevertheless, there are nonetheless plenty of open positions, and there are some firms which can be even hiring for extra roles than they have been final summer season.
- Three crypto business teams — the DeFi Training Fund, the Blockchain Affiliation, and the Texas Blockchain Council — are suing the Inside Income Service to dam new rules that require decentralized finance (DeFi) entities to report buyer info.
- Mike Butcher checked out how revenue-based financing startups continue to raise capital in MENA, the place the mannequin simply appears to work.
Thanks for studying. We’ll see you once more subsequent week!
