The interchange is where you'll find us. Thank you for signing up and voting for confidence after you received this. If you read this as a post on our site, you should sign up here so you can receive it in the future. I take a look at the hottest news from the last week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space. My job is to stay on top of the news and make sense of it so I can keep you up to date.
Hello! We will be two days away from the event when you read this. It's so exciting.
Let's talk about the financial services industry.
Brex, a corporate spend management startup, announced last week that it was laying off over a hundred employees. The CFO of the startup is leaving to join the CFO of the company. The workforce platform is a direct competitor with Brex.
It is rare for a company to inform me of a layoffs in advance, so it is interesting that Brex did so. The layoffs appear to be related to Brex's decision earlier this year to no longer work with small and medium-sized businesses. The company let go of people who were focused on serving that group Brex used to work with those groups that it no longer works with.
The news of Brex's layoffs shows that even decacorns have not escaped this downturn. A $300 million Series D extension was announced earlier this year. While the company claims to be in a strong financial position with many years of runway, it adds that its shift away from SMBs will put the company on a path to sustainable profitability over the next few years.
It still blows my journalist's mind that companies can raise hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and still not be profitable. I don't think I could be a startup founder. The pressure of having to provide returns to investors who poured that kind of money into my company and the pressure of not wanting to ever have to lay off staff would probably make me lose sleep at night. That's why I'm a journalist and not a startup founder.
I will be interviewing Henrique Dubugras and Anu Hariharan, managing directors of YC Continuity, in a fireside chat on October 19th. I will be speaking with Ramp CEO and co-founder Eric Glyman, Airbase CEO and founder Thejo Kote, and Anthemis partner Ruth Foxe Blader on the same day. I will be talking with Conrad about his company's plans to "go global" We need you to come see us. You can get 15% off here.
If you want to hear about the good and bad sides of Fintech, what great journalism really means, and why startups represent hope, you should listen to this episode of the Fintech Leaders.
I'm hello! Mary Ann is reporting from the fintech desk at the tech company. There has been a lot of interest in the real estate and proptech space recently. There are a number of real estate investing apps that aim to help widen access to the asset class to retail investors by giving them tools to circumvent hurdles like large up-front capital requirements that are typically necessary to invest in property.
One of the examples is fintor. The startup closed a $6.2 million funding round at an $80 million valuation for its platform that offers fractionalized shares in residential properties to investors for as little as $5. Landa, Nada, and Arrived homes are just a few of the platforms that have raised new funding in the last two years.
The surge in interest among retail investors for access to real estate might seem counterintuitive, given that rising interest rates make real estate less attractive than it has been for the past few years These startups are more focused on secular demand growth for real estate as a part of a diversified portfolio rather than worrying about short-term volatility.
Farshad Yousefi is the founder and CEO of Fintor.
While recent media headlines have mainly focused on the volatility of the market, there are still present opportunities for investors to take part in investing in real estate with the right type of strategic approach. For example, Atlanta has seen an incredible near 12% year-over-year growth in rental rates, directly boosting investors’ cash flows. Additionally, when looking across the board at the top MSAs, major institutional investors have seen a near 50% jump in renewal rent growth. This drastic upward trend in tenant retention clearly demonstrates where rental demand is going.
This week I wrote an article about real estate tech and how it is changing investing.
Got $5? These startups allow for investments in slices of real estate
Last week, Plaid added two new features to its product. With the new autofill feature, users can be verified in as little as 10 seconds. We are building more intelligence to our risk and fraud models to stay ahead of fraud.
If you know your phone number, then your typing behavior would be very different than if you copied and pasted it from a document. This type of technology is new, but not usually combined with the other fraud detection features that Plaid has.
Is going after Square something you're going to do? The new POS device is designed to accommodate the needs of small and medium businesses. Business owners can use the free-of-charge Sim card on the 3G and 4G networks to operate on the go with the new Zettle terminal. Multi-location vendors will find this approach appealing as it doesn't require additional setup or manual connection at every location.
Greenlight Financial Technology added another layer to its subscription plan with the introduction of family safety features. It includes location sharing to see where anyone in the family is and do check-ins, as well as automatic dispatch of emergency contacts, if a crash is detected.
Alex combed through some Q3 funding numbers and found that the sector wasn't pretty. According to data from CB Insights, it is clear that the fintech funding boom is behind us, and even more so, global fintech funding activity is now back to where it was before.
According to Sarah Perez, Apple is taking a big step towards offering more banking services. The company announced on October 13 that it is partnering with Goldman Sachs to launch a new Savings account feature for its Apple Card credit card holders which will allow them to save and grow their Daily Cash. In the months ahead, Apple says it will be possible to automatically save this cash in a new high yield Savings account from partner Goldman Sachs which is accessible with Apple wallet. Customers can transfer their own money into this account.
The ability to recover money paid to scam artists is one of the advantages of using a credit card or digital payment app. Zelle is owned by seven major banks. If you use Zelle to pay someone who is a con artist, you won't be able to get your money back from your bank. If you send money to someone else, it's the same thing. The money is probably gone if you hit Send. Zelle had more transaction volume than Cash App and Venmo in the year 2021. Hmm? I am still looking for that.
It was seen on a website.
The time from the first meeting to the term sheet was a little over a month.
With new capital, North One is doubling down on small businesses.
After a reported $12 billion IPO filing, TripActions raised a $9.2 billion valuation.
It is possible to enjoy and own vacation homes.
The consumer money app Telda has raised $20 million.
Airwallex raises $100 million to power cross border business banking.
The Step borrowed $300M to bringcryptocurrencies to teenagers.
The company wants to gamify financial literacy.
Go Henry raised $55 million after passing 2 million users.
Elsewhere.
QED acquires a company.
A Series A funding of $10 million has been raised.
Professional associations are the target of a corporate card startup.
Financial Finesse is launching a venture arm.
That's it for this week. Thank you for your continued support, and I hope to see some of you at the event.
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