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 :) And 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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Today's Partner, Laika

Compliance audits are painful. Taking thousands of screenshots, answering auditor inquiries, and constantly monitoring email requests simply doesn’t cut it. 

Laika, the complete compliance platform, uses cutting-edge technology to automatically ingest data and remove manual processes. Their programmatic audit execution helps businesses get higher quality audit reports in 60% less time than any other competitor. 

Learn about Laika’s integrated audit experience

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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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Together With Fintech Meetup

Need to fill your sales pipeline for 2022? Or meet new partners? Or get funded? Do it all at Fintech Meetup.30,000+ double opt-in online meetings = 30,000+ opportunities to meet the people who’ll help drive your business forward in 2022! No speakers. No content. Just meetings!

These and 500+ other organizations have already signed up:

• Fintechs including Akoya, Alloy, Alviere, Argyle, Autobooks, Azimuth, BitPay, BlockFi, Botdoc, Certa, Checkout.com, Circle, FISPAN, MANTL, Novi, Nuance, Nymbus, Onyx, Ripple, Signal Intent, Sila, Socure, Synctera, Urban FT, Zero Hash (to name just a few!)
• Banks including Bank of America, Citi, Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, Santander, Wells Fargo & more
• Neobanks including Dave, First Boulevard, Revolut & Varo Bank and more
• Credit Unions representing 13m members & $210b assets
• Investors including Bain Capital, Commerce Ventures, General Atlantic, Mosaik Partners, Next Level Ventures, Point 72 Ventures, Tribeca Venture Partners, Vestigo Ventures & more
• Networks including American Express, Discover, Mastercard & Visa
• Plus Solution Providers, Community Banks, Tech Cos, Retailers & Merchants, Media and more!

Online, March 22-24. Startup rate available for qualifying cos. Get Your Ticket Now!

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Career Corner

Senior Operations Associate at Walrus Security

Here’s your chance to be the first operations hire at a rapidly growing startup. Walrus is building out technology that enables ubiquitous authenticated transactions so that you can be confident that when you make a payment, you are paying the right person. In this role, you’ll be very hands on and as the company continues to scale, you’ll play a role in helping to shape the team and its processes. If you want to get in on the ground floor of a company building out innovative technology, apply above!