Hi all, Julie here.
Happy Friday! PSA: we have a job board with some awesome openings in fintech! And if your company is hiring, go to our website and you can literally fill everything out and have a job up in minutes. Over the first few days, we have already seen thousands of users interacting with our platform.
We also have a new episode of Tux Time, this time with CJ MacDonald of teen banking startup Step! Tune in to find out how he got Will Smith, Justin Timberlake and Steph Curry to invest. Tune in starting next week for a four part series on couples finances, why its complicated and how fintech can help. Very excited for this one :)
The News
NerdWallet IPO
NerdWallet has confidentially submitted paperwork for an IPO, according to Reuters, seeking a valuation of up to $5B. In case you aren’t familiar with them, NerdWallet gives consumers advice on credit cards, loans, mortgages and other financial products and has more than 100M users. Lots of IPOs have come tumbling down after surging in their debuts, so it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.
Treasury Prime Gets New Funding
Our friends at Treasury Prime just announced a $20M funding round, with prior investors leading (Deciens, QED). Sounds like this fresh capital is going towards scaling the business and increasing the customer volume it can handle as demand continues to surge in the banking as a service space. Beyond challenger banks, there’s reason to believe the types of companies needing these services will expand, as will the types of financial services they want to offer. Acting as the middle man between the financial services firms (banks) and the companies wishing to offer those services, if done right, presents a massive opportunity.
Branch’s New Offerings
Fintech Branch, one of the most popular lending apps in the world, is going to start offering unlimited free money transfers and 20% annual returns. This is the same Branch that partnered with Visa in 2019 to offer prepaid debit cards in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. I’m super curious to know more of the details of how Branch is offering the transfer for free. If you have any insights, please ping me by simply responding to this email!
Checkout Changes
Payments startup Bolt launched what it’s calling Bolt SSO Commerce. The new product aims to take out friction in the checkout process, allowing a shopper to create both a Bolt account for one-click checkout and a store account for the retailer through a simple checkbox option. The company says that brands on Bolt SSO Commerce have enjoyed an average 25% increase in store account registrations.
Rho’s Corporate Card
Our friends at Rho are rolling out a corporate card. In order to stand out in a competitive space, Co-Founder Everett Cook tells me that giving customers more control over cash back, credit terms, spend control and policies was super important. Rho’s $100M debt raise was largely meant for this.
PayPal’s First Acquisition In Awhile
PayPal is making its first acquisition in a bit, buying Happy Returns, a 120-person Santa Monica-based startup that helps people return things they bought online, in person. I guess May 2021 was the month of payments companies buying return companies? I wrote about Affirm’s acquisition of Returnly here, and you can read that piece to better understand the thesis behind these deals.
Today's Partner, Public
Looking for your next job? Public.com is hiring 👀
Public.com, the social investing network, has had a big year. The company recently announced a Series D funding round and surpassed its 1 million member milestone.
Check out these open roles, and head to their careers page for even more.
- Brand Designer
- Director of User Acquisition
- Product Manager, Crypto
- Senior Backend Engineer
- Senior Backend Engineer (SF)
- Web Engineer
Community Highlights
Reminder that we’re hosting an event with Green Dot on May 24th here in Austin! Sign up here. FTT+ members will get first dibs since space will be limited.
I’m also hosting an event with Matt Harris and Stephany Kirkpatrick the following day! This one is online and open to everyone. Be sure to sign up here!
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.
