Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week we’re looking at a BRICS executive making the jump to join venture firm a16z, Klarna selling its payments unit and some huge raises.
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The big story
Ali Rathod-Papier has resigned from her position as global head of compliance at the corporate card expense management startup Brix to join venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as a partner and compliance officer, TechCrunch has learned exclusively. The hiring comes at an interesting time for a16z, which invested in Synapse, the banking-as-a-service startup that filed for bankruptcy in April and has since come under fire for losing an estimated $85 million in client funds. Another BRICS executive, Sam Blond (former chief revenue officer), also left the company to become a venture capitalist. But he ended up stepping down from his role at Founders Fund earlier this year, saying at the time: “Full-time investing/being a VC just isn’t for me.”
Analysis of the week
Gingera platform that lends capital to companies to purchase technology, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by… PayPal projects. There are plenty of companies that help startups finance technology purchases through a variety of methods. Ginger’s model stood out in that it worked for him both of them Buyers and sellers of technology. The startup offers technology vendors a way to offer embedded financing through an accounts receivable platform that offers “flexible” payment terms. To date, Gynger has facilitated thousands of payments for its customers across hundreds of vendors, including AWS, Google Cloud, and Okta.
Dollars and cents
Finbournewhich has built a platform to help financial companies organize and use more of their data in artificial intelligence and other models, raised $70 million at a post-money valuation of just over $356 million.
Kadanawhose white-label APIs and products allow global workforces to integrate payments and payroll management into their existing systems, has emerged from obscurity with a total funding of $7.4 million.
Based in Paris heroValar Ventures, which is building an ambitious banking product for small businesses, has raised a $12.2 million all-equity funding round led by Valar Ventures.
Materialswhich integrates with the company’s existing workflow software and applications to help break down the silos found in accounting firms’ unstructured data sets, has come out of stealth with $6.3 million in funding.
What else do we write?
Four years after obtaining it It shinesa French fintech startup that offers bank accounts for freelancers and very small businesses, Société Générale It announced plans to sell Shine to Ageras. In 2020, TechCrunch reported that Société Générale spent around €100 million to acquire Shine. It wasn’t a huge acquisition but it attracted a lot of coverage at the time, as it was more than just a technology or talent deal. Romain Delet gives us the scoop here.
High interest titles
New documents show that Elon Musk’s X company revenues have officially declined
Revolut is seeking a valuation of more than $40 billion in employee stock sales
Celcoin raises $120.5 million for new mergers and acquisitions
Mexican fintech Unicorn Clip receives $100 million investment
Amplify Life Insurance raises $20M in Series B funding
Klarna rival Zilch raises $125 million aiming to triple sales and accelerate path to IPO
Verituity raises $18.8 million for payment verification
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