Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the top fintech news of the previous week. If you’d like to receive The Interchange straight to your inbox every Sunday, head here to sign up!
Simple closure
While we would like all startups to succeed, the reality is that the vast majority of them fail.
It’s not something people talk about often, because quite frankly, it can be a frustrating topic. But failure is a part of life, and many founders who don’t succeed once try and try and try again. However, before they can fully devote themselves to a new project, they have to deal with the project that didn’t work out. It turns out that closing a startup is not easy.
Enters Simple closure. True to its name, this five-month-old company aims to make closing a company simpler. And faster and cheaper too.
If a company you’ve invested a lot of time and money in isn’t performing, the last thing you want to do is spend more time and money on it. Well, SimpleClosure claims it can help you finish work in “weeks” instead of months, and at a fraction of the cost your old provider might charge you.
It is worth noting that the company recently raised $1.5 million in funding, without necessarily intending to do so. Co-founder Dori Yuna was at the Fintech Meetup and pitched the company idea to a group of investors. Without playing surface. By the next day, he had $1.5 million in liabilities.
As Alex Wilhelm, my dear friend, colleague, and co-host of the Equity podcast, said – should we take it as a bad sign that investors (e.g., Vera Equity, Cambrian Ventures, and a slew of executives from startups like Brex, Plaid, Gusto, and Nvidia) have asked to back a startup? Want to help other startups close? Not necessarily, I might argue. Even in the best of times, there will be startup failures. Perhaps, especially in the best of times, there will be more startups being born – and funded – and failing.
So, here are the efforts to make it less painful! – Mary Ann
The weekly news
As Carly Page puts it: “Fintech giant Square It said Friday its services were back online after a day-long outage that left small business owners unable to process payments. The Block-owned company, as of Friday morning on the US West Coast, had been battling a long-term outage that had knocked out its services since Thursday afternoon. More here.
Manish Singh reports: “Some of India’s biggest fintech startups are making deeper inroads into sound boxes, unveiling a new push for pocket-sized devices whose chimes are fast becoming the new ‘ka-ching’ for millions of Indian traders. It is done, whose voice box is market-leading and used by more than 7 million merchants, is an advanced version of the device that doubles as a card machine, accepting offers from RuPay, Visa, Mastercard and American Express. More here.
From Kate Park comes a story FirstCard Raised $4.7 million to help college students build better credit. It is the latest in a long line of companies, such as Greenlight, that are shifting the focus on financial health to the next generation with credit cards. However, teens are not only interested in credit cards. a New report from Fidelity Investing, she says, is on the minds of teenagers, but only one in four has started trying to invest because they think they are too young. With apps like Bloom, Copper, and Step simplifying how investing works for teens and Gen Z, it’s no surprise that major financial players, including Fidelity, want to get involved. The new Fidelity Youth app from Fidelity is a free program based on an existing Fidelity Youth account that helps teens save, spend, and invest their money while also learning financial skills.
Y consolidated Show day happened last week. Here’s a small selection of the fintech companies that ended up becoming TechCrunch’s favourites:
- Cuba: Enables users to earn in US dollars and spend in Mexican pesos.
- check: Access IR for UPI payment in India for non-citizens.
- Circumstance: Neobank with an eye on the budget.
- drape: A bar for HSA/FSA payments.
Read why these were among our favourites, along with other highlights, from day one and day two.
“Finally, we now have the ability for contactless and peer-to-peer payments, a feature that has been accessible in other regions for many years. And now the US Federal Reserve has launched FedNow, a new instant payment infrastructure, joining in To countries such as Mexico, India, Brazil, Singapore and the European Union in building momentum towards facilitating payments and instant transactions.While banks strive to keep innovating to meet customer demands and enhance their competitive advantage, they will find this difficult to achieve unless they adapt their approach to evaluating and integrating solutions New Technologies Officer at Fenergo More here.
Although this news is not exclusively about fintech, it is relevant to all industries, in our humble opinion. Mary Ann wrote about it Myntra, a startup that aims to match neurodiverse job seekers with ideal jobs. Neurologically dissimilar individuals often suffer Harder time Finding jobs from non-neurally dissimilar counterparts. The unemployment rate among neurotypically diverse adults is at least 30% to 40% — three times the rate for people with disabilities and eight times the rate for people without disabilities, according to the University of California’s Center for Neurodiversity and Employment Innovation. Some neurologically diverse individuals may lack the social skills needed to navigate the stressful interview process, and others may simply not have the confidence to step up. But in fact, this population may have a set of specialized skills that not only make them good candidates, but also equals. better Suitable for certain roles of neurodivergent people. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based startup, whose three founders are all autistic, is building what it describes as a “holistic neuro-recruiting network” powered by artificial intelligence. Specifically, its technology platform leverages artificial intelligence to help large organizations hire employees with cognitive differences such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and traumatic brain injury (TBI). And post-traumatic stress disorder. Traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). More here.
Other items we read:
How Deel became a payments provider for supporting trading companies, including a site that was frozen by the CFTC. (TechCrunch recently reported on how California politicians are investigating Dell’s alleged questionable hiring practices.)
5 lessons from the fintech CEO’s first days as a bar owner
Fintech Nubank launches personal loans for the Mexican market
Founders Arena WealthTech Accelerator is coming to Arlington in September
Cash App introduces the “Pink Drop” clothing line.
Matera launches digital twin to handle real-time transactions
See who’s partner now:
Bank of New York Mellon’s revolutionary partnership and commitment to stability
Fundraising, mergers and acquisitions
Seen on TechCrunch
Syscap closes $2.3 million to build private credit infrastructure in Mexico
Hashed Emergent Ecosystem Fund Invests $1.9M in Nestcoin to Scale Its Onboard Product
SimpleClosure raises $1.5 million in less than 24 hours to help businesses close faster and at a lower cost
Zopa, the UK’s new bank, reaches 1 million customers and raises another $93 million
ThetaRay acquires $57 million for AI tools to combat money laundering
Nigerian consolidated financing platform Anchor raises $2.4 million to expand product offerings
And in other places
Fintech M&A sees more takeovers going private in the future
NEC acquires fintech company to help employees build assets
B2B fintech GenTwo has raised $15 million in Series A funding
US fintech Ampla has secured a $258 million credit facility from Goldman Sachs and Atalaya. (TechCrunch covered Ampla’s $40 million Series A in December 2021.)
Explore the fintech scene at Disrupt 2023
Check out the Fintech platform at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, taking place in San Francisco from September 19-21, where we cover Web 3, banking, and more. Last minute passes are still available. Save 15% with code INTERCHANGE. Register now!
Image credits: Brice Durbin