Brothers Patrick and John Collison have revolutionized how payments are transacted on the internet through their startup Stripe; source provides details on their backgrounds and the development of the business; reports on how the company has grown to provide services for more than 100,000 businesses and their new partnership with Amazon. Source
Personal Capital, a hybrid wealth management platform, raised another $40 million and it now brings their total funding to $200 million; this Series E round was led by IGM Financial, part of the Power Financial Corporation group of companies, with participation from other existing investors; they plan to use the new capital to expand product offerings, increase their marketing spend and build up their advisory service; they also plan to move into San Francisco and Denver, building on the markets they currently are in which include Dallas, Atlanta, New York, Greater Los Angeles and Chicago. Source
The fundraising round was led by TransUnion, Hearst, and Macquarie with participation from existing investors Uprising and John Mack; firm plans to use the funding for expansion of its data analytics platform services; it will also extend its services to the traditional lending market; following the deal, Steve Chaouki, executive vice president and head of TransUnion's financial services business unit, will join the PeerIQ board along with Shea Wallon, managing director of Hearst's Financial Venture Fund. Source
Russian marketplace lender Blackmoon has launched Blackmoon Crypto for tokenized investment vehicles; seeks to support management of tokenized funds; Blackmoon Crypto is incorporated in Singapore; it will not initially be partnering for US investments however the firm is applying for a broker dealer license in the US. Source
Webinar provided a comprehensive overview of funding for fintechs; gave a fintech investment summary for the US, Europe and Asia; included detailed funding levels for insurtech, wealthtech and blockchain/bitcoin. Source
ID Finance will collaborate with Yuri Popov and asset manager Da Vinci Capital to launch the FinTech Credit Fund; estimated fund value is $200 million with debt financing focused on fintech and alternative lending; ID Finance is a growing fintech firm with three businesses: MoneyMan, Ammopay and Solva. Source
Celent is a research and advisory firm to mid and large sized banks, credit unions and technology providers; the company partnered with FI Navigator to present data on mobile app adoption in banking; we know what the historical channels of branches, contact centers, ATMs, internet and mobile are all about; mobile is becoming an omnichannel platform for both bankers and customers spanning branches, contact centers and ATMs which Bob Meara explores in his presentation; shares that half of retail customers aren't using digital channels, concerns from consumers about digital and mobile channels, and other data about mobile adoption. Source
US fintech Square reported $16.4 billion in gross payment volume, a 32% gain from 2Q16, as the company attracted larger sellers and increased product usage through cross selling; revenue was $552 million, increasing 26% from 2Q16; earnings per share were $0.07, increasing from $0.02 in 2Q16; the firm's lending business, Square Capital, reported a 68% year over year increase in loan volume for the quarter. Source
Even Financial is an industry leading online finance products and services search and comparison service provider; it has announced the launch of a new semi-automated tool to support online advertising for online finance products; new tool includes automation for analyzing the placement of ads. Source
Last week the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a report on the initial coin offering (ICO) of the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (the DAO), which raised almost $150 million from investors using this new capital raising method (before returning the money); the report explained that the SEC views this ICO as a sale of securities and that the DAO was in violation of securities laws, though no enforcement action was taken. Source