A former SoFi employee has filed a California lawsuit; he is arguing that he was fired for reporting sexual harassment and has included in his court filing, allegations of impropriety in the handling of loans; source also reports that a broader class action lawsuit is being prepared on behalf of a group of mistreated employees. Source
News Roundup
This page contains an archive of the Global Newsletter summaries and the weekly fintech news roundups.
Every day the Fintech Nexus news team scours the globe for the most important stories of the day to include in our daily newsletter.
Then every Saturday we bring you our weekly news roundup of the top 10 fintech stories of the week with commentary from Peter Renton.
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One former trader discusses his foray into bitcoin; in a Forbes article he shares how he was wrong to dismiss bitcoin initially and why bitcoin matters more than the blockchain. Source
Caitlin Long recently stepped down as President and Chairman of blockchain startup Symbiont to help turn Wyoming into an ideal environment for digital asset businesses; she helped with the Delaware Blockchain Initiative and, along with her partners, recently introduced 5 bills in Wyoming; 3 of the 5 have passed and the Governor has indicated he will sign them into law later this month; American Banker interviewed Caitlin on institutional interest cryptocurrencies, bitcoin becoming financialized, the different between security and utility tokens and more. Source.
Fortress Alum Mike Novogratz is starting a $500mn hedge fund to invest in cryptocurrencies, ICOs and other companies in the blockchain space; he will start the fund with $150mn of his own money and raise the rest from family offices, fund managers and wealthy individuals; “This is going to be the largest bubble of our lifetimes,” Novogratz said to Bloomberg. "You can make a whole lot of money on the way up, and we plan on it.” Source.
Amber Baldet was ranked 31 and is working with the JPMorgan team to develop blockchain solution Quorum; others in fintech include Vitalik Buterin the creator of ethereum, Brian Armstrong from Coinbase, and Ernie Garcia, Ryan Keeton and Ben Huston from Carvana. Source
The replay for Wednesday's LendIt Forum: Investor Opportunities in Non-Prime Lending is now available; the webinar discussed the non-prime investment space including details on the profile of non-prime investors and the returns investors can expect from this category; speakers included James Zhang from NerdWallet, Aaron Peck from Monroe Capital and Tim Ranney from Clarity Services.
The LendIt Forum replay for Investor Opportunities in Non-Prime Lending is now available; the webinar discussed the non-prime investment space including details on the profile of non-prime investors and the returns investors can expect from this category; speakers included James Zhang from NerdWallet, Aaron Peck from Monroe Capital and Tim Ranney from Clarity Services. Source
Fosun Group has invested in Shanghai Distributed Technologies (SDT); the amount was in the tens of millions of yuan; SDT works on blockchain with financial firms and has a joint venture with the Guiyang city government to develop blockchain-based systems for public services; SDT is a startup behind Onchain, which is founded by Da Hongfei, one of the earliest blockchain participants in China. Source
Anthony Thomson, Founder & Chairman of Atom Bank, is stepping down after the company completes their latest fundraising; Bridget Rosewell, current non executive director, will assume they role left by Anthony; Mr. Thomson started the digital bank in 2014, raised more than $350mn and has guided the company to a top 10 rating in KPMG’s fintech rankings; “Since having the idea for Atom bank in early 2012, it has gone from being a big idea disguised as a small bank to a big idea and a big bank,” said Thomson in a statement reported by AltFi. Source.
While trying to raise money for their robotics and AI startup Trevor McFredries found an issue that he wanted to change, all investors were white men; he, along with his colleague Sara DeCou, stated they would not accept money unless the investors had a woman or a person of color in a senior position; 400 tech entrepreneurs have banded together to form a coalition called Founders of Change to make real progress on diversity; the group is inspired by the broader movement to make businesses more diverse and include more voices as the old ways of investing need to change. Source.