Kids’ finance startup GoHenry marches into Europe with Pixpay acquisition - British prepaid debit card startup focused on kids and teens, bought Pixpay, a French banking app for teens. GoHenry backers include Edison Partners, Gaia Capital Partners, Citi Ventures and Muse Capital, while Pixpay raised funding from such firms as Bpifrance and GFC. Read more
Goldman hires senior Google executive for new innovation group - The bank announced that Jared Cohen would run the it's Office of Applied Innovation alongside George Lee, co-chief information officer and a longtime Goldman partner. The move is the latest example of the latest example of a Wall Street bank mining talent from a tech giant. Read more
Monzo chief vows to scale up business despite fintech turmoil - The head of UK digital bank Monzo has vowed to press ahead with scaling up the business, defying the retrenchment forced on many fintechs by slowing economic growth and a downturn in markets. Read more
Alan Howard’s adventures in cryptoland - Howard is an influential figure in the hedge fund industry thanks to the success of Brevan Howard Asset Management, the $23b macro trading firm he co-founded. In recent years though, he has been slowly relinquishing some of his roles at the firm to become a major force in crypto venture capital in both Europe and the US. Read more
What private equity’s rise means for your stock investments - According to Morgan Stanley the private markets are expected to grow to about $12.5t in 2025 from $7.2t in 2020. Buyouts, growth equity and venture capital account for about 69% of the industry. These firms are now racing to develop new products that will appeal to wealthy individuals and market them to the financial advisers who manage their money. Read more
Stripe cuts internal valuation by 28% - Stripe told employees in an email Friday that the internal share price was about $29, compared with $40 in the most previous internal valuation, known as a 409A valuation. The move lowered the implied valuation of those shares to $74b, which is calculated separately from the stock owned by major shareholders. Read more
Celsius files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection - Celsius is referring to this as a restructuring rather than a liquidation, claiming to have $167m of cash on hand. It also has repaid most of its major outstanding DeFi loans (even though Celsius itself isn't DeFi). On the other hand, there are the pending investor and user losses tied to Celsius, which also is being sued by a former partner that accuses the company of being a "Ponzi scheme." Read more
For crypto survivors, there are deals to be had - A blowout in the cryptocurrency market sparked a wave of layoffs, punished valuations and drove some companies to bankruptcy. Now firms that still have capital are gearing up for a shopping spree. Read more
Homebuyers are canceling deals at the highest rate since the start of the pandemic - The share of sale agreements on existing homes canceled in June was just under 15% of all homes that went under contract, according to a new report from Redfin. Homebuilders are also seeing higher cancelation rates. Higher mortgage rates and surging inflation are causing many potential homebuyers to reconsider their purchases. Read more
Rappi mafia: How a delivery startup took over Colombia’s tech scene - Data from Marathon Ventures shows that the Rappi mafia has created more companies in less time than other Latin American unicorns, including Brazil’s Nubank and Gympass and even U.S. companies, such as SpaceX and Netflix. Founded in 2015, Rappi built its mafia in less than seven years — under half the time it took PayPal to build a similar network. Read more
MercadoLibre receives $233m from Goldman Sachs to expand loans in Brazil and Mexico - Argentine online marketplace MercadoLibre Inc said on Monday it received a private financing line of $233m from Goldman Sachs to expand its credit offer in Brazil and Mexico. Of the total figure, $106m will be destined for Brazil and $127m for Mexico, MercadoLibre said in a statement. Read more
Brazil's Creditas buys banking license - Brazilian secured lending platform Creditas is set to expand its offering, buying a banking license and a mortgage marketplace. The firm is acquiring the Brazilian banking license of Andorra's Banco Andbank, enabling it to accept deposits. Read more |
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