#529
Fast Food To Fintech
Published:
Mar 02, 2024
Author:
Sarah Parsons Wolter
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While European fintech sights have been set on usage based billing for SaaS companies as of late, the implications of innovation surrounding pricing and billing models have taken on a new meaning for users far outside the SaaS realm across the pond.
The catalyst of this major shake up? Dynamic pricing. Wendy’s chicken nugget aficionados everywhere are up in arms after the CEO announced a $20m rollout of digital menus to accommodate a new surge pricing system, only to walk back the prospect of higher prices after the news was met with outrage from customers. And for those consumers who don’t typically listen in to earnings calls…they’ll learn soon enough that late night runs might be more economical than getting your frosty fix at peak hours.
To further add to Wendy’s new technology accolades, they’ve now implemented an AI chatbot at certain locations that they claim can cut out human intervention 86% of the time. Keep an eye out for their stock to start trading like the tech company it’s becoming!
Portfolio News
Olajumoke Adenowo joins Flutterwave’s board as fintech giant pursues international expansion - Adenowo, who is Flutterwave’s first independent non-executive board member, is expected to contribute to its goal of solidifying its pan-African and global positioning, the company said in a statement. With a successful career in architecture spanning over 35 years, CNN described her as “Africa’s Starchitect.” Read more
Underline CEO featured during Metro Connect USA 2024 - Bob Thompson speaks 1-on-1 about why you should care about the role of critical infrastructure in the fabric of communities, and Underline's distinct approach to serving every segment with multi-purpose fiber networks + technology. Read more
MetaStreet raises $25m in funding to Expand NFT Lending Platform - Congratulations to FTC DeFi portfolio company MetaStreet on announcing the completion of a $25m funding round. Participants in the investment include Andrew Kang, dingaling, GMoney, MrBlock, DCF God, Dingaling, Sisyphus, Spencer, FreeLunchCapital, Jae Chung, and GoodAlexander. Read more
Fast Food To Fintech
Wendy's surge pricing coming in 2025 - Surge pricing is coming to Wendy's with the fast-food chain planning to test "AI-enabled menu changes" starting as early as 2025. The Ohio-based chain is planning to invest approximately $20m to add digital menu boards to all U.S. company restaurants by the end of 2025. Read more
Wendy's, burned by CEO comment, vows no price surges for burgers - Wendy's said on Wednesday it has no plans to raise menu prices at times of peak demand, after the burger chain was scorched on social media sites for comments its CEO made earlier this month suggesting the chain may start testing "dynamic pricing." Its initiative to add digital menuboards to certain stores would allow Wendy's to offer discounts to customers more easily, "particularly in the slower times of day," the company said. Read more
Industry News
Stripe announces tender offer to provide employee liquidity - Stripe will let current and former employees cash out more of their stock through a $1b tender offer announced this week, valuing the company at $65b. In providing more liquidity to employees, Stripe is expected to again push off its IPO plans, at least until 2025. Read more
Klarna AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service chats in its first month - The AI assistant has had 2.3m conversations, two-thirds of Klarna’s customer service chats, and is doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents. Notably, it is also on par with human agents in regard to customer satisfaction score. Read more
What companies need to know when accounting for Leap Day - From same-store sales to interest-rate calculations, the ripples of an added day at the end of February present CFOs with extra considerations. Read more
Morgan Stanley evaluating spot Bitcoin ETFs for its giant brokerage platform - Although billions of dollars have already been invested in these products, the investment floodgates might not fully open until the bitcoin ETFs are offered by big registered investment advisor (RIA) networks and broker-dealers platforms such as those attached to firms like Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and others. Read more
G20 lays out cross-border payments roadmap - The three biggest priorities underpinning the next phase of the G20’s cross-border roadmap are: payment system interoperability and extension; legal and regulatory supervisory frameworks; and data exchange and messaging standards. Read more
Microsoft updates Copilot to bring AI to finance teams - Copilot for Finance joins the company’s Copilot for Sales and Copilot for Service offerings, and is designed for finance professionals who say they are bogged down with data entry and review cycles. Read more
The TikTok generation turns to sports betting to chip away at student debt - For young people, particularly young men, there are two prevalent forces in their lives: the spreading legality and popularity of online sports betting and their hefty student loans. With the resumption of student-loan payments, young adults are now turning to sports betting as a Hail Mary pass to tackle their debts. Read more
Investors poured $4t into US ETFs over past decade - Over the past decade, ETF assets have surged substantially more quickly than the money sitting in mutual funds, data shows. In fact, when looking at the 10 largest providers of both products, assets in ETFs have ballooned three times as quickly over the past decade as the money sitting in mutual funds. Read more
Bitcoin ETFs hit volume record of $7.6b - BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF, which trades under the ticker IBIT, put up around $3.3b of that amount. Fidelity’s ETF, which trades under FBTC, came in at around $1.4b and Grayscale’s ETF, under ticker GBTC, saw volume of $1.8b. The volume is “largely” made up of natural demand, meaning that it’s not algorithmic. Read more
Cross River wades into investment banking - Cross River Bank is launching a fintech-focused investment bank, which will be a part of CRB Group's CRB Securities subsidiary. To date, CRB Securities has been focused mostly on connecting its fintech partners with privately placed credit transactions, but adding investment banking will allow it to offer a full-stack approach to include equity fundraising, M&A and other corporate advisory functions. Read more
Select Financings
Avail - Dubai based modular blockchain project raised $27m in Seed funding led by Founders Fund and Dragonfly. Read more
Backpack - Tokyo based crypto exchange raised $17m in Series A funding led by Placeholder VC. Read more
Bfree - Lagos based debt collection company raised $3m in Seed funding led by Capria Ventures. Read more
BlueBean - Boston based all-in-one procure to play company raised $1.3m in pre-Seed funding led by Tola Capital. Read more
Bolero - Paris based decentralized music rights investment platform raised €2m in Seed funding led by XVC Tech. Read more
Buildstock - New York based B2B construction materials marketplace raised $1.6m in pre-Seed funding from investors including m]x[v Capital and XFactor Ventures. Read more
Campfire - San Francisco based startup and SMB accounting software company raised $3.5 in Seed funding led by Foundation Capital. Read more
Darwin AI - Brazil based AI-powered sales assistant platform raised $2.1m in Seed funding led by Canary. Read more
Embat - Spain based real-time treasury management company raised $16m in Series A funding led by Creandum. Read more
Ether.fi - Cayman Islands based liquid restaking protocol raised $23m in Series A funding led by Bullish Capital and CoinFund. Read more
Finpilot - Seattle based financial analysis co-pilot raised $4m in Seed funding led by Madrona. Read more
Hellas Direct - Athens based full-stack insurance company raised €30m in Series D funding led by ETF Partners. Read more
Initia - Singapore based rollup-focused blockchain company raised $7.5m in Seed funding led by Delphi Ventures and Hack VC. Read more
MoneyHash - Egypt based payments orchestration platform raised $4.5m in Seed funding led by COTU Ventures and Sukna Ventures. Read more
NayaOne - London based sandbox-as-a-service company raised $4.7m in Seed funding led by EJF Capital. Read more
ProCredit - Philippines based SME lending company raised $4.1m in pre-Seed funding led by Integra Partners. Read more
Qapita - Singapore based equity management platform raised $17.2m in Series B funding led by investors including East Ventures and MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia. Read more
SimpleClosure - Santa Monica based startup shutdown company raised $4m in Seed funding led by Infinity Ventures. Read more
Slice - Israel based equity compliance platform raised $7m in Series A funding led by TLV Partners. Read more
Superfluid - London based Ethereum-native token streaming platform raised $5.1m in Series A funding led by Fabric Ventures. Read more
Validation Cloud - Switzerland based web3 infrastructure company raised $5.8m in Seed funding led by Cadenza Ventures. Read more
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