The Techee

A major fintech startup from the Latin American region has filed for an IPO on the US markets. That startup is DLocal , which offers cross-border payment gateways for merchants doing business in emerging markets like its home region of Latin America. DLocal has filed an F-1 document with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as required for foreign companies seeking to list shares on its markets. The F-1 as usual gives a great insight into DLocal's business with information not publicly known before. Details: DLocal's F-1 document shows that of a fast-growing startup with a history of profitability. It's unlike many companies in the recent crop of IPOs with little or no history of profitability. DLocal made $104mn in revenue in 2020, nearly double its $55mn revenue in the previous year. In 2020, the company reported $28mn in profit, nearly double its profit of $16mn in the previous year, 2019.  DLocal has made its mark as a fast-growing cross-border payment start

Flywire, a Boston-based payments startup, has filed for an initial public offering on the US markets. It's unveiled its S-1 document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The S-1 as expected provides a peek into the company's business and financials with information not publicly known before. Flywire is a payments startup serving the education, healthcare, and travel industries. It's a platform for cross-border payments which's crucial in those industries. By the numbers: Flywire's S-1 prospectus shows that of a company with healthy and steadily growing revenue over the years. It reports $132 million in revenue in 2020, compared to $95 million in the previous year 2019. Flywire isn't profitable but reports losses not out of place for a fast-growing startup backed by venture money. It posted respective net losses of $11 million and $20 million in 2020 and 2019. Flywire is backed by venture funding to the tune of over $260 million which it&#

After going public early this year, 'buy now, pay later' company Affirm has made its first acquisition as a publicly-traded company with the purchase of Returnly, a startup that handles payments collections for product returns for online retailers. Affirm is paying $300 million in cash and stock to buy Returnly making it its biggest acquisition yet. It was already an investor and shareholder in Returnly before striking a deal to acquire the company this past week. Returnly handles online returns and post-purchase payments for direct-to-consumer brands selling online. For the basics, it offers customers shopping with its merchants' instant store credit if they buy an item and decide to return them rather than wait long for cash refunds from the merchant itself. The instant store credits given to shoppers make them more likely to purchase another item from the merchant while waiting for their cash refund which's deposited once a return is confirmed by the merchant. For t

The Rise Fund, a $5 billion impact investment fund formed by private equity giant TPG in partnership with Irish singer Bono and tech entrepreneur Jeff Skoll, has made its latest bet with a $200 million investment in the mobile money division of Airtel Africa plc. Officially, The Rise Fund will pay $200 million for a 7.5% stake in Airtel Mobile Commerce BV, which's the holding company for Airtel Africa's mobile money operations. The investment values Airtel Africa's mobile money business at $2.65 billion on a cash and debt-free basis. Airtel Africa announced The Rise Fund's investment in its mobile money arm with a filing to the National Stock Exchange of India . Following The Rise Fund's investment, Airtel Africa will continue to retain a majority stake in its mobile money business while the fund holds a 7.5% minority stake. With that, Airtel Africa notes that it's still in discussions with other unnamed potential investors to sell up to 25% of its mobile money

eToro, a popular online platform for trading stocks and cryptocurrencies, is the latest technology company to take the SPAC route towards an exit on the public markets. It's sealed an agreement to merge with  special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC)  FinTech Acquisition Corp. V (NASDAQ: FTCV) in a deal valuing it at $10.4 billion. FinTech Acquisition Corp. V is a SPAC launched by female business veteran Betsy Cohen. eToro is on a path to go public after nearly a decade and a half of existence, wherein it's grown into a major online trading platform that drew $605 million in gross revenue in 2020. Particularly, 2020 was a very good year for eToro, wherein it says it added 5 million new registered users. In 2020, eToro says that it executed 27 million trades each month on average, compared to an average of 8 million trades per month in 2019. Now in 2021, the company reports having added 1.2 million new registered users and executing 75 million trades in January alone. Altogethe

Hot payments startup Stripe has closed a big new round of funding, announcing that it's raised a $600 million Series H round that values it at a whopping $95 billion, whereby such valuation makes Stripe now the most valuable private technology company in the US. Stripe's new round came from a mix of existing and new investors including Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), Allianz X, Axa, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity, and Sequoia Capital.  With the new round, Stripe says that it'll bolster its European operations, particularly in Ireland where the company's two sibling founders, Patrick and John Collison, hail from. It's then no surprise that  Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency  which's an investment fund of the Irish government chipped into Stripe's new funding round. Europe is a major market for Stripe, with 31 out of the 42 countries that the company is currently present in being from the continent. Over there, Stripe powers onlin

  In a bid to speed up its push to secure a national bank charter, digital finance company SoFi has reached a deal to buy a community bank in California, a publicly-traded one named Golden Pacific Bancorp. SoFi will pay $2.55 in cash for each share of the bank, summing up to an acquisition price of $22.3 million. As noted by SoFi itself, the company's play to buy  Golden Pacific Bancorp is being done to advance its efforts to  obtain a national bank charter from regulatory authorities. SoFi has applied for that and is still awaiting approval from the appropriate authority, the US Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC). But now, by acquiring a community bank, SoFi will now  switch from applying for a new bank charter to applying for a change of control from that of Golden Pacific to itself. Basically, SoFi is buying a bank with an approved charter rather than waiting to obtain a new charter which usually takes a longer time. If it gets a bank charter, SoFi will be able to hold

The British fintech company TransferWise has carried out a major rebrand, announcing that it'll now adopt only the second suffix of its name, Wise . TransferWise has launched a new homepage, Wise.com, and says that it'll roll over all its current customers into the domain name by next month March. TransferWise's rebrand as just Wise comes as the company has been reported to be pursuing a soon public offering. Just last month, a report from Sky News said that TransferWise had picked two major wall street banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, to serve as lead book-runners for a planned public offering, and it's expected that the company will list in its home base of London. That TransferWise is reported to be eyeing a soon public offering shouldn't be surprising.  Founded in 2010 as a mere money transfer service, the company has expanded rapidly into one of Europe's premier fintech companies with other services including digital bank accounts for individuals a

In an era of heightened stock trading from retail investors, it seems that the companies really doing good in this era are those selling shovels in a gold rush. This very month, the popular stock trading app Robinhood raised a single funding round of $3.4 billion  after reeling from the GameStop short squeeze saga . Now, another stock trading app has followed Robinhood's lead to raise a big new round. Public.com, a stock trading app for retail investors that launched only eighteen months ago, has announced that it's raised a new $220 million Series D round that values it at $1.2 billion. The round comes just two months after the company raised a $65 million Series C round and on the heels of it hitting a milestone of 1 million users according to its stats. A mix of big-name investors chipped into the $220 million round, including Tiger Global, electronic duo The Chainsmokers’ Mantis VC, superstar actor Will Smith’s Dreamers VC, Inspired Capital, Aglae Ventures, and YouTube sta

After going public with a blockbuster listing last month, the 'buy now, pay later' company Affirm (NASDAQ:AFRM) has reported its first quarterly earnings as a public company and posted strong revenues in its fiscal year 2021 second quarter. Affirm posted total revenues of $204 million in its fiscal 2021 second quarter, a 57% increase over the year. The company boosted its gross merchandise volume (GMV) up by 55% over the year to $2.1 billion in the quarter.  Affirm isn't profitable, with a net loss of $31.6 million in its fiscal 2021 second quarter. This is slightly unchanged from a $31 million net loss that it posted in the same quarter last year. Affirm is fresh off an initial public offering that raised $1.3 billion before expenses for the company, and with that, it has enough cash to withstand losses as it works to expand. During the recent quarter which marked its first quarter as a public company, the company completed a major acquisition, purchasing the Canadian &#3

Figure, a blockchain lending startup founded by Mike Cagney of SoFi fame, is the latest company to form and launch its own special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). It's filed with the US SEC to raise $250 million for an eponymous SPAC named  Figure Acquisition Corp. I . The SPAC formed by Figure and Mike Cagney hasn't yet indicated any areas of industry where it's seeking a merger target, but for a hint, being formed by a company rather than investment firms and individuals like most SPACs are formed, it's likely that Figure's SPAC will merge with a company with its industry, fintech and blockchain. Figure is a digital mortgage lending platform that says it adopts blockchain technology to make the lending process easier. Founded in 2018, the company has already raised over $200 million in venture funding and was valued at $1.2 billion from its most recent fundraising round. Before founding Figure, Mike Cagney founded the fintech giant SoFi first as a student lo

As this new year and the previous have marked themselves as the years of the most mergers of technology companies with special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), the latest company to join the SPAC boom by sealing a merger deal is Payoneer, an American digital payments provider that allows people to send and money receive money worldwide. Payoneer has announced a merger agreement with FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ:FTOCU), a SPAC formed by the veteran female banker Betsy Cohen. Payoneer will merge with FTAC Olympus in a deal that values the company at $3.3 billion. From its merger, Payoneer is expected to receive $563 million in cash including a $300 million cash infusion committed by institutional investors like Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Millenium Management, T. Rowe Price, and the Dragoneer Investment Group. As usual, the rest of the money will come from that held in trust by the SPAC that Payoneer is merging with, FTAC Olympus in its case. Payoneer is looking to go p

The UK government has said that it'll place a close watch on the rising 'buy now, pay later' industry that provides a way for consumers to make steep purchases on credit and then pay back in installments to the lender.  The UK Treasury has said that buy-now-pay-later companies operating in the UK would now fall under the supervision of the country's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which will stipulate regulations like affordability checks before loans are made to consumers. The placement of buy-now-pay-later firms under closer regulatory watch follows concerns from consumer groups of customers, particularly young ones, getting lured into debt traps with the use of such services. These apps usually work like a credit card by providing loans to users to make purchases but without the steeper regulatory standards that credit card companies are held to. Providing easy-to-access loans, the main concern is that buy-now-pay-later products could encourage people to spend mor

Nubank, a digital banking company based in Brazil that's made its mark as one of the biggest in the Latin American market, has raised a new Series G funding round of $400 million that values it at a whopping $25 billion.  The Series G round came from a mix of new and existing investors including Singapore's GIC, Invesco, Ribbit Capital, Dragoneer, and Sequoia Capital. With it, Nubank has now raised a total of $1.2 billion in venture funding since it was founded. With a $25 billion valuation, Nubank appears to now be the highest-valued digital banking startup worldwide, speeding past American and European peers such as Revolut, Chime, and N26. It's very notable that the highest-valued digital banking company globally emerged from Latin America, a region that's not known to house a technology industry as big as that of other regions such as North America and Europe. Nubank has succeeded very well as a digital banking service since it was launched seven years ago. It's

Tastytrade is a popular platform that provides financial media and content for investors and traders as well as provides a platform for its users to trade options and derivatives. Now, it's the latest fintech startup to head for a big exit with a $1 billion sale to the British electronic trading company IGN Group. Tastytrade will be joining IGN in a deal valued at $1 billion net of cash held by Tastytrade. The price is split into $300 million in cash and the remainder with IGN stock. It represents a lucrative exit for Tastytrade which is backed by some $47 million in venture funding. Apparently, IGN, a British company that provides options and derivatives trading and brokerage services for professional investors, is betting that the appeal of retail investors that Tastytrade targets will boost its business. It's agreed to pay a big $1 billion for a company with more than 105,000 active trading accounts that'll then fall under its control. Tastytrade's $1 billion sale r

Blend, a startup that makes software for mortgage and digital lending providers, has closed a $300 million Series G round that doubled its valuation to $3.3 billion compared to five months ago. The round was led by the investment firms Coatue and Tiger Global. It was only five months ago that Blend raised $75 million in a funding round that valued it at $1.7 billion. Now, five months later, that valuation has roughly doubled, hinting at very good business prospects for Blend. 2020 was a very good year for the mortgage and consumer lending markets and saw the US mortgage market volume top a record $4 trillion . In the same year, consumer debt hit a record of $14.3 trillion .  Obviously, Blend has benefitted from the lending market surge given it provides software used by the lenders. The company's software is used by over 285 financial institutions in the US including Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank, claiming to process over $4 billion in mortgages and loans each day. With its new funding

After closing a $200 million round in August 2020, the online bond trading platform Trumid has topped up its coffers with a new $50 million round co-led by new investor DST Global and existing backer Dragoneer Investment Group.  The $50 million round is a secondary round, all being used to buy stakes from current existing shareholders and not going to the company. It values Trumid at $1.4 billion, compared to $1 billion when it closed the $200 million round last year. The $50 million round comes at a time of very good fortunes for Trumid, with the company stating that its Market Center trading platform has experienced 374% year-over-year volume growth. Trumid has boosted its client network to 530 institutions and the number of traders on its platform by 129% over the year. This month, Trumid entered into a strategic partnership with the banking giant Goldman Sachs to provide trading services to Goldman's clients. With the new round co-led by DST Global and Dragoneer, Trumid has no

The 'buy now, pay later' company Affirm has finally gone public, doing so to great investor sentiment that pushed its share price up over 100%. Affirm sold shares at $49 apiece and saw its shares rise to $99 during trading on Wednesday. The company raised $1.2 billion from its IPO. Affirm initially priced its shares at between $33 to $38, then $41 to $44, and later settled at $49. Even with the increased share price target, Affirm still popped high on its market debut, indicating great interest and sentiment from investors. Affirm was meant to hold a public offering in December 2020 but postponed its planned offering to adjust its pricing strategy after witnessing the IPO pops of DoorDash and Airbnb. Even after adjusting its pricing strategy, Affirm still couldn't hold off a high pop on the stock market and theoretically left money on the table by selling shares at a price significantly lower than could be tolerated by investors. Affirm filed to go public in November and

The UK-based payments startup Rapyd has raised a new funding round of $300 million that values it at $2.5 billion. The Series D round was led by the American investment firm Coatue Management, with participation from other new and existing investors including Spark Capital, Tiger Global, Durable Capital, FJ Labs, and Latitude. With the new round, Rapyd's $2.5 billion valuation doubled the $1.2 billion valuation that it got from a previous funding round. Now, the London-based payments startup has raised a total of over $400 million in venture funding. Rapyd is a payments platform that enables enterprises and businesses to handle local and cross-border transactions easily. It bills itself as a "Fintech-as-a-Service" platform, one that brings together 900-plus payment methods in over 100 countries on one platform to help businesses handle online payments with ease. With its new funding, Rapyd will work to expand its reach by doubling its engineering and product teams. The co

The payments company Visa has withdrawn from its proposed $5 billion acquisition of the fintech startup Plaid after opposition from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) over antitrust concerns, a statement from the DOJ candidates. Visa has apparently pulled out from what would have been one of the biggest acquisitions in fintech history after the DOJ filed a lawsuit against the company that alleged it sought to acquire Plaid to kill off potential competition. As a lawsuit against Visa was brought, the case was scheduled to begin court proceedings on the 28th of June, 2021, but now with the acquisition canceled, the DOJ has filed to dismiss the case. The canceling of an agreed $5.3 billion acquisition seems like a very big blow for Plaid, which was on the cusp of one of the biggest exits from the fintech industry. The San Francisco-based startup whose platform enables businesses to link to their customers' bank accounts reached a definitive agreement for an acquisition in January 202