welcome to TechCrunch Financial technologyThis week, we'll discuss the Evolve Bank hack, three notable acquisitions, Plaid's growing business clientele, and more.
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The big story
The 26th of June, Evolve Bank and Trusta financial institution popular with fintech startups, announced that it had been the victim of a cyberattack and data breach that could have also affected its partner companies. The incident, According to the companyinvolved “data and personal information of some Evolve retail bank customers and customers of fintech partners,” including Affirm, Mercury, Bilt, Alloy, and Stripe. On June 29, the fintech company Intelligent announced that some of its customers' personal data may have been stolen in the data breach.
Also last week, Thread bank — a popular partner for BaaS startups like Unit – got Hit with coercive action of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Analysis of the week
Last week was an active week for fintech M&A. Just seven months after announcing a $6 million seed funding round, data intelligence startup Hyperplane announced that it had been acquired by Brazilian company Nubank. The company's main objective is to enable banks to train their own models to boost tools in their risk, collections and marketing departments. Ring It was also announced plans to acquire Salt Labs “for up to $173 million.” TechCrunch covered Salt laboratories Raising $10 million in March 2023 here. And Robin Hood is adding more ai features for investors with the acquisition of ai-powered research platform Pluto Capital.
Dollars and cents
Payabliwhich builds the infrastructure that enables businesses, specifically software companies, to integrate and facilitate payments via APIs, raised $20 million in Series A funding.
Another company in the space is Junglewhich also raised $20 million in its own Series A funding round, less than a year after its initial funding. Rainforest integrates payment processing into other software platforms.
From Belgium Chiftwhich enables SaaS companies to integrate with dozens of financial tools with a unified API, raised a $2.5 million seed round.
Armed with $8 million in seed funding, Egyptian banking-as-a-service startup Connect money is attempting to leverage its popularity to explore emerging business opportunities in African markets.
As a foreigner, navigating health insurance systems can often be difficult. German startup Feather believes it has a solution and has raised €6 million to help some of the more than 40 million expatriates working and living in Europe.
What else are we writing?
Of Scottish plaid The company’s expansion into a multi-product space has allowed it to start to see real momentum beyond traditional fintech customers. President Jen Taylor told me exclusively how many enterprise customers the company currently has and detailed how growth in that segment is starting to outpace the rest of its business.
Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart has quietly begun rolling out its own payments app, dubbed Super.money, as it expands its fintech ambitions more than a year and a half after parting ways with PhonePe. The new app from the Walmart-owned company, now Available in beta version on Play Storeallows users to make mobile payments through UPI, an interoperable network that is the most popular way for Indians to make online transactions.
High-interest headlines
ai-displacing-more-170557299.html”>Citi predicts ai will displace more banking jobs than any other sector
ai-tool-across-the-firm-cd94369b”>Goldman Sachs deploys its first generative ai tool across the firm
ai/”>Billionaire Steve Cohen's Point72 Ventures lays off fintech team to move toward ai
Pay for new items by exchanging your old items directly at checkout
Prudence, profits and growth (Global FinTech Report co-authored by BCG and QED Investors)
From now on, only up: The state of fintech in 2024 and the hero's journey (by Bain Capital Ventures partner Matt Harris)
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