#286
Here We Roar
MoneyLion, the private bank for the rest of us and America’s most powerful financial membership, lit up the Talladega Superspeedway last weekend in front of one hundred seventy-five thousand NASCAR fans with the Talladega MoneyLion 300…and we were with them in the pits!
On Saturday, the #22 MoneyLion car was driven to a top-five finish by Austin Cindric - 6’3”, 170lbs, still not of legal drinking age...
On Sunday, the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series defending champion Joey Logano took the wheel of the #22 car, led the race for a heart-thumping 37 laps, and finished fourth! The Acorns car finished seventh - just saying...
Over the weekend, MoneyLion fans were also rewarded with the chance to enter the Hear We Roar sweepstakes to win one of three custom-built 700hp Ford Mustang GT cars. The cars are being designed by MoneyLion drivers Logano, Ryan Blaney, and Cindric, in collaboration with top custom designers, including world-class drifter Vaughn Gittin Jr., founder of RTR Motorsports.
Sixty-five thousand people entered the sweepstakes over the weekend. ...and you can enter here
These drivers are world class - on and off the track - and we are phenomenally excited to be part of the community! Follow the team on Twitter @moneylionracing.
Shake and Bake MoneyLion...!
Portfolio News
The FT- One to watch: Vestwell - Vestwell gets profiled this week in the FT as one to watch! Founded in 2015, the company aims to take the friction and cost out of setting up, administering and monitoring 401k’s — aiming primarily for retirement plans at smaller businesses, which might be uneconomical for big retirement platforms such as Vanguard to handle. Read more
FinTech Female Fridays: Lauren Crossett, Enterprise Account Executive, Plaid - Lauren Crossett, a senior member of the team at portfolio company Plaid (via acquisition of Quovo), is interviewed about her career path and passion for Plaid's mission of providing the infrastructure to revolutionize consumer finance. Read more
Endeavor Selects 40 Entrepreneurs from 17 Markets at the 87th International Selection Panel in Madri - Congratulations to portfolio company Flutterwave for being selected by the Endeavor Entrepreneur's Global Network! Read more
This climate change insurance startup just raised a $6M Series A - Congratulations to portfolio company WorldCover on closing its $6m Series A financing led by MS&AD Ventures! WorldCover is leveraging satellite imagery to provide agriculture insurance with automated claims payouts, starting in Africa. Read more
Plan Fiduciary 101 - Tune into the RIA Compliance Concepts podcast to hear Vestwell's General Counsel, Allison Brecher, as she discusses what it means to be a fiduciary and simple steps advisors and their clients can take to protect themselves. Read more
Industry News
Bakkt acquires crypto custodian, partners with BoNY - Pending bitcoin futures exchange Bakkt has acquired the Digital Asset Custody Company (DACC), secured insurance for assets it will hold in cold storage, and revealed a partnership with Bank of New York. Read more
Safaricom bets future on mobile payments Mpesa - Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest mobile network provider, has predicted that within three years its pioneering digital payments business Mpesa will generate more revenue than all other parts of the business combined. Read more
Facebook's cryptocurrency plans may be more ambitious than we thought - A new WSj report claims the social media giant is launching a crypto-based payment system codenamed "Project Libra" that will include a stablecoin, ability to pay on third party sites, and potential to reward users for viewing ads. Read more
J.P. Morgan and Microsoft announce strategic partnership to drive enterprise blockchain adoption - JP Morgan's Ethereum version called Quorum will now be available through Azure Blockchain Service, enabling corporate clients to build and scale blockchain networks in the cloud. Quorum powers apps such as JPM Coin, Interbank Information Network, and Xbox’s royalty payment process. Read more
Flash Boys’ trading bots are running wild on crypto exchanges - Cornell Tech confirms bots are front running across decentralized exchanges (DEXs) by paying higher fees to get their order moved ahead. Read more
The past decade has brought a compliance boom in banking - The Economist reviews how, compliance budgets and headcounts have swelled at the big banks since the Financial Crisis. Read more
Robinhood, looking beyond brokerage, seeks bank charter to expand into deposits, credit cards - Robinhood has filed an application to open an FDIC-insured online bank through which it would offer customers a higher interest rate on deposits, while also avoiding overdraft and minimum balance fees. Read more
Select Financings
Checkout.com - London-based payments start-up that competes with Adyen has secured $230m from Insight and DST Global. The valuation was close to $2bn. Read more
Cheddar - Cable operator Altice USA has acquired financial streaming service Cheddar for $200m and named founder Jon Steinberg as President of Altice News. Cheddar was founded in 2016, and Altice invested in Cheddar in 2017. Read more
Divvy - Utah based expense management and virtual card platform has raised a $200m Series C led by NEA. Read more
Editional - New York based ETH digital collectibles social app has raised $1.5m Series Seed funding from ConsenSys Ventures, DCG, and CoinFund. Read more
Indio Technologies - San Francisco based software for P&C insurance brokers has raised $20m of Series B funding from Menlo Ventures. Read more
FinTech Collective Newsletter
Curated News with Context
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