#275
Talladega Nights
Yeeehaaah! The NASCAR, or the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, season is upon us and fintech start-ups are, for the first time, getting involved! NASCAR’s origins date back to Prohibition when Appalachian Bootleggers needed to distribute their illicit products via small, fast vehicles which could better evade the police.
Today, Motorsports is a $5.75b global industry and NASCAR in the US is the second most watched sport behind NFL. Most NASCAR fans are between 18 - 44 years old and almost 40% of them are women, demographics that fintech start-ups have taken notice of.
MoneyLion announced a full partnership with Team Penske for the 2019 season and we’ve already seen Joey Logano and Austin Cindric pilot the MoneyLion car to victory in front of hundreds of thousands of fans.
MoneyLion will be the title sponsor of the MoneyLion 300 at the Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, April 27, 2019 (come on over). Talladega is billed as the “the biggest and baddest track on the planet” and was made famous to some of us non-Americas by the shakin’ and bakin’ Ricky Bobby.
Investment app Acorns recently announced that they too will be entering the fray with driver Ryan Newman and car #6 on February 24th in Atlanta.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Acorns, but before you take to the track you should listen to the good words of Reese Bobby (Ricky’s dad) “There ain't nothin' more frightenin' than drivin' with a live cougar in the car. If you're calm, that wonderous big cat will be calm too. But if you're scared, that beautiful death machine will do what God made it to do, namely, eat you with a smile on its face.”
PORTFOLIO NEWS
Runa founder speaks at SXSW on the rising LATAM tech scene - Courtney McColgan, Founder and CEO of Mexico City HQ'd Runa, will speak at SXSW (03.08.19) about how a new generation of LATAM entrepreneurs, who are proficient with the startup toolkits available to their North American counterparts, are building tech companies that play to the advantages and preferences of their region. Read more
You drive a 1972 Pinto because your neighborhood makes you - Jase Wilson the CEO of Neighborly uses a thankfully absurd, but fun, analogy to highlight how America's community broadband is broken and how we might fix it. Read more
Investment app Acorns to sponsor Ryan Newman - Acorns will be featured for multiple races in 2019, making its debut with the Ryan Newman behind car No. 6 Ford Mustang at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Read more
MoneyLion, Team Penske roar into 2019 partnership - Portfolio company MoneyLion, America’s most powerful financial membership, announced a multi-year partnership with Team Penske, beginning with the 2019 NASCAR season. In celebration, MoneyLion has committed to providing racing fans across the country with 5% cashback on tickets, merchandise purchases, and at-track purchases. Read more
INDUSTRY NEWS
Purchases with plastic get costlier for merchants—and consumers - Visa and MasterCard are mulling increasing interchange fees (which merchants pay to issuing banks), as well as fees that card networks charge financial institutions for processing card payments for merchants. Read more
JPM throws its hat in the digital coin ring - In the saturated stable coin market, JP Morgan is rolling out a coin that is redeemable for fiat and powered by its private permissioned platform Quorum. It is meant for institutional clients who have to go through normal KYC procedures, with the primary use being b2b payments. Read more
Bakkt's launch date pushed again - The CEO of ICE announced that the firm's digital asset platform which was expected to launch at the end of 2018, will now be expecting a launch later in 2019. He described the crypto platform as a "moonshot bet" for ICE. Read more
Morgan Stanley, in its biggest deal since crisis, courts future millionaires - Morgan Stanley is shelling out $900m to acquire Solium, which manages the stock that corporate employees receive as part of their pay. Solium's 3k corporate clients have 1m employees and include startups such as Stripe and Instacart. Read more
Charles Schwab, Fidelity escalate brokerage price war - Schwab and Fidelity are making hundreds more ETFs free to trade on their platforms. Fidelity specified that it would expand its commission-free lineup to more than 500 ETFs. Read more
SoFi was in talks to acquire the fintech backing some of the hottest robo advisors - Looking to expand beyond lending, Business Insider reports the $4bn SF based fintech that got its start in grad student financing was in talks to buy Apex, a clearing and custody firm, at a $600m price tag before only making a minority equity investment. Read more
Amazon’s lending perpetuates the tech giant’s control over small businesses - With access to detailed information and data on each seller, Amazon is able to lend quickly and effectively while mitigating risk to its marketplace sellers. But SMBs on the platform are complaining over Amazon's exclusivity terms, data control, and capricious decisions. Read more
FINANCINGS
Chainalysis - New York-based provider of cryptocurrency compliance solutions raised $30m in Series B funding led by Accel. Read more
Inshur - New York based commercial auto insurance platform has raised a $7m Series A led by Munich Re. Read more
Rapyd - London-based digital wallet startup raised $40m in Series B funding co-led by Stripe and General Catalyst. Read more
Second Measure - San Mateo based provider of consumer behavior analytics raised $20m in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Goldman Sachs. Read more
Starling Bank - UK based challenger bank has raised £75m ($97m) in Series C funding from Merian Global Investors and existing shareholders. Read more
Qu - Maryland based maker of point-of-sale solutions for restaurants raised $10m in Series B funding led by Cota Capital. Read more
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