Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we look at a Brex executive jumping ship to join venture firm a16z, Klarna selling its payments unit and some big raises.
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The big story
Ali Rathod-Papier has stepped down from her role as global head of compliance at corporate card expense management startup Brex to join venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as a partner and chief compliance officer, TechCrunch has learned exclusively. The hiring comes at an interesting time for a16z, which had invested in Synapse, the banking-as-a-service startup that filed for bankruptcy in April and has since come under fire for missing about $85 million in client funds. Another Brex executive, Sam Blond (former chief revenue officer), also left the company to become an entrepreneur. However, he ended up stepping down from his role at Founders Fund earlier this year, saying at the time “full-time investing / being a VC is not for me.”
Analysis of the week
Gyngera platform that lends capital to companies for tech buyouts has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by PayPal Ventures. There are many companies out there to help startups fund technology purchases through a variety of methods. Gynger’s model stood out in that it works together both buyers and sellers of technology. The startup offers vendors selling technology a way to offer embedded financing through an accounts receivable platform that provides “flexible” payment terms. To date, Gynger has facilitated thousands of payments for its customers across hundreds of vendors, including AWS, Google Cloud, and Okta.
Dollars and cents
Finbournewhich has built a platform to help financial firms organize and use more of their data in artificial intelligence and other models, raised $70 million at a valuation just over $356 million after money.
Cadanawhose APIs and white-label products enable the global workforce to integrate payments and payroll management into their existing systems, has emerged from secrecy with a total of $7.4 million in funding.
based in Paris Herowhich is building an ambitious banking product for small companies, has raised a $12.2 million all-equity funding round led by Valar Ventures.
Materiawhich integrates into a firm’s existing software and workflow applications to help break down the silos that exist in accounting firms’ trove of unstructured data, has emerged from secrecy with $6.3 million in funding.
What else are we writing?
Four years after acquisition Shinea French fintech startup offering bank accounts to freelancers and micro-enterprises; Societe Generale has announced plans to sell Shine to Agera. In 2020, TechCrunch reported that Société Générale spent around €100 million to acquire Shine. It wasn’t a huge acquisition, but it attracted a lot of coverage at the time, as it was more than just a technology or talent deal. Romain Dillet gives us the scoop here.
High interest titles
Elon Musk’s X revenue has officially dropped, new documents show
Revolut seeks over $40bn valuation in employee stock sale
Celcoin raises $120.5 million for new M&A
Mexican fintech unicorn Clip lands $100 million investment
Amplify Life Insurance Raises $20M in Series B Funding
Klarna rival Zilch raises $125M to triple sales and accelerate path to IPO
Verituity raises $18.8M for payment verification
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