When startups fail, those startups are cleaned up

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! I apologize for being out last week — a cold caught up with me, but I’m back here too to talk about the fact that shutting down startups is big business, Stripe’s new valuation, Klarna’s latest AI update, and more.

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The big story

Last week, I wrote about two startups — Sunset and Simple Close — that help other startups close fundraising. It was a deep dive into how and why this business has become so sought after by investors. I covered too Stripe’s offering that led to a 30% increase in valuation—to $65 billion—for the payments giant. That means the company likely won’t go public this year. You can hear Alex Wilhelm and I discuss both topics on Friday’s Equity Podcast episode. You can also hear me speak Nubank CEO David Vélez on a variety of interesting topics.

Analysis of the week

Klarna has been in the news a lot lately. Last week, a failed coup on the part of one investor, Matthew Miller of Sequoia Capital, made headlines and resulted in his ouster. This week, the Swedish giant BNPL published less year loss before its possible IPO. The company then caused a bit of controversy when it said its new AI assistant does “equivalent work of 700 full-time agents.” A company representative told me via email that since its global launch just a month ago, the AI assistant has had 2.3 million conversations, handling two-thirds of Klarna’s customer service conversations. He stressed, however, that the company had not made any cuts as a result of the launch of this AI assistant. He added: “Klarna’s customer service is supported by 4-5 large global partners that have a total of over 650,000 employees and work with thousands of different companies around the world. When one of the companies, such as Klarna, requires less support, these agents are assigned to new tasks in another company… With the AI assistant, our customer service can work with fewer people and require significantly fewer resources. However, there is still a need for more experienced and senior staff, for example with specialist training in complex or sensitive cases.’

Dollars and cents

Almost two years after securing $20 million in Series A capital, the Colombian B2B financial solutions startup Symmetrical returns with an additional investment of $55 million in Series B funding from Goldman Sachs.

Embata Spanish fintech that does what they call “real-time cash management,” closed a $16 million Series A funding round led by Creandum.

Deel — the $12 billion human resources business — said it is picking up Zavvy, a Munich-based AI-based “people development” startup that builds tools for personalized career development, training and performance management.

FairMoneya Lagos-based, Paris-based digital bank, is in acquisition talks Oopsa credit digital bank that provides payroll and financial services to customers in Nigeria and Kenya, in a deal worth a total of $20 million, sources tell TechCrunch.