FinTech news in checkout category

I asked Guillaume Pousaz if Checkout.com’s new valuation was similar to a 409A valuation update. It has implications when it comes to taxes as employees usually pay taxes on the difference between the price of their options and the new share value as defined by the new 409A valuation. Fintech startup Checkout.com was in the news this morning because the Financial Times reported that the payment company had slashed its internal valuation to $11 billion. Unlike Klarna’s down round, the new valuation wasn’t determined by a VC firm willing to invest in the company.

In response to the allegations and reports, Kuruvilla then said that Bolt has seen a 131% year over year increase in shopper accounts and a 192% year over year increase in total active merchant accounts. One-click checkout startup Bolt has laid off at least 100 employees, and counting, across go-to-market, sales and recruiting roles.

A few months after raising $1 billion, payments startup Checkout.com has announced that it plans to acquire French startup Ubble, which operates a remote identity verification service. When looking at digital identity verification startups, Checkout.com had a few criteria, such as accuracy, speed of decision, how many types of different frauds they can detect and how sophisticated it is. Following this acquisition, there could be some customers that start their relationship with Checkout.com through identity verification.

Toronto-based Sleek, which was part of Y Combinator summer 2021 batch, is developing a browser extension enabling one-click checkout and cash-back savings.

In discussing Bolt’s rise to total funding near the $1 billion mark, Breslow explained that the company operates in a space with competitors that are actually worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

The funding will be used to continue growing GPS’s business — which includes a range of fintech services such as payments, direct debits, and standing orders; virtual cards; mobile wallets; fraud prevention; expense management; cryptocurrency management; BNPL and more.