FinTech news in venture category

Spatial Labs company made a splash in the industry last year by selling clothes designed by Sandu called Gen One Hardwear, which were embedded with a microchip called LNQ (pronounced link) that provided consumers with the item’s provenance and ownership history, seen, naturally, on the blockchain. Per Crunchbase data, only 1% of all VC funds were allocated to Black founders last year; out of the $21.5 billion raised by web3 startups globally last year, $60 million of that went to U.S.-based Black web3 founders, one of whom was Sandu. Spatial Labs, a web3 infrastructure and hardware company, announced today the closing of a $10 million seed round led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Marcy Venture Partners, the firm co-founded by Jay-Z. Iddris Sandu founded Spatial Labs in 2021, seeking to create products and shopping experiences using augmented reality.

It seems like a lot of moolah in a volatile market, even coming as it does from two separate a16z funds: the firm’s $600 million debut games vehicle and its $4.5 billion crypto fund, both of which were announced last May. The latter remains privately held, but after scrapping plans to go public through a special purpose acquisition company, it managed to snag $350 million in funding in 2021 from Netmarble, Kabam, and affiliates of funds managed by Fortress Investment Group, which suggests it’s doing just fine. The pair previously co-founded the once-hot social media platform MySpace (which originally sold to MySpace for $580 million in 2005) and the mobile game studio Jam City. (Indeed, Jam City, which claims to have 30 million monthly active users, announced this morning that a third cofounder, Josh Yguado, is now running the show after serving as the company’s COO and president previously.)

Allocations just got valued at $150M to help private equity funds lure smaller investors Payall lands $10M in a16z-led seed round to help banks facilitate more cross-border payments Lease-to-own fintech startup Kafene raises $18M to battle BNPL Southeast Asian fintech Fazz raises $100M Series C to serve businesses of all sizes Nigerian financial management app for merchants Kippa bags $8.4M in new funding Composer raises $6M for automated investing platform Redfin CEO, DoorDash co-founder invest in new startup, Far Homes, which is building a portal for Mexico real estate German software firm Candis raises $16M to expand AP automation Splitit drives installments-as-a-service growth with a $10.5M funding PortX launched as new entity by ModusBox and secures $10M in new funding Adyen announced on September 15 that it has become the first fintech to partner with Cash App (Block) to offer Cash App Pay, a mobile payment method, to its U.S. customers. In 2020, digital bank Varo became the first-ever all-digital nationally chartered U.S. consumer bank — meaning it received approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to become an actual bank, as opposed to partnering with one as most digital banks do.

In a previous interview Dixon said he wanted to increase the number of founders who identify as women and/or an underrepresented person of color in the portfolio to above 50%; with this fund, 46% of investments have a founder who identifies as a woman, 53% of investments have a founder who identifies as Black and all investments have a founder who identifies as an underrepresented person of color. The fund signals a change in how Kapor Capital does business: Beyond being the first that is led by the two newly announced managing partners, Fund 3 is the first investment vehicle funded by outside investors (not just the co-founders). The fintech and edtech investor then became one of the first and youngest African-American partners at any Silicon Valley venture capital firm, including Kapor Capital, the firm says. Onovakpuri, meanwhile, founded Kapor’s Capital Fellows program and has worked at firms including Village Capital and Fresco Capital.

Last batch, YC’s India founders appeared concentrated mostly within the financial services sector, around 30% when you consider that out of 36 Indian startups, 11 were in the fintech world. Out of the 21 startups YC backed in India this cohort, about 40%, or 8 startups, are in the fintech category. Despite a bit of a slowdown in fintech funding for private companies this year compared to the ultra-hot 2021 market, the sector remains much hotter than it was in years past, accounting for nearly 21% of total venture deals as of Q2 2022. YC’s startups are no exception – only time will tell if their approach of focusing in on international companies operating in niche markets will pay off or if consolidation in the sector has already gone too far for new upstarts to see breakout success.

As Clearco international workforce is cut, its global clients will now turn to Outfund, an e-commerce investor that operates in the U.K. and Australia. The latest workforce reduction is just one step Clearco has taken over the past few months, including prior rounds of layoffs, to refocus its business operations amid the changing e-commerce scene. When Clearco cut a quarter of staff in July, Romanow said at the time that it was considering strategic options for its international operations. One month after cutting 25% of its total staff, Clearco is conducting another round of layoffs as it retracts its international presence in the U.K., Germany, Ireland and Australia.

Nilekani, co-founder of IT services giant Infosys and who has been instrumental in development and evangelising of several of India digital initiatives, including biometric IDs Aadhaar, and Aggarwal, who founded now IBM-owned BPO firm Daksh, launched Fundamentum in 2019 to back consumer-focused and software-focused startups. Fundamentum Partnership, a venture firm co-founded by Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal, has raised $227 million for its second fund as the high-profile tech industry veterans double down on backing startups in the South Asian region. Fundamentum’s new fund comes at a time when startups in India — and beyond — are finding it increasingly difficult to raise capital at terms considered favorable from last year’s bull cycle norm. Aggarwal said many reputed early-stage venture firms have closed new rounds in India in recent quarters, so there’s enough dry powder to continue to back young startups.

Andreessen Horowitz recent hire of former Jordan Park Group Chief Investment Officer Michel Del Buono suggests the venture capital firm is getting into startup founder wealth management. Alongside ditching a centralized HQ, a16z announced new offices in Miami Beach, New York and Santa Monica in addition to its existing Menlo Park and San Francisco posts. The outfit, more commonly known as a16z, confirmed Del Buono’s hire as CIO to oversee those types of services for founders, as first reported by Bloomberg. That move was notable in that the storied venture firm was founded in 2009 in Menlo Park and has historically been associated with the Bay Area.

On Deck, a tech company that connects founders to each other, capital and advice, has laid off 25% off its staff, per sources familiar with the company. On Deck, not to be confused with small business lender OnDeck, is a company that provides capital and network support for emerging fund managers and founders.