18 October, 2024
Why does every startup want to help you get paid?
Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! This week, we’re looking at the piping hot global payroll space, neobank Dave’s financial results and related stock boost, and more!
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The big story
This week alone, we covered three interesting deals in the global payroll space. For starters, Deel announced it is acquiring African-based payroll and HR software and services company PaySpace in its largest acquisition to date. It also said it’s crossed $500 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). Then I wrote about Remofirst, a startup out to take on the likes of Deel and Rippling, too, securing $25 million in Series A funding. Also, Tage wrote about how UAE-based RemotePass announced it had raised $5.5 million in Series A funding led by Istanbul-based 212 VC. There’s no question that this space is hot, hot, hot.
Listen to Alex Wilhelm and I talk more about it on Equity:
Analysis of the week
We’re looking at another fintech recording positive financial results. Neobank Dave told us via email that it had achieved profitability for the first time as a public company, notching adjusted EBITDA of $10 million in the fourth quarter and GAAP net income of $200,000. The company also beat guidance for the 2023 fiscal year and reported a 26% increase in non-GAAP operating revenue with a big boost from its ExtraCash offering. Its stock skyrocketed on the news — starting the week opening on March 4 at $22.46, reaching a new 52-week-high of $43.99 on March 7, before closing at $36 on March 8.
Dollars and cents
Two-year-old Colombian payments startup Yuno has reached a $150 million valuation with $25 million in Series A funding from investors such as DST Global Partners, Tiger and a16z.
London-based challenger bank Monzo raised a late-stage funding round of $430 million at a post-money valuation of $5 billion.
Paris-based business banking startup Qonto is using an undisclosed portion of its cash reserve to acquire Regate, an accounting and financial automation platform.
Harness Wealth has expanded into the tax advisory space and raised a $17 million extension to its Series A round.
The Artemis Fund, which invests in underrepresented founders in fintech, commerce and care, closed on its second fund with $36 million in capital commitments.
What else we’re writing
Apple’s iOS 17.4 update is primarily about adapting iOS to the EU’s Digital Markets Act regulation. But the company has also released a new API called FinanceKit that lets developers fetch transactions and balance information from Apple Card, Apple Cash and Savings with Apple.
Georgina Merhom wants to squash the status quo with SOLO, a first-party data collection and reporting engine that integrates user-permissioned data sources, including financial transactions, online records and digital footprints to tell a more complete story about someone’s financial behavior.
PayPal announced that it’s launching “Tap to Pay” for merchants with an iPhone through the Venmo and Zettle apps in the U.S.
High-interest headlines
Capstack Technologies receives strategic investment from Citi Ventures (TC covered Capstack here.)
Argyle raises $30M to expand automated income, employment verification
Synctera raises $18.6M in Series A-1 funding (TC covered Synctera’s Series A here.)
The latest fintech retreat: a $2B challenger to Western Union suspends U.S. services
Treasury Prime has laid off half its staff (TechCrunch covered its $40M raise in February 2023.)
Brazilian fintech CloudWalk announces $320.5M revenue, plans U.S. expansion
TomoCredit is pivoting into B2B with TomoScore, after a number of reported woes
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VC firm Maniv is growing in every direction, armed with a $140M new fund
Venture firm Maniv has grown by nearly every measure since it launched eight years ago in Israel — from its investor base and 40-startup portfolio to its geographic focus, footprint and fund size.
But even with a freshly closed $140 million fund in its coffers and a new office in New York City, founder Michael Granoff says Maniv is still just a seed-stage fund at heart “that occasionally breaks its own rules.”
What that means is largely the same as when it launched in 2016: an early-stage investment strategy focused on what the firm describes as the intersection between mobility, transportation and energy.
There are, however, some notable evolutions that hint at Maniv’s investment strategy with its third and latest fund known as Maniv III, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. Maniv, once firmly focused on Israeli startups, continues to expand its geographic focus and now has active portfolio companies in nine countries.
“So we will certainly keep our eyes on the local market here but we’ll go for the best deals and learn everything we can from the deal flow that comes in a very distributed way from around the world,” Granoff said.
The VC firm has also largely stopped using the once trendy umbrella term “mobility,” (often leaving it out of its original name Maniv Mobility) and has opted instead to talk about deep tech, decarbonization and digitization of the transportation sector.
“I thought the trajectory of that term (mobility) was going to continue to clarify overtime, but in fact, I think the opposite has happened for a bunch of reasons,” Granoff explained, adding that while the term mobility might not be used as often, it is still very much central to its mission.
Nate Jaret, general partner at Maniv, said the $140 million fund does reflect new goals: a more diverse group of investors as well as the inclusion of financial investors who see the decarbonization and digitization of all forms of transportation (even the air and sea) as an irreversible secular trend that generates the best financial returns.
Historically, Maniv’s investor base has been loaded with automakers. It now better reflects the critical and myriad tributaries in transportation and mobility, Jaret says. In other words, Maniv went outside traditional automotive to find strategic investors in leasing, fintech, logistics, vehicle maintenance, energy, fleet management and repair.
Its newest investors in the fund, a group that includes BNP Paribas Personal Finance and the venture arms of Shell and Enterprise Mobility, represent “the rich tapestry of industries that are directly impacted by the changes in transportation across these themes of decarbonization and digitization,” Jaret said. “It’s not just carmakers and Tier 1s that make the platforms but also aftermarket insurance, maintenance repair, infrastructure players and energy players that are trying to understand their new position.”
The Maniv III fund also includes return investors Valeo and Jaguar Land Rover venture arm InMotion Ventures. Toyota Motor Corp.’s Woven Capital, vehicle leasing company Arval, transportation infrastructure giant Ferrovial, the industrial manufacturing firm ITT Inc., fleet payments business WEX and an unnamed European insurance company also participated in the fund.
Maniv’s fund also reflects an evolving investment strategy.
The firm, which has nearly $320 million in assets under management, previously led investments in AI edge computation chip startup Hailo in Tel Aviv; EV ridehail and charging network Revel in New York City; medium-duty EV truck maker Harbinger Motors in California; intercity busing platform Kolors in Mexico City; two-wheeler EV startup River from India; and Spanish car subscription Bipi, which was acquired by Renault’s financing arm RCI Banque in 2021.
Maniv is now creeping into the broader climate tech world — at least where it overlaps with transportation. The firm has used the new fund to make four investments to date, including in a Chicago-based startup called Celadyne, which is working to extend the lifespan and efficiency of proton-exchange membranes to make green hydrogen production financially viable.
The fund has also invested in Israeli startup Neologic, which has developed a proprietary chip design for performance and power gains in data centers and automotive; an e-motorcycle battery-swapping startup called Vammo that’s based in Brazil; and San Francisco-based Circular, which is pushing the use of post-consumer recycled plastic in manufacturing by closing pervasive information and testing gaps.
With global ambitions, VC firm Maniv Mobility raises $100 million from automakers, suppliers