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Startups raising/Investors investing
BBVA shuts in-house venture arm, pours $250m into new fintech VC Propel Venture Partners (
TechCrunch)
The bank is shutting down its in-house venture arm, BBVA Ventures; and it is taking BBVA Ventures’ portfolio, the $100 million fund it had allocated to the group, and another $150 million, and putting all of it into a new VC called Propel Venture Partners.
More reading: What’s behind the BBVA restructuring (
American Banker)
East Coast credit fund puts $250m to work on real estate crowdfunding's Patch of Land platform (
Finovate)
The investment comes in the form of an agreement to buy loans in a “forward flow arrangement,” and represents the credit fund’s first move into the P2P marketplace lending space.
WorldRemit gets $45m at a $500m valuation go grow its mobile money transfer business (
TechCrunch)
A year after raising $100 million, London-based startup WorldRemit has picked up more funding. To compete against the likes of Western Union in the world of money transfers — and tap a remittance market that the World Bank estimates will be worth $610 billion in 2016 — the company has added another $45 million to its coffers.
Riskified nabs $25 million to fight ecommerce fraud (
VentureBeat)
The Tel Aviv-based company promises its clients, which include Burberry and Viagogo, “instant, guaranteed approvals and peace of mind.” The Phoenix Insurance Company, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, and existing investors Genesis Partners and Entrée Capital also participated in the round. To date, Riskified has raised at least $31 million
Cloud data provider, Xignite closes $20m round (
BusinessWire)
Xignite, the leading provider of market data cloud solutions for financial institutions and financial technology companies, today announced that it has raised $20.5 million in a Series C funding round led by Tokyo-based QUICK Corporation, part of the Nikkei Group and Japan’s largest financial information provider.
Robin And Saul Klein’s Localglobe backs online mortgage advisor Trussle (
TechCrunch)
London-based Trussle, which raised £1.1 million, challenges the traditional mortgage broker with a tech-driven solution that advises customers on the best deal available, and helps manage the mortgage process if they choose to proceed.
As population becomes more diverse, funding options grow (
Locavesting)
Diverse forms of capital are searching to invest in diverse types of entrepreneurs. Here are some various types of funders that invest in entrepreneurs from various backgrounds…
The Startups: Who's shaking things up
LendingClub models misfire as loan write-offs top forecasts (
Bloomberg)
A chart on one of the slides shows that write-off rates for a portion of five-year LendingClub loans were roughly 7 percent to 8 percent, compared with a forecast range of around 4 percent to 6 percent.
Fintech firms want to open accounts at the Bank of England (
Telegraph)
Payments and technology firms want the right to open bank accounts at the Bank of England, a right traditionally only given to banks and one which gives them access to the payments system
Berkshire Hathaway and Munich Re backstop Lemonade, startup P2P insurer (
Intelligent Insurer)
“Consumer trust in the insurance system is at the heart of the insurance business, and is essential to the success of any new venture. With this collection of leading reinsurers, Lemonade’s customers will know this innovative venture is backed by some of the best and most established in the industry.”
Zenefits CEO ousted, compliance saga takes a turn: what's next for the company? (
Insurance Thought Leadership)
The CEO is out at Zenefits (one of the hottest fintech/insurtech/any tech startups) after it was found that 83% of the policies the company sold were done by unlicensed employees. Oops.
Britain's ex-regulation chief thinks fintech P2P lending losses are going to be huge (
BusinessInsider)
But according to Adair Turner, the former Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, which was abolished in 2013 to make way for the Financial Conduct Authority, consumers are taking huge risks when lending and borrowing via P2P services and the future fallout could be terrible.
