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Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at Payoneer’s $61 million acquisition of Skuad, Robinhood and Dave’s second-quarter results, X’s progress on its payments and more.
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The big story
Last week, I got the scoop on publicly traded fintech Payoneer acquiring Singaporean startup Skuad for $61 million in cash, with the potential to pay up to $81 million. This was a pretty fast exit for Skuad founder Sundeep Sahi, who launched the company in 2019 with the aim of simplifying international hiring and had raised $19 million in venture funding. Both Payoneer and Skuad are geared toward SMBs that operate internationally, particularly in emerging markets. Notably, rather than build out the tech itself, Payoneer decided to acquire Skuad and integrate its payroll and contract management products into its own offering.
Analysis of the week
A couple of publicly traded fintechs posted strong results last week. Robinhood beat its second-quarter earnings expectations, posting 40% higher revenue of $682 million. Citizens JMP director of financial technology research Devin Ryan told Yahoo Finance that Robinhood had an “outstanding quarter” that also saw “great profitability” and new net deposits surge by 40%. Meanwhile, neobank Dave CEO Jason Wilk told TechCrunch that his company has 2.3 million paying members, 31% higher revenue of $80.1 million with $15.2 million of EBITDA. He also shared that CAC (customer acquisition cost) is down 26% year-over-year to $15. When public fintechs are notching such strong numbers, that can bode well for their private counterparts.
Dollars and cents
CloudPay started as a joint venture in 1996 to provide payroll and payments services to enterprise clients, but the company’s not letting its age hold it back. It now has plans to add AI to its workflow automation suite and has landed a $120 million round to build that out.
For years, most businesses have relied on traditional banks, but high costs and slow processes are pushing some to adopt fintech solutions that promise lower costs and fast settlements. One such platform is Conduit. The B2B cross-border payments platform found success after pivoting from crypto to traditional banking and is now making inroads in Africa, where businesses face many similar challenges to the startup’s first markets in Latin America, following a $6 million seed extension from Helios Digital Ventures, the venture capital arm of Helios Investment Partners.
What else we’re writing
PayPal said on August 6 that it is making its quick guest-checkout solution, Fastlane, available to all U.S. merchants after testing it with select businesses for a few months. Businesses will initially have to use the company’s payment processing services, such as PayPal Braintree or PayPal Complete Payments, to use Fastlane.
X (formerly Twitter) appears to be making progress on its upcoming payments system, bringing it closer to Elon Musk’s vision of turning X into an “everything app.” According to a recent finding by app researcher Nima Owji, the company is working on adding a “Payments” button to the navigation bar under the bookmarks tab. Owji, who made the discovery, told TechCrunch that he found references for new payment features, such as “transactions, balance, and transfer.”
High-interest headlines
US fintech Octane raises $50m Series E funding led by Valar Ventures (TC covered Octane’s last raise, a $52 million round at a $900 million+ valuation, in August 2021.)
Mexico fintech Stori raises $212 million in equity, debt (TC covered Stori’s last fundraise, a $50 million round at a $1.2 billion valuation, in 2022.)
Greenlight and Google team on Fitbit-focused financial education
Robinhood enlists ex-Cruise and Lyft exec Jeff Pinner as chief technology officer
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