What the heck happened at fintech Bench?

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! It’s good to be back. 

This week, we’re looking at the wild ride that was Bench’s shutdown and acquisition; dozens of companies that are hiring in the fintech space; lawsuits against PayPal; an IPO update; and more!

This edition is a bit longer than normal since we were on a hiatus for a few weeks. Happy New Year, btw! Here’s hoping for a peaceful and joyful year for us all.

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The big story

Image Credits:d3sign / Getty Images

It’s always news when a company that has raised more than $110 million in venture funding suddenly folds. But it’s even more eyebrow-raising when days later, that same company — in this case, Bench — gets acquired. Sadly, thousands of customers and hundreds of employees alike must be feeling the whiplash. 

In this deep dive, TechCrunch’s Charles Rollet breaks down the details of what led to Bench’s shutdown and just who swooped in to buy this fintech, which was backed by the likes of Shopify and Bain Capital Ventures. One tidbit: The move was so sudden that one customer who kept years of data on Bench’s website, and was even featured on its front page before it went offline, learned of the shutdown only when TechCrunch called him for a reaction.  

Dollars and cents

Thomson Reuters’ officeImage Credits:Pascal Le Segretain / Staff / Getty Images

We kicked off the new year with news that Thomson Reuters had acquired tax automation company SafeSend in an all-cash transaction valued at $600 million. Founded in 2008, Ann Arbor, Michigan-based SafeSend serves a cloud-based platform designed to streamline the processing and sharing of sensitive financial documents.

TechCrunch EIC Connie Loizos interviewed Robinhood CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev about his company being named Yahoo Finance’s “comeback stock” of the year, and much more. Catch up here.

ICYMI 

Image Credits:TBC Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan’s mobile-exclusive bank, TBC Bank Uzbekistan, raised $37 million in a new funding round to bolster its dominating digital presence in the Central Asian nation by developing new AI and tech products and attracting more tech-savvy customers. 

Tyme Group, a South African fintech, secured $250 million in a Series D round, pushing its valuation to $1.5 billion. Notably, the funding was led by Nu Holdings — which owns Latin America’s most valuable fintech, Nubank — investing $150 million for a 10% stake.

What else we’re writing

Image Credits:Bryce Durbin

Last week wasn’t a great one for PayPal. First, Dominic-Madori Davis broke the news that PayPal is being sued by the founder of venture firm Andav Capital, Nisha Desai, who claims she was excluded from the payment giant’s diversity and equity program because she is Asian. Then another new lawsuit alleges that the PayPal-owned browser extension Honey is cheating creators out of money.

Meanwhile, Zack Whittaker reported that a U.S. online gift card store, MyGiftCardSupply, has secured an online storage server that was publicly exposing hundreds of thousands of customer government-issued identity documents to the internet.

And, Tage Kene-Okafor wrote about how Africa’s tech ecosystem recently got a boost of attention, with South Africa’s TymeBank and Nigeria’s Moniepoint both raising funds in recent weeks at valuations of over $1 billion, joining the coveted unicorn pantheon.

IPO news

Image Credits:Peak XV

Is 2025 the year for the fintech IPO? 

Before 2024 came to a close, Manish Singh wrote about how shares of digital payments firm MobiKwik surged 82% to ₹507.5 ($6) on their first day of trading and how the Indian fintech’s $69 million IPO comes amid fierce competition from larger rivals. He also looked at the fact that Aye Finance, a lender targeting small- and medium-sized businesses in India, is seeking to raise $171 million from its initial public offering.

Meanwhile, Julie Bort reported on how digital bank Chime filed its confidential paperwork with the SEC, a moment the company has been prepping for since it hired banker Morgan Stanley last September, with an eye to IPO in 2025. 

High-interest headlines

While fintechs are still hiring, many of them don’t have as many open roles as they did just a few months ago. However, there are still plenty of open positions, and there are some companies that are even hiring for more roles than they were last summer. Three crypto industry groups — the DeFi Education Fund, the Blockchain Association, and the Texas Blockchain Council — are suing the Internal Revenue Service to block new regulations that require decentralized finance (DeFi) entities to report customer information. Mike Butcher looked at how revenue-based financing startups continue to raise capital in MENA, where the model just seems to work.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you again next week!