Welcome to Fintech TechCrunch! Last week was a holiday in the US, so the news was a little lighter than usual. But there were still some fintech-related items to report, including the ongoing drama surrounding Synapse and its partner Evolve Bank, Revolut’s record year, and more.
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The big story
Evolve Bank Data breaches continue to occur in the fintech sector, and several startups are feeling the impact of this mess. Yield StreetFor its part, some of its clients confirmed last week were affected. Meanwhile, Jason Mikula, author of Fintech Business Weekly, said he received a cease and desist letter from the bankasking him not to share dark web files with allegedly impacted fintech companies. “My understanding is that some fintechs had not received ‘confirmation’ from Evolve about what had been hacked and therefore had not acted to mitigate the risks or inform users,” Mikula told TechCrunch. And a group of senators came together to urge Synapses owners and fintech and banking partners (including Evolve) to “immediately restore customers’ access to their money.” As part of their requests, the senators involved both the company’s partners and investors such as Andrée Horowitz (a16z) as being responsible for missing customer funds.
The last episode of the saga involves a new conflict between fintech intermediaries Synapse and its database provider, MongoDBthat threatens efforts by independent advisers to return money to millions of customers of apps such as Juno and Yotta who have been deprived of their money for weeks, Bloomberg reports.
Analysis of the week
Revolution revealed last week that its full-year pretax profit hit a record $545 million in 2023 after adding 12 million customers during the year. (Yes, profit. Impressive.) Nikolay Storonsky, CEO and co-founder of Revolut, told CNBC that the digital bank is “confident” about obtaining its UK banking license. The bank also hinted at an IPO In its annual report, the company said it had “strengthened” its financial controls in the manner of “listed companies.” If/when it goes public, some former executives might feel a little sorry leave the company. Revolut was the last valued at $33 billion when it raised $800 million in 2021.
Dollars and cents
Investors are betting on Indian wealth management startups as a growing middle class looks to diversify investments and startups challenge traditional financial advisors for high-net-worth clients, reports Manish Singh. Premji Invest is in advanced talks to lead a $30 million to $40 million funding round in Dezerv, an app that offers a suite of investment solutions to India’s wealthy. And Lightspeed Venture Partners is in advanced talks to lead a more than $20 million investment round in Centricity, a digital wealth management platform. here.
What else do we write?
Speaking of breaches, TechCrunch’s Devin Coldewey tells readers they shouldn’t worry about their secret ChatGPT Conversations were obtained during a recent breach of OpenAI’s systems. He writes: “The hack itself, while troubling, appears to have been superficial — but it is a reminder that AI companies have quickly become some of the juiciest targets for hackers. … The simple fact is that these AI companies have become the gatekeepers to a huge amount of very valuable data.” Read more here.
High Interest Securities
Trevera provider of institutional operating systems for digital assets, recently announced a seed investment of 2.4 million euros The fund is co-led by TX Ventures (CH) and Market One Capital (LUX). The financing aims to strengthen the company’s presence in the European market, FinTech Global reports.
MUFG backs Thai fintech unicorn Ascend Money in $195 million funding
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