Technology
Unsexy industries can also appeal to investors
Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! This week, we’ll take a take a look at some popular fintech startups in Africa, how the shutdown of Mint helped Copilot, and why VCs doubled down on a specific spend management startup.
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Big story
While enterprise funding in Africa (as elsewhere on the planet) has declined recently, the past week has been a superb one for the regional fintech ecosystem. TC reporter Tage Kene-Okafor shared how Uber invested $100 million in African mobility fintech Move up when the startup’s valuation reached $750 million. He also wrote about how Zone raised $8.5 million to scale its decentralized payments infrastructure. And Annie Njanja reported on how the Tanzanian payments company NalaThe company’s successful transition to a money transfer service in 2021 also led to the constructing of a B2B payments platform.
Weekly evaluation
Intuit’s decision to shut down its budgeting app Mint created opportunities for startups within the space. Christine Hall wrote about how to do that Co-pilot has grown more within the last 4 months than within the previous 4 years, and the startup was able to translate that growth right into a $6 million Series A funding round led by Nico Wittenborn’s Adjacent. TC previously reported on Copilot when it first launched the service with $250,000 in angel funding, and nevertheless when it added Apple Card support. Monarch Money co-founder Ozzie Osman also told TechCrunch that Mint’s loss was their gain.
Dollars and cents
Unsexy industries can also appeal to investors. Launching expense management Coast preys on firms with so-called real field staff and fleets to manage. It claims to have grown revenue 550% within the last 12 months and has just raised one other $25 million in equity financing.
Digital bank Private onyx switches to B2B. The YC-backed startup raised $4.1 million last 12 months to serve top-earning millennials and Gen Z. But last week it told customers it was ending its banking operations and shutting their accounts.
Swiss fintech Sorrywhich makes banking in Switzerland available to residents of nations with an unstable banking sector or in countries fighting high inflation, has raised $4 million in seed capital.
What else will we write?
Despite all of the recent growth within the fintech industry, Eric Glyman, co-founder and CEO Ramp, believes the industry and firms like his are only scratching the surface. Glyman recently told the TechCrunch Found podcast that despite how much his unicorn card and spending startup has grown to date, it has only captured 1% of its potential market share. Fun Fact: Both Ramp and Deel turned five years old this week – just at some point apart.
In its wide-ranging antitrust criticism against Apple and its iPhone business, the US Department of Justice has taken specific aim against Apple’s massive financial activities.
Other headlines of great interest
Unexpected call: Bolt and Checkout.com team for hassle-free trading
Startup Fetch takes advantage of the private lending boom by raising $50 million from Morgan Stanley
Wealthfront postpones IPO plans
Affirm Holdings CEO Keith Rabois sells over $318,000 price of shares. dollars
Cloud banking technology provider nCino acquires DocFox
Marco raises $12 million to support trade finance in Latin America
PayPal-backed NX Technologies raises $24 million to improve automotive payments
The prize pool receives a cease-and-desist order from the FDIC for false and misleading statements
DLocal appoints Pedro Arnt as CEO as Sebastián Kanovich steps out
Ryan Zauk has joined OMERS Ventures as a fintech investor
ICYMI: Klarna targets Visa and Mastercard as a part of open banking
Technology
US medical device giant Artivion says hackers stole files during a cybersecurity incident
Artivion, a medical device company that produces implantable tissue for heart and vascular transplants, says its services have been “disrupted” resulting from a cybersecurity incident.
In 8-K filing In an interview with the SEC on Monday, Georgia-based Artivion, formerly CryoLife, said it became aware of a “cybersecurity incident” that involved the “compromise and encryption” of information on November 21. This suggests that the corporate was attacked by ransomware, but Artivion has not yet confirmed the character of the incident and didn’t immediately reply to TechCrunch’s questions. No major ransomware group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Artivion said it took some systems offline in response to the cyberattack, which the corporate said caused “disruptions to certain ordering and shipping processes.”
Artivion, which reported third-quarter revenue of $95.8 million, said it didn’t expect the incident to have a material impact on the corporate’s funds.
Technology
It’s a Raspberry Pi 5 in a keyboard and it’s called Raspberry Pi 500
Manufacturer of single-board computers Raspberry Pi is updating its cute little computer keyboard device with higher specs. Named Raspberry Pi500This successor to the Raspberry Pi 400 is just as powerful as the present Raspberry Pi flagship, the Raspberry Pi 5. It is on the market for purchase now from Raspberry Pi resellers.
The Raspberry Pi 500 is the simplest method to start with the Raspberry Pi because it’s not as intimidating because the Raspberry Pi 5. When you take a look at the Raspberry Pi 500, you do not see any chipsets or PCBs (printed circuit boards). The Raspberry Pi is totally hidden in the familiar housing, the keyboard.
The idea with the Raspberry Pi 500 is you could connect a mouse and a display and you are able to go. If, for instance, you’ve got a relative who uses a very outdated computer with an outdated version of Windows, the Raspberry Pi 500 can easily replace the old PC tower for many computing tasks.
More importantly, this device brings us back to the roots of the Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi computers were originally intended for educational applications. Over time, technology enthusiasts and industrial customers began using single-board computers all over the place. (For example, when you’ve ever been to London Heathrow Airport, all of the departures and arrivals boards are there powered by Raspberry Pi.)
Raspberry Pi 500 draws inspiration from the roots of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a non-profit organization. It’s the right first computer for college. In some ways, it’s a lot better than a Chromebook or iPad because it’s low cost and highly customizable, which inspires creative pondering.
The Raspberry Pi 500 comes with a 32GB SD card that comes pre-installed with Raspberry Pi OS, a Debian-based Linux distribution. It costs $90, which is a slight ($20) price increase over the Raspberry Pi 400.
Only UK and US keyboard variants will probably be available at launch. But versions with French, German, Italian, Japanese, Nordic and Spanish keyboard layouts will probably be available soon. And when you’re in search of a bundle that features all the things you would like, Raspberry Pi also offers a $120 desktop kit that features the Raspberry Pi 500, a mouse, a 27W USB-C power adapter, and a micro-HDMI to HDMI cable.
In other news, Raspberry Pi has announced one other recent thing: the Raspberry Pi monitor. It is a 15.6-inch 1080p monitor that’s priced at $100. Since there are quite a few 1080p portable monitors available on the market, this launch is not as noteworthy because the Pi 500. However, for die-hard Pi fans, there’s now also a Raspberry Pi-branded monitor option available.
Technology
Apple Vision Pro may add support for PlayStation VR controllers
According to Apple, Apple desires to make its Vision Pro mixed reality device more attractive for gamers and game developers latest report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
The Vision Pro was presented more as a productivity and media consumption device than a tool geared toward gamers, due partly to its reliance on visual and hand controls moderately than a separate controller.
However, Apple may need gamers if it desires to expand the Vision Pro’s audience, especially since Gurman reports that lower than half one million units have been sold to this point. As such, the corporate has reportedly been in talks with Sony about adding support for PlayStation VR2 handheld controllers, and has also talked to developers about whether they may support the controllers of their games.
Offering more precise control, Apple may also make other forms of software available in Vision Pro, reminiscent of Final Cut Pro or Adobe Photoshop.
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