Plus: Hopper’s embedded FinTech offerings are now half of its app revenue.
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Hopper continues embedded FinTech push with Air Canada partnership (BETAKIT)
Air Canada and Montréal-based startup Hopper have partnered on a new feature called Cancel for any Reason, allowing for immediate refunds up to 24 hours before a flight’s scheduled departure.
The Air Canada partnership may be seen as part of Hopper’s ongoing push to create what it’s calling the first travel super app in North America. It’s also the first airline-focused instance of its successful Hopper Cloud B2B initiative, which lets travel businesses integrate FinTech products.
Better.com’s stock tanks after SPAC combination brings it to the public markets (TECHCRUNCH)
Shares of Better.com are getting hammered into the ground Thursday morning after the digital mortgage company completed its long-delayed SPAC merger and began to trade as a public company for the first time.
The company has reported a net loss in several quarters in a row, although it has managed to somehow narrow that loss through what CEO Vishal Garg described as $1 billion in cost-cutting measures.
MindBridge founder Solon Angel joins Fresh Founders as managing partner (BETAKIT)
The founder of Ottawa-based artificial intelligence startup MindBridge, Solon Angel, announced that he has joined Fresh Founders as a managing partner.
Fresh Founders is an early-stage investment and advisory firm that calls itself “an exclusive, invite-only, mastermind group of founders, CEOs and high-impact individuals.”
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Europe’s Stripe rival Adyen saw $20 billion wiped off its value in a single day. Here’s what’s going on (CNBC)
Adyen’s shares plummeted 39% on Thursday, erasing 18 billion euros ($20 billion) from the company’s market capitalization, as investors dumped the stock after the firm reported its slowest revenue growth on record.
Following the missed expectations, Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management firm snapped up $9 million of Adyen stock.
TikTok to remove ‘Storefront’ integration with Shopify and others, pushing merchants to use TikTok Shop (BETAKIT)
As TikTok Storefront ends, Shopify has added another integration to its platform: Solana Pay. Built on the Solana blockchain, Solana Pay is a decentralized payments protocol by San Francisco-based Solana Labs.
Solana Pay enables immediate, direct payment settlement of USDC—a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. By market capitalization, USDC is currently the second-largest stablecoin next to Tether (USDT).
US Tackles Crypto Tax Mess (THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)
The federal government is escalating efforts to make cryptocurrency investors comply with tax law, nearly 15 years after people started trading bitcoin.
The Treasury Department proposed new rules Friday with twin goals: making it harder for crypto investors to dodge income taxes when they sell digital assets, and simplifying complicated tax messes for people who are trying to follow the law.
Four startup growth tips for founders, from founders (BETAKIT)
No two startup journeys are identical. However, trends can emerge across businesses and, as the saying goes, success leaves clues.
As part of a CIBC Innovation Banking video series, leaders from four different companies–Bridgit, 7Shifts, Jane App, and Bloomerang–shared the key lesson that helped them scale.
Fintech startup Ramp raises $300M at a 28% lower valuation of $5.8B (TECHCRUNCH)
Fintech startup Ramp has raised $300 million in a funding round co-led by existing backer Thrive Capital and new investor Sands Capital at a post-money valuation of $5.8 billion.
Ramp is not the only fintech startup to see a valuation drop in the past 18 months. Many of the larger private companies in the space have seen steep declines in valuation, including Stripe and Klarna, among others.
Early-stage VC funding and mega-deals carry Canada to second-largest Q2 on record (BETAKIT)
As Canadian tech companies and investors continue to contend with tough economic conditions, the sector just posted its second-largest second quarter on record for venture capital funding, according to the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA).
Per CVCA’s latest VC market report, in the second quarter, $2.8 billion CAD was put into Canadian tech startups across 170 deals. By dollars invested, this total represents a 140 percent jump quarter-over-quarter
Fintech Startups Like Adyen Learn the Dangers of Hype (BLOOMBERG)
Processors shuffle money from A to B on behalf of merchants, take 1%-3% off the top, and keep whatever’s left after banks and card issuers get their cut. “Sometimes the best ideas really are the simplest,” a pair of former SWIFT executives concluded in their 2021 book The Pay Off.
Somewhere along the way, though, these simple ideas became repackaged as sexy and sophisticated —and painfully overvalued.
Elevate, The Firehood reveal first cohort of 37 startups in new incubator for women entrepreneurs (BETAKIT)
The Firehood, an angel network that focuses on supporting women in the technology sector, and Toronto-based nonprofit Elevate have unveiled the 37 startups participating in the first cohort of its joint incubator for women entrepreneurs, the Women+ Entrepreneur Incubator.
Brazil fintech Nomad raises $61 million in Tiger-led round (REUTERS)
Brazilian financial tech firm Nomad raised $61 million in an investment round led by Tiger Global Management, valuing the firm at 1.8 billion reais ($361.49 million).
The company, founded in 2019, provides Brazilians access to financial services in the United States, such as a bank account and an investment platform. It also offers international remittances and a debit card.
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