Fintech giant Stripe announced Wednesday a slew of new product launches at its annual Stripe Sessions user event. The highlights include: a new AI foundation model for payments; stablecoin-powered accounts; a new Orchestration offering, and a recent migration with chip behemoth Nvidia. Stripe’s payments foundation model has been trained on tens...
Expense management startup Ramp is being considered for a charge card pilot program by the U.S. government’s General Services Administration, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. The government’s internal expense card program, dubbed SmartPay, is a $700 billion program. It is estimated that the charge card pilot program contract...
Ryan Breslow is officially back. While the founder of one-click checkout company Bolt re-assumed its helm as CEO in March, Breslow is unveiling Wednesday a new “superapp” that he hopes will formally mark his return as the fintech’s leader. He describes the new product as “one-click crypto and everyday payments”...
Digital payments platform Stripe invites customers to join its management team meetings on a bi-weekly basis so it can get “candid feedback,” according to co-founder Patrick Collison. In an April 8 post on X, the fintech giant’s CEO said the company has a customer join for the first 30 minutes...
Thatch, a startup that aims to transform the health insurance experience for employers and employees alike, has raised $40 million in a Series B round of funding, it tells TechCrunch exclusively. Index Ventures led the financing, which included participation from existing backers Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), General Catalyst, SemperVirens, PeopleTech Partners,...
As it gears up to go public, Chime is going all in on new features in an effort to attract more customers. The digital bank is offering customers who agree to have their paychecks directly deposited into a Chime savings or checking account an APY of 3.75%, it tells TechCrunch...
Prolific fintech investor and QED Investors co-founder Frank Rotman said Friday that he will transition to a partner emeritus role by year’s end to focus on founding his own startups. But those startups won’t necessarily be financial technology companies. In a post on X, Rotman – who helped start QED...
Mexico City-based Mendel has raised $35 million in a Series B round of funding, it tells TechCrunch exclusively. Corporate spend management platform Mendel last raised in December 2021 — a $15 million Series A round and $20 million in debt — after participating in Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 cohort. With...
Digital banking startup Mercury has raised $300 million in primary and secondary funding at a $3.5 billion post-money valuation, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Wednesday. The valuation is more than double the startup’s valuation when it last raised capital – a $120 million Series B round in 2021 that...
After hitting record lows at the start of the pandemic, mortgage rates began to climb in 2022 and haven’t come down significantly since. With 30-year mortgage rates hovering at over 6.5% today (they were as low as 2.49% in 2020!), buying a home is simply not that attainable for many...