A look back at the world of fintech in 2022 • TechCrunch
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welcome to The exchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your declaration of confidence. If you are reading this as a post on our site, please register here so that you can receive it directly in the future. Each week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news from the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there, and it’s my job to stay on top of it—and make sense of it—so you can stay up to date. — Mary Ann
As this year draws to a close, it’s an obviously appropriate time to take a look back at some of the highlights (and lowlights) in the world of fintech news.
We started 2022 on a relatively high note. Mega rounds were still going on! The Decacorns were born. Venture capital was still readily available. Then sometime in the second quarter, things took a turn. And they have turned the page.
When deciding how to approach the final edition of this newsletter for the year, I was curious to see which of my stories performed best. So I asked our incredible Audience Development Manager, Alyssa Stringer, to pull my top 15 stories based on the number of page views. In summary, dear readers, it seems that you were all most interested in coverage of companies at the top and in coverage of companies at the bottom. It was the best time. And then it felt like the worst time. And oh, many of you were curiously very curious about the concept of fractional real estate investing.
Here were my top 15 most read stories on TechCrunch in 2022:
- ‘We’re probably out $200 million,’ Better.com CEO tells staff in layoff meeting: A partnership with the brilliant Zack Whittaker, where we ourselves heard Vishal Garg address employees. . . and it wasn’t pretty.
- Closing doors quickly after slow growth, high burn precluded fundraising options: A collaboration with my dear friend, TC+ editor and Equity podcast co-host Alex Wilhelm. Seeing one-click cashier startups quickly crash and burn was certainly one of the biggest stories in fintech this year.
- Ramp confirms new valuation of $8.1 billion after a “nearly 10-fold” year-over-year increase in revenue: The corporate spending startup had doubled its valuation from August 2021 to March 2022. The space it operates in has only gotten more crowded. Meanwhile, the company has since expanded into new industries.
- Fintech Roundup: Better.com workers leave in ‘flocks’ in wake of CEO Vishal Garg’s return: This one is particularly meaningful to me, as it was the soft launch of what would eventually become The Interchange. Also one of many Better.com related scoops.
- PayPal closes San Francisco office: This one surprised me a bit, as it didn’t strike me as that important news, but perhaps it was a sign of what was to come later in 2022.
- Forerunner, Bezos back Arrived, a startup that lets you buy into single-family rentals for “as little as $100”: This was almost tied to the PayPal section above. It got a lot of interest – perhaps it was a combination of the very compelling business model and the fact that Jeff Bezos was a backer.
- Better.com employees learned about layoffs when severance paychecks showed up in the payroll app: Another scoop that had many of us shaking our heads in wonder (and not in a good way).
- Fintech Klarna reportedly raises to a valuation of $6.5 billion, giving new meaning to the term “down round”: This perhaps marked a turning point in 2022. When a company that was valued at $45 billion last year, increases to about 1 /7 of it , people pay attention. The tide was turning in the fintech space and this news made many people very nervous as it felt like proof that the party that was 2021 was over.
- Better.com Loses More Senior Executives as Employees Prepare for Another Mass Layoff: Another scoop that left many of us shaking our heads in wonder (and not in a good way).
- The fintech layoffs just keep on coming: As 2022 began, the only layoffs I covered were by Better.com. But at the beginning of November, it was unfortunately very clear that layoffs were widespread in the fintech industry.
- Alchemy, which aims to be the ‘de facto platform’ for developers to build on web3, is now valued at $10.2 billion: I wrote this when I was still doing crypto reporting. Alchemy grew a lot, very fast. It might be a good time to check them considering everything that has happened in the crypto space since that raise.
- Fintech Brex confirms $12.3 billion valuation, hires Meta chief to serve as chief product officer: This published in January. In October, I wrote about the company’s layoffs. A lot happened in between, including the company’s controversial decision to stop serving SMBs.
- Better.com plans to lay off about 4,000 people this week, sources say: You guessed it, another scoop.
- Fintech startup Jeeves raises $180 million, quadruples valuation to $2.1 billion in half a year: The speed of Jeeves’ growth and value addition was impressive. A BaaS company within the administration of company cards and expenses. But as early as March, the startup’s CEO remarked about the fundraising process: “The market looked very different in January and February than it did in December.”
- Landa Can Make You A Landlord With Just $5: Like I said, it seems like you all are really interested in fractional real estate investing, or maybe just a lot of people secretly want to be landlords.
It was an eventful, and at times unnerving, year that was far more than just the above. Venture dollars flowing into fintech slowed, just like with every other sector. Grades were questioned. But I’m still hopeful. The companies that did meaningful things in 2021 and in 2022 will continue to do so. They may use more consciously and work a little more quietly – but IMHO, that’s not a bad thing. Fintech innovation remains more important than ever, especially when it comes to inclusion and access. There are so many startups doing amazing work. We can’t let the few bad apples spoil it all. I know there is a long way to go. We’re not done correcting the excesses of 2021. But I, for one, am excited about what fintech will bring in 2023. (Speaking of which, check out the Equity team’s predictions for next year here.)
Leaked meeting recording/Better.com Image credit: TechCrunch
Weekly news
Banking app Copper launches an investment product for teenagers
Visa to invest $1B in Africa over next five years
Why Checkout.com Lowered Its Internal Valuation
Chime made two offers to buy DailyPay, peaking at $2 billion, but was rejected
Robinhood raised interest rates for Gold members – to 4% APY
Insurtech Vouch launches web3 protection policy, emerges as first insurance designed specifically for web3 companies
London-based Wise says it is profitable and plans to hire over 250 new employees across three US offices
Self Financial adds rent and utility reporting to its suite of credit building products
Capchase, which provides ‘non-dilutive’ funding to SaaS companies, says revenue up 250% in 2022
Microsoft buys 4% stake in London Stock Exchange Group as part of 10-year cloud partnership
Highnote expands platform capabilities by certifying with Visa’s fleet payment solutions
India’s Paytm will spend up to $103 million to buy back shares
Financing and M&A
Poolit raises millions to turn accredited investors into LPs in VC, private equity funds
Nilus lands $8.5 million led by Bessemer to automate your financial operations
Vic.ai raises $52 million, shows that automating accounting processes can be profitable
London-based B2B fintech Bondaval raises $15 million in Series A
DataVisor Raises $40M in Strategic Growth Funding
Plooto Closes $20M Series B to Help SMBs Manage Cash Flow
Oyster raises $3.6 million in seed to launch its personal insurance sales platform
Barcelona-based fintech Novicap raises €200 million debt facility to spur growth for businesses and organizations
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And with that, I sign off. This is the last newsletter I’m publishing in 2022. I don’t know where this year went, and to be honest, in many ways it was very, very difficult. But there were also many bright spots, including growing this newsletter audience and having the honor of sharing this content with all of you. Thanks again. Happy holidays to you all, and a happy and healthy new year! May it be a better, brighter and wonderful year. xoxo, Mary Ann
