STAY IN THE LOOP ON EVERYTHING FINTECH
Empire Startups is the largest community of FinTech entrepreneurs, investors, and bank innovators in the world. Every 2 weeks we'll deliver interviews with top thought-leaders, venture funding news, curated podcasts, events, and more.
HIGHLIGHTING FINTECH LEADERS
OUR INTERVIEW WITH MARWAN FORZLEY
There are a handful of market signals one might use to assess whether or not the current fervor around FinTech is a bubble: valuations, capitalization, culture, M&A, or general hype. I prefer instead to consider how well the various areas of the consumer and business financial stack are being served. In other words, how much of FinTech is ‘done'? At the crossroads of small business and accounting, consumers remain wildly underserved by FinTech.
Enter, Veem (fka Align Commerce). Veem provides simple, secure, and trackable payments to over 110 countries and over 300,000 businesses around the globe. This week I sat down with Marwan Forzley, co-founder and CEO of Veem to talk about antiquated AP/AR technology and why he definitely does not see a bubble.
FINTECH NEWS
CBDCs and Bitcoin will co-exist for now
A couple of months ago, El Salvador became the first nation to adopt bitcoin as legal money. On Tuesday, companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks began...
Banks Are Arming to Win the Digital Lending War With Fintechs
The pandemic provided the impetus for financial institutions to accelerate their digital lending prowess. According to new research, banks and credit unions have begun to...
Varo Bank raises massive $510M Series E at a $2.5B valuation as it eyes the public markets
Varo Bank, which last year became the first U.S. neobank to be granted a national bank charter, announced this morning it has raised a staggering...
Addi raises $75M to advance ‘buy now, pay later’ in LatAm, nearly triples valuation
Buy now, pay later is officially everywhere, and Latin America is no exception. Today, one startup in the region, Addi, is announcing a $75 million...
How Amazon makes Affirm a bigger threat to banks
By linking its installment lending service to Amazon, Affirm is gaining access to not only one of the largest e-commerce brands on the planet, but...
Weary of passwords, mobile banking users warm to biometrics
Much as banks might want to get rid of the use of usernames and passwords for online and mobile banking, they still bump up against...
FINTECH VENTURE FUNDING
HoneyBee raises millions to make financial wellness a workplace benefit
FINTECH PODCASTS
What's one of the easiest ways to stay up on FinTech trends? Here's a short list of a few of close friends of Empire who just happen to have 🔥 podcasts.
Join The Future Farm's Vladi and Nektarios, in a “naked” conversation with the people who have been through it all. We’ll talk to business founders, investors, life partners and other ecosystem players about the personal challenges that business builders face when pursuing their dreams and passions.
LATEST EPISODE
For Fintech’s Sake is a broad look at the world of fintech. Host, Zach Anderson Pettet, explores the stories at the intersection of finance and technology from the perspectives of Founders, Investors, and Incumbents.
Fintech Insider is a bi-weekly podcast dedicated to all things fintech, banking, technology and financial services. Hosted by a rotation of experts and joined weekly by fantastic guests, they discuss the latest news within the industry.