The FinTech & PropTech Weekly Round-Up: Week 6
Worldpay is acquired AGAIN, OpenDoor raises some more, and Figo & Finreach tie the knot. Plus a couple other bits and pieces.
Worldpay is acquired AGAIN
Worldpay, probably the grandfather of the payments industry, has been acquired for a ‘mere’ $43bn by FIS. The company has been through somewhat of a M&A roller coaster over the past decade, having changed hands more times than a five pound note, since it was spun out from RBS (that bank, again) following its bail out during the global financial crisis.
Our verdict: Worldpay has shown its worth, and I believe the the ‘new kids on the block’, such as Adyen and Stripe, should take note.
Investors: Vantiv was the last acquirer of Worldpay, having acquired the company (then adopting its name) for $10.4bn last year.
Source: Grace Dobush, Fortune
Opendoor raises some more
Opendoor raised a decent $300m round this week, valuing the company at some $3.8bn. The company, in direct competition with Zillow in the home buying / selling sector, has already raised over $1.3bn, while it has a pretty hefty debt facility of $3bn. This amount of liquidity definitely affords Opendoor enough capital to keep up its fight with Zillow.
Our verdict: This sector is growing quickly, but the US companies are definitely far ahead of anything we’re seeing here in Europe.
Investors: Plenty, with the most notable being Fifth Wall Ventures, General Atlantic, GV, Khosla Ventures and the SoftBank Vision Fund.
Source: Ingrid Lunden, TechCrunch
Figo & Finreach tie the knot
Figo, the banking service provider, and Finreach, the banking API platform, have announced their intentions to merge. The reason for such, is apparently down to the existing partnerships that both companies share (they do pretty much the same!). I would argue the fact that they are simply consolidating in the face of an evermore competitive German market for financial APIs.
Our verdict: Consolidation isn’t all that new, but to see two ‘youngish’ FinTechs doing it, that’s quite something. Good or bad, I don’t know.
Investors: Figo has been backed by an array of investors, while Finreach is backed by Germany’s ‘FinTech powerhouse’, Finleap.
Source: Antony Peyton, Fintech Futures
Guesty gets a helping hand
Some companies are so big they build their own ecosystems. That is true for AirBnB, which has laid the foundations for a number of companies able to ply their trade on its coat tails, think Airsorted, Guesthop and Pillow. Well Guesty is one of those companies and it just raised $35m. However, Guesty does a lot more, as it doesn’t solely rely on AirBnB’s own success.
Our verdict: Guesty has done well, and as it extends its services and focus beyond those managing their AirBnB portfolio via its platform, it’ll do better.
Investors: Magma Ventures, TLV Partners, Vertex Ventures, Viola Growth and a few others.
Source: Paul Sawers, VentureBeat
Marqeta, yep we never heard of them either
Another payments company raises another huge investment round. In this case that company is Marqeta, and it’s raising $250m at a $1.9bn valuation. However, Marqeta is a little different to your ‘normal’ Adyen or Stripe, in that they primarily focus on powering payment cards. Also, we don’t want to jump the gun here too much, as the round is yet to close.
Our verdict: Payments, payments, payments. Its getting a lot of investor attention right now, so I don’t see why Marqeta shouldn’t take advantage.
Investors: Big finance names here, including CommerzVentures, Goldman Sachs, Granite Ventures and Visa.
Source: Ingrid Lunden, TechCrunch
Some further reading
If you’re curious about the trends we expect to see in real state this year, why not take a look at the 11 Biggest Real Estate Trends You Need to Know in 2019 by GrowthHouse.
Yes, we even have an epilogue
As you might have guessed, this article is somewhat of a plug for us and our startup, mietwise. Even so, we are two founders going through the (sometimes testing) steps of founding and running a new PropTech / FinTech company in Germany. As such, we intend to share our experiences and knowledge in the hope that we can help others do the same.
Don’t forget to take a look at mietwise, and if you ever want to get in touch, we love good coffee!
The Mietwise Team,
Jonathan
