Saturday, 27 June 2020

Startup Strategy: Lanistar partners with Jumio ahead of "polymorphic" debit card launch


Lanistar, a UK-based fintech set to launch a “polymorphic debit card” later this year, has partnered with Jumio for its onboarding.

California-based mobile payments and identity verification firm Jumio will help Lanistar verify users remotely.

Customers will submit a picture of their government-issued ID and a corroborating selfie with certified liveness detection. Jumio can also verify secondary documents, should a user need to submit them.

Jumio’s customers to date include Monzo, Middle East-based Bank ABC, Airbnb and easyJet.

The US fintech cites Signicat data, which suggests nearly 40% of potential new accounts go down the drain due to clunky onboarding.

Key takeaway:

Neobanks should be able to adopt remote KYC methods such as video KYC so that prospective customers are not frustrated while onboarding, which is very crucial that may impact the customer base.

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Lanistar partners with Jumio ahead of "polymorphic" debit card launch - FinTech Futures

Lanistar landed a $2.5 million seed investment in March.

Startup News: Wirecard files for insolvency amid accounting scandal


This is a wake up call for all FinTech startups, including Indian, dealing with trust of millions!

You should also know that class action suits can now be filed in India under the Companies Act, 2013. These provisions permit members and depositors to approach the National Company Law Tribunal (“NCLT“) if they believe that the affairs of the company are being conducted in a manner detrimental to the interest of the company and its shareholders.

Coming to the news, Germany-based Wirecard has filed for insolvency, owing creditors almost $4 billion after disclosing a gaping hole in its books in Germany’s worst accounting scandal.

It comes after the paytech firm disclosed a €1.9 billion hole in its accounts last week.

News of its insolvency filing has causing its shares to dive almost 80% on 25 June. They have lost 98% since auditor EY questioned its accounts last Thursday, as reported on Reuters.

Its implosion came a week after EY, its auditor for over a decade, refused to sign off the 2019 accounts, forcing out chief executive, Markus Braun, and leading Wirecard to admit that $2.1 billion of its cash probably didn’t exist.

Read on

Wirecard files for insolvency amid accounting scandal - FinTech Futures

Wirecard has filed for insolvency, owing creditors almost $4 billion after disclosing a gaping hole in its books in Germany's worst accounting scandal.

Startup Strategy: The opportunity for startups in India & ASEAN to write a new M&A playbook


Please read what Piyush Gupta, MD - Strategic Development at Sequoia Capital has to say on how M&A can make you big, provided executed properly.

M&A will become an increasingly important tool for startups that want to scale, enter adjacent businesses and enhance their financial profile. This will require a change in mindset among founders in India and ASEAN.

M&A has been drastically under-utilized as a growth tool by startups in this region. That’s partly because many founders on both sides of the fence feel a natural sense of anxiety about , loss of control and the impact on culture, customers and employees. It’s also because M&A, as a tool, has a bad reputation.

Startups Sequoia worked with on M&A have been able to achieve their objectives by structuring their deals with these principles in mind:
  • Create an ownership mindset with stock-weighted acquisitions.
  • Change your organizational structure to make a home for the acquired team
  • Add on incentive for successful integration and performance
  • Bring some cash to the acquisition if you can
  • Simplify cap table liquidation preferences

Read on

The opportunity for startups in India & ASEAN to write a new M&A playbook

By Piyush Gupta Even before COVID, public and private investors assessing late-stage startups were looking much more closely at their path to significant scale and sustained profitability. That focus is here to stay, and many companies will need to expand their toolkit.

Startup Funding Alert: SevenRooms Raises Another $50M for its Hospitality Management Platform


SevenRooms raised $50 million in a Series B funding round led by Providence Strategic Growth.

Two Credit Suisse bankers came together in 2011 and noticed they were having a difficult time securing, flexible reservations at top NYC restaurants with their hectic schedules. This led them to look further into the restaurant industry’s guest experience operations at a holistic level.

Today, SevenRooms is a complete guest experience management platform that allows restaurant, hotels, and entertainment venues to manage their forward-facing operations from a single CRM that’s built and designed from the ground up for the hospitality industry. The platform handles reservations, waitlist and table management, ordering, and marketing. As the hospitality industry has been severely impacted by COVID-19, SevenRooms quickly introduced contactless solutions and is offering a number of their platform features for free through the end of the year to help the industry recover. Clients include Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, MGM Resorts International, Wolfgang Puck, and Topgolf.

Read on

SevenRooms Raises Another $50M for its Hospitality Management Platform

Two Credit Suisse bankers came together in 2011 and noticed they were having a difficult time securing, flexible reservations at top NYC restaurants with their hectic schedules. This led them to look further into the restaurant industry's guest experience operations at a holistic level.