The Gigaom Interview: Max Levchin on data, sensors and building the future of finance
Part of the original “PayPal Mafia” and also formerly of Slide, Max Levchin has made a return to financial services startups with his newest venture, Affirm.
Branson and Thiel join in $25M Series B round for forex upstart TransferWise
We’ve covered TransferWise quite a few times – along with one or two rivals such as CurrencyFair, the London-based financial technology startup offers a genuinely disruptive foreign exchange service that significantly undercuts the banks. Its backers apparently also continue to see great potential: having led TransferWise’s $6 million Series A round just over a year ago, PayPal(s ebay) co-founder Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures has again participated in the firm’s $25 million Series B, alongside Index Ventures, Virgin boss Richard Branson, IA Ventures, TAG, and Le Monde owner Xavier Niel. TransferWise, run by former Skype(s msft) director Taavet Hinrikus, says it will use the funds for marketing.
Bitcoin’s a risky business for consumers, European Banking Authority warns
The EU regulatory agency wants consumers who are considering jumping on the Bitcoin bandwagon to realize that there’s not much in the way of regulation to protect them.
Bitcoin regulation? New London-based exchange Coinfloor will worry about that later
Backed by Passion Capital and TransferWise chief Taavet Hinrikus, Coinfloor is the first serious Bitcoin trading operation to open in London’s fintech hub. U.S. customers aren’t allowed in just yet, though.
Wonga picks up Rocket’s BillPay to aid European expansion
Terms of the deal have not been revealed, but it will help the British moneylender in its quest to become a heavyweight international digital finance group.
Now handling over £1M a day, Thiel-backed TransferWise inches further onto PayPal’s turf
The company has now facilitated over $400 million in international money transfers. And with new features such as a mobile app, payments to email addresses and an embeddable payment button, TransferWise is resembling a certain fintech giant ever more closely.
Waze co-founder raises $3M to protect consumers from sneaky financial fees
Waze co-founder Uri Levine has raised $3 million from Blumberg Capital for his latest startup FeeX, which aims to help consumers save money on financial fees.
Want to follow the money? OpenCorporates uses open data to expose corporate structures
Financial regulators and company registration indexes are increasingly opening up their data. OpenCorporates is gluing that data together and visualizing it in a way that should not only help fight corruption, but clean up the data too.
Ripple allows payments to any Bitcoin address straight from its client
The Google-backed distributed currency exchange, which is part of a new wave of international financial technology outfits, is trying to make it easier for people to pay others in the crypto-currency Bitcoin.
Peter Thiel leads $6M round for fintech upstart Transferwise
Thiel becomes the second PayPal co-founder to put money into the UK’s Transferwise, which lets users send money internationally at much lower rates than those offered by traditional banks.