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Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week.<\/em>\u00a0if you want to receive The Interchange directly in your inbox every Sunday, head\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0to sign up!<\/em><\/p>\n While we would love for all startups to succeed, the reality is that the vast majority fail.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not something that people often talk about, because quite frankly, it can be a downer topic. But failure is a part of life, and many founders who don\u2019t succeed once do try, try, and try again. However, before they can fully dedicate themselves to a new venture, they have to deal with the one that didn\u2019t work out. And it turns out, shutting down a startup is not easy.<\/p>\n Enter SimpleClosure<\/strong>. True to its name, this five-month-old company is out to make closing a company more simple. And faster and cheaper, too.<\/p>\n If a company you\u2019ve invested a ton of time and money into is not working out, the last thing you want to do is spend even more time and money on it. Well, SimpleClosure claims it can help you wind down in \u201cweeks\u201d as opposed to months, and for a fraction of the cost that a legacy provider might charge you.<\/p>\n Notably, the company recently raised $1.5 million in funding<\/a>, without necessarily even intending to. Co-founder Dori Yona was at Fintech Meetup and pitched the idea for the company to a group of investors. Without a pitch deck. By the next day, he had $1.5 million in commitments.<\/p>\n As my dear friend, colleague and Equity podcast co-host Alex Wilhelm put it \u2014 should we take it as a bad sign that investors (e.g., Vera Equity, Cambrian Ventures and a slew of executives from startups such as Brex, Plaid, Gusto and Nvidia) clamored to back a startup that wants to help other startups shut down? Not necessarily, I might argue. Even in the best of times, there are going to be startup failures. Maybe especially in the best of times, there will be even more startups born \u2014 and funded \u2014 and failing.<\/p>\n So here\u2019s to efforts to make it less painful! \u2014 Mary Ann<\/p>\n As reported by Carly Page: \u201cFintech giant Square<\/strong><\/a> said Friday its services were coming back online after a daylong outage left small business owners unable to process payments. The Block-owned company had, up until Friday morning on the U.S. West Coast, been battling a prolonged outage that had downed its services since Thursday afternoon.\u201d More here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reports Manish Singh: \u201cSome of India\u2019s biggest fintech startups are making deeper inroads into soundboxes, unveiling a new push to the pocket-sized devices whose chimes are fast becoming the new \u2018ka-ching\u2019 for millions of Indian merchants. Paytm<\/strong>, whose soundbox leads the market and is used by over 7 million merchants, launched an advanced version of the device that doubles as a card machine, accepting offerings from RuPay, Visa, Mastercard and American Express.\u201d More here<\/a>.<\/p>\n From Kate Park comes a story about Firstcard<\/strong> raising $4.7 million<\/a> to help college students build better credit. It is the latest in a long line of companies, like Greenlight<\/a>, shifting focus of financial health to the next generation through credit cards. Teens aren\u2019t interested in just credit cards, though. A new report from Fidelity<\/a> says investing is on teenagers\u2019 minds, but only one in four has started trying to invest because they think they are too young. With apps like Bloom<\/a>, Copper<\/a> and Step<\/a> simplifying how investing works for teens and Gen Z, it\u2019s not a surprise that bigger financial players, including Fidelity, want in. Fidelity\u2019s new Fidelity Youth app is a free program building on its existing Fidelity Youth Account that helps teens save, spend and invest their own money while also learning financial skills.<\/p>\n Y Combinator <\/strong>Demo Day happened last week. Here\u2019s a tiny morsel of the fintech companies that ended up being TechCrunch favorites:<\/p>\n Read why these were among our favorites, along with other highlights, from Day 1<\/a> and Day 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAt last, we now possess the capability for contactless and peer-to-peer payments, a feature that has been accessible in other regions for many years. Now the U.S. Federal Reserve launched FedNow, a new instant payment infrastructure<\/a>, joining nations like Mexico, India, Brazil, Singapore, and the EU in fostering momentum toward facilitating immediate payments and transactions. While banks strive to maintain innovation for catering to customer demands and enhancing their competitive advantage, they will discover that achieving this becomes challenging unless they adapt their approach to assessing and integrating new technological solutions,\u201d writes guest author Chris Zingo, who is the chief revenue officer at Fenergo. More here<\/a>.<\/p>\n While this news isn\u2019t exclusively fintech, it\u2019s relevant to all industries, in our humble opinion. Mary Ann wrote about Mentra<\/strong>, a startup that aims to match neurodivergent jobseekers with ideal jobs<\/a>. Neurodivergent individuals often have\u00a0a harder time<\/a> finding jobs than their non-neurodivergent counterparts. Unemployment for neurodivergent adults runs at least as high as 30% to 40% \u2014 three times the rate for people with disability and eight times the rate for people without disability, according to UConn\u2019s Center for Neurodiversity and Employment Innovation. Some neurodivergent individuals may lack the social skills necessary to go through a grueling interview process, and others may simply not have the confidence to apply. But in fact, this population may have specialized skill sets that not only make them good candidates but also make them even better<\/em> suited for certain roles than non-neurodivergent people.\u00a0 The Charlotte, North Carolina\u2013based startup, whose three co-founders are all autistic, is building what it describes as an AI-powered \u201cneuroinclusive employment network.\u201d Specifically, its tech platform leverages artificial intelligence to help large enterprises hire employees with cognitive differences such as autism, attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). More here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Other items we are reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n How Deel became payout provider for prop trading firms, including site frozen by CFTC\u00a0<\/a>(TechCrunch recently reported<\/a> on how California politicians are probing into alleged questionable hiring practices on the part of Deel.)<\/em><\/p>\n 5 lessons from a fintech CEO\u2019s early days as a bar owner<\/a><\/p>\n Fintech Nubank to launch personal loans for Mexican market<\/a><\/p>\n Founders Arena WealthTech Accelerator Coming to Arlington in September<\/a><\/p>\n Cash App intros \u2018Pink Drop\u2019 clothing line<\/a><\/p>\n Matera launches digital twin for handling real-time transactions<\/a><\/p>\n Fintech startup Tofu launches with a new invoicing, tax, and payment management platform, already surpassing 1M app installs<\/a><\/p>\n Look who\u2019s partnering now<\/strong>:<\/p>\n BNY Mellon\u2019s revolutionary partnership and commitment to stability<\/a><\/p>\n Seen on TechCrunch<\/em><\/p>\n Syscap closes on $2.3M to create private credit infrastructure in Mexico<\/a><\/p>\n Base Ecosystem Fund, Hashed Emergent invest $1.9M in Nestcoin to scale its Onboard product<\/a><\/p>\n SimpleClosure raises $1.5M in less than 24 hours to help companies shut down faster and cheaper<\/a><\/p>\n Zopa, the UK neobank, hits 1M customers and raises another $93M<\/a><\/p>\n ThetaRay nabs $57M for AI tools to fight money laundering<\/a><\/p>\n Nigerian embedded finance platform Anchor raises $2.4M to expand product offerings<\/a><\/p>\n And elsewhere<\/em><\/p>\n Fintech M&A sees more take-privates in the future<\/a><\/p>\n NEC acquires fintech company to help employees build assets<\/a><\/p>\n B2B fintech GenTwo raised US$15M in Series A funding<\/a><\/p>\n Swedish fintech Treyd secures $12M funding for expansion and product development<\/a><\/p>\n US fintech Ampla secures $258M credit facility with Goldman Sachs and Atalaya <\/a>(TechCrunch covered Ampla\u2019s $40 million Series A<\/a> in December of 2021.)<\/p>\n Check out the Fintech Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, taking place in San Francisco on September 19\u201321, where we cover web3, banking, and more. Last-minute passes are still available. Save 15% with code INTERCHANGE. Register now<\/strong><\/a>!<\/p>\nSimpleClosure<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
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