Once upon a time, fintech founders could pitch 10 investors before closing a round in a relatively hushed way. Entrepreneurs could even ask VCs to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) to keep their information confidential. Today, everyone is a fintech investor and no one signs NDAs. This changed dynamic puts founders in a difficult position. Nabeel ...

The right question is almost never whether to buy software or build it internally. Instead, banks have often worked to walk the difficult but smarter path right down the middle. ...

Startup incubator and investment group Y Combinator today held the first of two demo days for founders in its Summer 2020 batch. So far, this cohort contains the usual mix of bold, impressive, and, at times, slightly wacky ideas young companies so often show off. This was Y Combinator’s second online demo day, its first ...

With a hot IPO market and a world accelerating its shift to digital technologies amidst a pandemic, it’s a busy time for late-stage startups. Happily, the current moment is generating a wave of leaks and news. So much so, it’s actually been pretty hard to keep up. In honor of the somewhat crazy week we’ve ...

I wanted to write an essay about Microsoft and TikTok today, because I was effectively a full-time reporter covering the software giant when it hired Satya Nadella in 2014. But, everyone else has already done that and, frankly, there’s a more pressing financial topic for us to parse. Let’s take a minute to take stock ...

There are more than 300,000 congregations in the U.S., and entrepreneurs are creating billion-dollar companies by building software to service them. ...

Podium, a Utah-based SaaS company focused on small business customer interactions, added payments technology to its product suite today. The move accretes a new income stream to the company’s quickly growing annual recurring revenue (ARR). While I tend to stay away from product news, Podium’s decision to add payment technology to its service hit a ...

After years of unsuccessful attempts to enter China’s massive $27 trillion payments market, Mastercard announced today it has won approval from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to begin formal preparation to set up a bank card clearing institution in China. The news is a significant step toward Mastercard being able to do business in ...

“We’re trying to shift cryptocurrency from this speculative asset class to driving real-world utility,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tells me. How? Through commerce and micropayments. But now Coinbase has the who to build it. Today the startup announced it has hired away former head of Product for Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart and Google Shopping VP ...

The first cannabis startup to raise big money in Silicon Valley is in danger of burning out. TechCrunch has learned that *** delivery middleman Eaze has seen unannounced layoffs, and its depleted cash reserves threaten its ability to make payroll or settle its AWS bill. Eaze was forced to raise a bridge round to keep ...