Bloomberg is reporting that SoFi is in the final stages of closing a $500 million funding round from the Qatar...
CNBC has released their 7th annual version of the CNBC Disrupter 50 which consists of startups who have exploited niches...
In this conversation, Will Beeson and I break down a few important pieces of recent news — the SPACs for SoFi and Bakkt, and Plaid/Visa falling apart.
SoFi is going public with a SPAC deal worth over $8 billion. A few things we touch on in detail: (1) this is still largely a lender, (2) there is a gem of an embedded finance play called Galileo that SoFi owns, and (3) the multiple is a little over 10x T12 revenues, which is not crazy expensive, but not cheap.
Speaking of Galileo and finance APIs, we transition to Plaid, and how it is is not going to be one of the networks in Visa’s network of networks. Who wins and who loses in the equation? And last, we cover the Bakkt SPAC of over $2 billion and our view on its future.
There has been a lot of anticipation for SoFi‘s banking product. Not only does it round out SoFi’s product set...
In partnership with Quovo, SoFi has integrated an API for wealth management customer authentication and data aggregation into its platform infrastructure; with the API integration, customers can now link with over 200 financial institutions; the new API allows customers to pull in data from existing accounts for various purposes on the platform. Source
In this week’s PeerIQ Industry Update they cover the recent rebound of equity markets after a volatile few weeks, regulatory news and a deep dive on fintech M&A; OnDeck announced they had reached GAAP profitability and it was reported that SoFi missed their internal targets; PeerIQ takes a deep dive on why banks should buy online lenders; some of the key reasons inclined ROE potential for the banks and to avoid potentially losing market share to big tech firms who might enter the space in the next few years. Source.
There is no question that student lending is a massive market and several companies in the online lending industry have been...
Recent news of deposit products from Aspiration, SoFi and Wealthfront point to a wider trend in the market of fintech...
In 2017, SoFi spent $170 million on marketing and paid $756 to acquire each customer; in 2018 the company plans to spend $200 million; in comparison LendingClub and Prosper spent between $350-$450 to acquire a customer; back in 2015, SoFi spent $30 million on marketing and $375 to acquire a customer; at the time marketing spend as a percentage of originations was 0.6%; SoFi’s marketing strategy is different than other fintech firms who often show up on rate comparison sites. Source
[Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Tharon Smith, Managing Director of LendIt China. Tharon is an expert in...