All posts tagged: Robinhoods

Payoneer scoops up Skuad, Robinhood’s strong Q2, and X is making progress on payments

Published by skeptic

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at Payoneer’s $61 million acquisition of Skuad, Robinhood and Dave’s second-quarter results, X’s progress on its payments and more. To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here. The big story Last week, I got the scoop on publicly traded fintech Payoneer acquiring Singaporean startup Skuad for $61 million in cash, with the potential to pay up to $81 million. This was a pretty fast exit for Skuad founder Sundeep Sahi, who launched the company in 2019 with the aim of simplifying international hiring and had raised $19 million in venture funding. Both Payoneer and Skuad are geared toward SMBs that operate internationally, particularly in emerging markets. Notably, rather than build out the tech itself, Payoneer decided to acquire Skuad and integrate its payroll and contract management products into its own offering. Analysis of the week A couple of publicly traded fintechs posted strong results last week. Robinhood beat its second-quarter earnings …

Robinhood’s Sherwood News bets free, ad-funded news can still be profitable

Robinhood’s Sherwood News bets free, ad-funded news can still be profitable

Published by skeptic

Sherwood News editor-in-chief and president, Joshua Topolsky. Picture: Sherwood News Sherwood News, the US-based business news outlet launched this month by retail trading platform Robinhood, is betting that ad-supported, un-paywalled news can turn a profit in the internet’s post-scale era. The publication says it aims to report “actionable, illuminating news on the markets, business, tech and the culture of money”. Typical stories have included reports on Bitcoin’s long-predicted value “halving”, so-called litigation investment and the business of cryogenics. Robinhood’s core service is an app that allows users to easily trade stocks, something which brought it to wider attention during the retail trading boom of the early Covid era and the widely-publicised growth in meme stocks. And although Sherwood News is written with Robinhood users in mind, the publication’s editor-in-chief and president, Verge co-founder Joshua Topolsky, told Press Gazette that it had a broader eye on “an entire spectrum of younger, very savvy, very online audiences that are very interested in how money moves in the world”. Modern internet habits ‘don’t look like the front page …

Robinhood’s new Gold Card, BaaS challenges and the tiny startup that caught Stripe’s eye

Robinhood’s new Gold Card, BaaS challenges and the tiny startup that caught Stripe’s eye

Published by skeptic

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! This week, we’re looking at Robinhood’s new Gold Card, challenges in the BaaS space and how a tiny startup caught Stripe’s eye. To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Sunday at 7:30 a.m. PT, subscribe here.  The big story Robinhood took the wraps off its new Gold Card last week to much fanfare. It has a long list of impressive features, including 3% cash back and the ability to invest that cash back via the company’s brokerage account. A user can also put that cash back into Robinhood’s savings account, which offers 5% APY.  We’re curious to see how this new card will impact the company’s bottom line. But also, we are fascinated by how Robinhood incorporated the technology it acquired when buying startup X1 last summer for $95 million and turned it into a potentially very lucrative new offering. Analysis of the week The banking-as-a-service (BaaS) space is facing challenges. BaaS startup Synctera recently conducted a restructuring …

Robinhood’s new credit card goes after Apple Card with ability to invest cash-back perks

Robinhood’s new credit card goes after Apple Card with ability to invest cash-back perks

Published by skeptic

Eight months after acquiring credit card startup X1 for $95 million, Robinhood announced today the launch of its new Gold Card, with a list of features that could even give Apple Card users envy. Robinhood, better known for its brokerage app aimed at the everyday investor, is touting all sorts of benefits with its new card in an attempt to attract users. The card has no annual or foreign transaction fees. However, it will only be available for Robinhood Gold members, which costs $5 a month, or $50 annually. (Gold is a program that offers other benefits like 5% APY on an account’s uninvested brokerage cash.)  Gold Card users can earn 3% cash back on all categories, including restaurants and groceries, and 5% cash bank when booking travel at Robinhood’s new travel portal. That cash back can be transferred to brokerage accounts, which can go toward making investments like stock purchases, the company says. The ability to invest using cash back is the big innovation that X1 developed prior to getting acquired. Another interesting feature …

PayPal Ventures’ first AI investment, a credit-based dating app and Robinhood’s good week

PayPal Ventures’ first AI investment, a credit-based dating app and Robinhood’s good week

Published by skeptic

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! This week, we’re looking at a new finance-based dating app, Robinhood’s earnings results and the startup in which PayPal Ventures made its first investment. Let’s dive in! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Sunday at 7:30 a.m. PT, subscribe here. The big story A new dating app was released just in time for Valentine’s Day, but there’s a catch: You must have at least a 675 credit score to use it. Launched by financial platform Neon Money Club, Score is a dating app for people with good to excellent credit, and it seeks to help raise awareness about the importance of finances in relationships. TC’s Dominic-Madori Davis gave us a look at what the startup aims to do and how it came about. Reading all the comments on X and LI was also quite entertaining! Analysis of the week Robinhood’s stock got a big boost last week when the company posted a surprise profit in the fourth quarter …

Coinbase and Robinhood’s break belies good news for fintech

Coinbase and Robinhood’s break belies good news for fintech

Published by skeptic

Investors are betting that consumer trading of equity and crypto is rebounding, and are consequently pushing the value of some former startups higher. For a great number of private fintech startups that operate businesses similar to companies like Coinbase and Robinhood, this is great news. Consumer trading platforms have historically generated much of their revenue from trading, and more trading activity in turn leads to healthier businesses. And for startups that have yet to reach self-sufficiency, more revenue is a potential lifeline and a feather in the cap when they go out to raise more capital. The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday. This morning, let’s take a peek at recent news from Robinhood, remind ourselves just how many startups are out there offering consumer trading services directly or indirectly, and then riff through some market data to see if investors are being too optimistic or are really on to something. What’s up with Coinbase and Robinhood? Stock trading app Robinhood said …

Vlad Tenev shares Robinhood’s next chapter at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023

Vlad Tenev shares Robinhood’s next chapter at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023

Published by skeptic

Robinhood launched a decade ago as a stock trading and investing app. During that time, it’s become a retail investment behemoth — but not without its share of controversy, including the GameStop trade freeze of 2021 and two rounds of layoffs last year. Add to that a declining user base and it begs the question, what’s next for Robinhood? We’re excited to announce that we’ll all learn the answer to that question when Vlad Tenev, the company’s co-founder and CEO, joins us on the Fintech Stage for a session called “What’s Robinhood’s Next Chapter?” on September 19 during TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. The company has been busy expanding its product portfolio. Last year, it unveiled Robinhood Retirement, an IRA designed for people — think gig workers and contractors — who work outside the typical 9–5 grind. They generally find it hard to save for retirement without full-time job benefits like employer-sponsored 401K plans. This past June, the company acquired X1, a no-fee credit card startup, for $95 million. The slowdown in crypto trading and a decline …

Robinhood’s decision to limit crypto trading makes good sense

Robinhood’s decision to limit crypto trading makes good sense

Published by skeptic

Consumer trading and investment app Robinhood is moving to restrict the holding and trading of certain major cryptocurrencies on its platform, barely a week after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuits against crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase. The platform told Congress earlier this week that it was examining its crypto offerings following the lawsuits. There are two easy perspectives one can have in the wake of Robinhood’s decision to end support for tokens from the Polygon, Solana and Cardano blockchains: That the company is being too skittish, or that it’s making a calculated business decision. After reviewing Robinhood’s most recent quarterly results, we feel that the decision is backed by some amount of reason. Robinhood is not new to being poked by the government. During the meme-stock mania, the company was dragged before Congress to be questioned about its trading controls and its willingness to offer sophisticated trading tools to less sophisticated investors. Given this less exciting asset trading market, the company is likely loath to invite renewed interest from regulators and lawmakers. But …