Issue #135: Robinhood Launches Election Contracts, NVIDIA Tackles Fraud, And Moniepoint Joins the Unicorn Club
Your weekly rundown of news and insights from the world of fintech.
👋 Welcome back to another edition of Fintech Radar!
If you’re new, here is a breakdown of what you can expect from each issue.
If you missed our recent editions, you can catch up here. Some previous issues you might want to check out if you’re new include “A Deep Dive Into The Cash App's Growth Machine”, “The Future Of Payment Initiation”, and “Current: Doing It Differently”.
Your ad could be HERE!
Fintech Radar is a must-read for fintech founders, operators, and investors. If that’s your target audience, placing an ad right HERE is a cost-effective way to reach them.
If this sounds like a good fit for your brand, head to our sponsorship page for more details and to secure your advertising slot. Prices start at $100 per issue!
If you have any questions, reply to this email and ask away!
Introducing the Presidential Election Market, Robinhood
🏃♂️ The Rundown: Robinhood last week launched presidential election event contracts, allowing customers to trade on the outcome of the 2024 election, specifically focusing on candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. These contracts will be available to a limited number of approved customers, enabling real-time trading and engagement ahead of the November 5th general election.
🥡 Takeaway: Prediction markets are really hitting their stride this election cycle. Yes, they've gained momentum in the last few US election cycles and have increasingly been quoted alongside more traditional betting markets. However, this time it feels different. It feels like they’ve entered the zeitgeist more than in previous election cycles. I mean, even Substack has integrated a prediction market embed.
It’s no surprise that Robinhood has jumped in on this trend. I mean, what better game to add to the “investing” roulette table than election betting? Having said this, what’s interesting here is that we’ve typically seen prediction market products offered as standalone offerings. For instance, the more household names in the space (i.e. Klashi and Polymarkets) just offer prediction market betting — which traditionally makes them complicated businesses due to the cyclical nature of prediction market activity.
What Robinhood is doing with its integration into its broader offering means it can be a neat little portfolio play that, in the worst case, provides a topline revenue bump during an election cycle and, in the best case, attracts a new cohort of users to the product. Very clever.
Building a fully compliant product like this for the U.S. market is no small feat, so I wouldn’t expect an immediate rush of fintech super apps to follow their lead. Still, it’s a fascinating (small) evolution for an investing platform to branch out into adjacent markets like this that feel more akin to sports betting.
Hong Kong Launches First AI Governance Framework to Guide Financial Institutions, The Cyber Express
🏃♂️ The Rundown: Hong Kong has launched its first AI governance framework for financial institutions, aiming to promote the responsible use of AI while ensuring data privacy and cybersecurity. The guidelines require institutions to establish governance strategies, adopt a risk-based approach, and maintain human oversight while also encouraging collaboration with local universities for AI resources.
🥡 Takeaway: As regulatory momentum builds around AI, more markets will likely follow suit, crafting frameworks to establish guardrails for AI in financial services. Much like the early days of financial institutions moving to the cloud, we’ll probably see regulators start to define best practices—especially on what’s permissible when it comes to customer-facing applications.
That said, this will be far more complex than cloud guidance and, if mishandled, could slow the rate at which fintech startups and incumbents meaningfully push AI into their tech stacks. My guess? This will be a focal point in 2025, so it's definitely one to keep an eye on.
Bring Receipts: New NVIDIA AI Workflow Detects Fraudulent Credit Card Transactions, NVIDIA
🏃♂️ The Rundown: NVIDIA has introduced a new AI-powered fraud detection solution targeting financial services, enabling more accurate, real-time fraud prevention workflows. Built with the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software suite, the solution leverages real-time data and generative AI models to detect suspicious activity, reducing false positives and enabling faster response times.
🥡 Takeaway: NVIDIA’s move into fraud detection is a reminder of how AI is reshaping the fintech landscape and broadening who can play in it.
Traditionally, fraud detection has been the territory of financial service providers and fraud-focused startups. But something interesting is happening with AI: it’s lowering the barriers to entry, allowing companies outside of fintech to take on roles previously reserved for industry specialists. Moreover, it’s providing an orthogonal way for traditionally no financial services players to enter the market.
Yes, I know it’s a bit of a long bow in the context of this story—after all, cloud providers have been quietly making moves in the fraud detection space for a while now. That said, much like Klarna’s recent shift to replace products with its own GenAI-driven solutions, I can easily envision OpenAI and similar players offering generalised tools applicable to more layers of the compliance stack.
P.S. To get you thinking, here’s a great example in the VC space that’s an innovative take on the investor CRM with an AI spin.
Uber Eats Now Accepting SNAP EBT Nationwide With Albertsons Companies, Walgreens, Yahoo Finance
🏃♂️ The Rundown: Uber Eats has begun accepting SNAP EBT payments nationwide, allowing eligible customers to order groceries from participating retailers like Albertsons, Walgreens, and others.
🥡 Takeaway: I love seeing payment products that solve a real problem and, at the time, intersect with some social good. Seeing more people access SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) directly in apps they likely use daily is fantastic.
As mentioned last week, the world of “niche” payment products (this offering is powered by Forage, a specialist SNAP and EBT payments platform) is enormous. As much as we often refer to the sector as a monolith, many contours to the industry still exist, meaning there is still a massive set for startup opportunities. It’s time to build!
nCino acquires FullCircl in $135m deal, Fintech Futures
🏃♂️ The Rundown: nCino has acquired UK-based customer lifecycle intelligence platform FullCircl for $135m in cash. Founded in 2006, FullCircl enhances customer onboarding and risk management by providing actionable insights for due diligence processes. It processes 300m checks monthly for over 400 clients.
🥡 Takeaway: The OG Salesforce skinned startup seems to be looking to move further into the world of compliance products.
As I’ve noted in previous issues, this is the time for roll-up/bolt acquisitions — with listings still stalled and capital markets tight (but definitely losing up!). The ability to buy up smaller players (at the most reasonable prices we’ve seen in a while) is proving too tempting for many more prominent players.
Duetti Raises $114m in Funding, Finsmes
🏃♂️ The Rundown: Duetti, a New York City-based music platform for independent artists, raised $114m in funding, including $34m in equity financing led by Flexpoint Ford and an $80m asset-backed securitisation transaction. Founded by former TIDAL COO Lior Tibon and ex-Apple Music executive Christopher Nolte, the company has partnered with over 500 artists globally, providing them immediate access to funds through the sale of music rights.
🥡 Takeaway: The alternative asset space is super interesting at the moment. Whether it’s music rights or air rights the segment seems to be adding more startups by the week.
Interestingly, the tokenisation of real-world assets (RWA) in crypto seems to be the most active at the moment, especially around more exotic asset types that aren’t yet mainstream. The concept of tapping into alternative income streams like music royalties or air space rights is getting more attention from both investors and creators, who see the value in unlocking upfront cash without taking on debt.
In many ways, this feels like a natural use case for crypto, but as Duetti and others are showing, not every alternative asset platform needs a blockchain to find funding success.
Nigerian fintech Moniepoint raises $110 million, Finextra
🏃♂️ The Rundown: Nigerian fintech Moniepoint has secured $110m in funding to enhance its expansion across Africa, reaching a valuation of over $1b. The round was led by Development Partners International and supported by Google’s Africa Investment Fund. Initially established in 2015 as a provider of infrastructure and payments technology, Moniepoint now processes over 800m transactions.
🥡 Takeaway: Another African fintech unicorn is born! It’s exciting to see another startup from the continent hit the milestone — even if being called a unicorn has lost its lustre.
While maintaining momentum has been challenging for many African fintechs, Moniepoint seems to be going from strength to strength. Having pivoted from a payments infrastructure startup into the SME (and now consumer-facing) segment, the company is now processing most of Nigeria’s PoS transactions—super impressive.
Hopefully, success stories like this will encourage more investors to dip their toes back into the African fintech ecosystem. Here’s to seeing more Moniepoints emerge from the continent!
Vlad Tenev, Co-Founder & CEO @Robinhood: The GameStop Saga & The Future of AI, 20VC
I know I’ve been recommending a fair few podcasts with Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, but this one’s genuinely insightful and worth a listen. Vlad dives into how Robinhood navigated the GameStop saga and the storytelling lessons he learned in the heat of a crisis. He also shares leadership insights, focusing on the topic every founder is talking about at the moment: “Founder Mode. " During the discussion, he also revealed that Robinhood now boasts several business lines, generating over $100m in revenue. Wow.
Talking LatAm Fintech, AI, and Lending with Baubap Co-Founders Roberto Salcedo & Conrad Wilkinson, The Week In Fintech
In this episode, Baubap co-founders Roberto Salcedo (CEO) and Conrad Wilkinson (CTO) dive into how they’ve scaled their AI-powered lending platform across Latin America. Since launching in 2019, Baubap has grown to serve over 2 million customers and generate $100m in revenue by providing loans to underserved groups, including informal workers, who make up half their customer base. It’s a fascinating look at the LatAm fintech landscape and what it takes to succeed in this unique market.
❤️ Show Some Love For FR
📧 Feel free to reach out if you want to connect. I'm @alantsen on Twitter, or you can D.M. me directly by clicking the button below ↴
Ps. If you like what I'm doing with FR, please share it on your social disinformation network of choice. I'd also appreciate it if you forwarded this newsletter to a friend who might enjoy it.
🙏 What did you think of this week's issue of FR?
I Love It! ◌ I Like It ◌ Not Bad ◌ I Don’t Like It ◌ It’s Awful