Canadian Fintech: Clearc oh no! 😱
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Canadian Fintech: Clearc oh no! 😱
RBC is the world's dirtiest bank. Pillar shuts down. Ryan Reynolds is Canadian fintech.
Morning!Â
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💰 Funding
Autoleap, a vertical saas platform for auto repair shops, raised $40m.Â
Tab Commerce, a tool for restaurants to manage invoices and pay suppliers, raised $1m.Â
Canadian sweetheart Ryan Reynolds invested in / made a bunch of funny vids (unclear which is more valuable) with the payments company Nuvei. Shortly thereafter, Nuvei was targeted again by short seller Spruce Point citing issues of reporting transparency and links to FTX.
💸 Opposite of funding
Pillar, a digital bank for small businesses, shut down. The field has crowded significantly in that last year, as BaaS has made launching a banking fintech easier. Vault, Loop, Truly, Keep and others will fill the void.
Clearco, an e-com lender once valued at over $2b USD is seeking $20m in rescue financing after receiving no takers on their ibank roadshow.Â
The new pre-money value is $180m and will give the new investors 100% warrant coverage and a 2x liquidity preference… meaning old investors & employees get to split the remaining $90m.Â
That’s a 95% drop in value 😬… Klarna’s 85% drop doesn’t seem so bad now eh?
RenoRun, an e-com platform for building materials filed for creditor protection. The company raised $181m last year but was unable to secure further investment.Â
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🚀 ProductÂ
Quota, launched a dashboard for accountants to benchmark their small business clients.Â
Toast, a restaurant POS system expanded into Canada to compete with Nuvei, Lightspeed, TouchBistro and others.Â
Miq rebranded as Woveo. They provide infrastructure to run rotating savings groups. How do these work?
Each month all members of a group contribute money into the pool. Each month one member is able to borrow from the pool. Borrowing is interest free but can still be reported to credit bureaus.
These pools are common in underbanked regions of the world, but can also act as a financial services on-ramp for Canadian immigrants.Â
Payfare, an earned-wage-access platform for gig worker apps (Uber, Doordash, etc.) is expanding into more general employers. ZayZoon is a Canadian fintech that offers this, but only serves US clients.
🎂 Number time!
#1
RBC has the dubious distinction of becoming the world’s dirtiest bank. Last year they funded $42b to the fossil fuel industry.Â
$333 million
The defaults that major private mortgage lender Romspen is facing. That’s about 1/3 of its flagship fund.
> 35 years
A quarter of TD’s mortgages now have amortizations of 35 years or more. This is because higher rates have forced borrowers to pay back loans over longer periods of time.
A year ago, the bank had 0 mortgages with amortizations over 30 years (see graphic).
If you’re in Toronto on May 17th, come say hi at the Bankers Summit. Need a discount code? Reply to this email.
Have a great week! See ya 👋