Fintech Focus For February 11, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: “Gamification is controversial; in some ways, it’s a good thing because you’re lowering the barrier to entry, and making people more motivated to participate in something that’s perceived as a game.”

“But, it can be dangerous. If you apply it to trading, and encourage people to trade just because the cost to trade is zero, that’s not necessarily a great thing.”

Source: Milan Kovacevic

One Big Thing In Fintech: Metromile Inc MILE, an insurance-focused fintech powered by data science and machine learning, on Wednesday, became a publicly listed company after completing a successful combination with SPAC INSU Acquisition Corporation II.

This comes after leaders like Ryan Graves, Betsy Cohen, Chamath Palihapitiya and Mark Cuban looked to support the company’s growth plans by joining the board.

In a statement for the Fintech Focus newsletter, Metromile communications director Rick Chen said: “This capital injection is quite exciting for our company just in terms of being able to make sure we’re fully capitalized for the next step of growth."

"With this, we believe we truly own our own destiny and can propel ourselves forward, and achieve our plans much faster than we would have been able to.”

The development comes as consumers are looking for cheaper ways to save on auto insurance.

“Folks driving less can really benefit from our pay-per-mile insurance,” Chen said in a discussion on innovating for tomorrow’s consumer and digital-focused insurance providers. “We also have Enterprise [cloud-based software-as-a-service]; we expect that by the end of 2023, that’s going to be an almost $50 million business.”

Source: Metromile

Photo by Margie Hunt, from Metromile.
Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Voyager looks to add $100M in funds.
• Briza raises $8M round for insurtech.
• In4m AI technology unpacks markets.
• Is Asia leading the fintech revolution?
• TPG, CapitalG accelerate MX growth.
• Marble insurtech raises $2.5M seed.
• Barclays joins a seed for TomoCredit.
• OppFi looks to SPAC for public listing.
• Hehmeyer, Nortide to merge together.
• Natwest Markets add push-pull quotes.
• Marcus is reopening to British savers.
• CME looking to add volatility indexes.
• SoLo Funds raises $10M for lendtech.
• Klarna eyes banking, a $500M round.
• Nordea honing in on zero emissions.
• Twitter CFO on bitcoin balance sheet.
• Scotiabank commits $1M to research.
• Nasdaq, NYSE sued the SEC on data.
• Populus launches Porte banking tech.
• Fraction taps $289M for growth, tech.

Watch Out For This: All the COVID-causing virus circulating in the world right now could easily fit inside a single cola can, according to a calculation by a British mathematician whose sum exposes just how much devastation is caused by minuscule viral particles.

Source: Al Jazeera

Interesting Reads:

• Powell urges more government relief.
• Rivian considering a 2021 public offer.
• CIAs audacious plot to steal satellites.
• Ken Griffin will testify at the US House.
• Facebook to test downranking feature.
• Archer listing on NYSE through SPAC.
• Unpacking the future of consumerism.

Market Moving Headline: The pandemic has turbocharged transformations that were already under way – from sustainability to inequality. Yet markets have not fully priced in the durability of these trends, we believe, even with the glimpse into the future offered by the pandemic.

We favor technology and healthcare on a tactical horizon, as they offer both quality characteristics and are likely beneficiaries of structural growth trends.

Source: BlackRock