Fintech Focus Roundup For April 11, 2021

Vesica Technologies Launches SHIFT, A Search Engine For The Options Market
“Wall Street — it’s a fallacy to think it’s hard.”

That's according to Saad Hussain, founder, and CEO at Vesica Technologies, the company behind SHIFT, a search engine for the options market.

As part of Vesica’s launch of SHIFT and the closure of a $2.1 million seed round led by Mercury Digital Assets and Miami International Holdings, Hussain spoke with Benzinga on how his organization is making financial data more accessible and actionable, for all market participants.

Exclusive: Rarible Co-Founder Says NFTs Are Here To Stay
Non-fungible tokens, a relatively new concept, are digital assets represented by data and stored on digital ledgers, or blockchains. Like any other asset, NFTs, via tokens that represent digital certificates of ownership, can be bought and sold. The transactions transfer ownership from one unique entity on the blockchain to another.

Alexander Salnikov is the founder of Rarible, a community-owned NFT marketplace for the creation, sale and collection of digital items secured with blockchain. Benzinga chatted with Salnikov about how utility and value can meet with blockchain technology.

Jamie Dimon Acknowledges Fintech's 'Enormous' Threat: Here's Why That's Important
What Happened: Fintech is one of the “enormous competitive threats” to banks, according to Dimon. He says big tech companies and fintech are encroaching on the dominance of traditional banking institutions.

Why It Matters: JPMorgan is part of a larger group of institutions acknowledging the digital disruption in finance. The company even founded its own digital banking and innovation arm in an effort to position itself as a holistic destination for digital spending, saving, investing, and borrowing.

Finary Raises $3.2M For Platform That Enables Finance Creators To Monetize Content
Finary, an online community for investors, on April 9, formally announced the closure of a $3.2 million seed round led by Upfront Ventures, with participation from Dash Fund, Hannarae Nam, Madhi Raza, Eden Chen, Danial Pourasghar, James Beshara and Lenny Rachitsky.

As part of the development, Benzinga spoke with Finary CEO and co-founder Roger Cawdette.

Mobile Hedge-Fund Platform Titan Launches Titan Offshore Investment Strategy
Titan is a holistic asset management solution that builds, manages, and explains investment strategies for retail investors.

After raising a $12.5 million Series A round to further personalize investing experiences, improve education, transparency and trust, the asset manager said it would complement its existing flagship and opportunities portfolios.

The new investment strategy will apply Titan’s U.S. playbook to emerging and developed markets across a three- to five-year time horizon. The portfolio will be constructed of 15-25 stocks and ADRs of foreign-domiciled companies with position sizing conviction-weighted. Investments will be concentrated in large companies, about $160 billion in market cap.

WealthCharts Expands Product Portfolio, Positions Itself With Emerging Trends
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the digital transformation in finance accelerated and stock market engagement rose.

Headlines on so-called meme-stocks like GameStop led to increased account openings for both brokers and financial insight platforms.

In allowing investors to better act on emerging themes and trends, Benzinga spoke with Rob Hoffman, the CEO, and founder of WealthCharts, an innovative, low-cost, easy-to-use trading platform packed with hundreds of indicators, real-time news, research, and education for investors worldwide.

MoneyLion To Provide Users Access To Digital Assets After Investing In Zero Hash
MoneyLion is a holistic platform for wealth accumulation and management.

To empower members to buy, sell, and earn cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, MoneyLion announced it partnered and invested in Zero Hash, a provider of turnkey solutions which allow platforms to launch and provide experiences around digital assets, with no regulatory overhead or technical complications.

YieldStreet Launches New Fund, Further Unlocking Investment In Commercial Real Estate
YieldStreet enables millions of people to generate income from investments previously reserved for institutions and the ultrawealthy.

As part of a vision to provide investors exposure to commercial real estate investments, in partnership with Harbor Group International (HGI), YieldStreet launched the Real Estate Opportunity Fund.

Gupshup To Enrich And Personalize Messaging With $100M From Tiger Global
Gupshup, a conversational messaging company, secured $100 million in funding from Tiger Global Management, raising the company’s valuation to $1.4 billion. As part of the development, Benzinga chatted with Beerud Sheth, who prior to co-founding Gupshup, built Elance, now known as Upwork Inc, a freelancing platform.