The Tale of Two Personal Finance SPACs: What MoneyLion And Mark Cuban-Backed Dave's Have To Say About Earnings

Two companies in the personal finance space went public via SPAC merger with high hopes of continuing customer growth and new product offerings in a shift to digital banking and non-traditional banking. The stock prices have fallen drastically. Here’s what happened.

MoneyLion Shares Fall: Personal finance company MoneyLion ML announced a SPAC merger in February 2021.

The company recently reported third-quarter revenue of $88.7 million, up 103% year-over-year. This marked the company’s seventh consecutive quarter of triple digit adjusted revenue growth.

“The products that we are seeing the most engagement from our daily content feed, the content that we are creating, the curating as well from creators. And of course, the combination of our digital banking product,” the company said.

MoneyLion said it saw engagement up 3x in the third quarter.

The company did cut its full fiscal year 2022 adjusted revenue guidance to a range of $320 million to $330 million. The company’s original guidance for fiscal 2022 at the time of its SPAC merger was $258 million in revenue.

“We remain focused on optimizing our cost structure and focusing our investment on high quality areas of our business that position us to take market share for the long run,” MoneyLion CEO Dee Choubey said. 

The company also lowered its outlook for EBITDA. MoneyLion now expects full-year adjusted EBITDA in a range of a loss of $70 million to a loss of $65 million. The lowered outlook compares to it prior adjusted EBITDA guidance of a loss of $65 million to $55 million. The company said it's nearing profitability and remains confident in its "future growth goals." 

MoneyLion shares traded at 73 cents on Wednesday, down 87% over the last year. Shares have traded between 75 cents and $5.87 over the last 52 weeks.

Related Link: Insiders Selling Foot Locker, Dave And This Drug Giant's Stock 

Dave Earnings Don’t Help Shares: With a mission to build product to level the financial playing field, Dave Inc DAVE has launched several products and eliminated overdraft fees for its more than 10 million members.

Dave, which counts Mark Cuban as an early investor, also went public via SPAC merger. 

The company saw net new members grow 43% in the third quarter to 7.8 million.

“We experienced impressive results in the third quarter on all fronts, with record revenue, transacting members and new member growth, along with strong performance of our Dave Card business following the rollout of our new, integrated product experience,” Dave CEO Jason Wilk said.

One item that might be important to investors going forward: Wilk’s comments on progress made on its run-rate cash burn in the third quarter. The company expects to reach positive adjusted EBITDA in 2024.

Dave is guiding for fiscal 2022 revenue in a range of $200 million to $215 million. The company’s original guidance for 2022 at the time of its SPAC merger was $377 million.

Dave shares traded at 32 cents on Thursday and are down 97% over the last year.