Everyone Can be a Bank Now
It seems like this news got somewhat buried beneath the Slackquisition chatter, but Stripe just took a major step to secure its position as the plumbing of the internet’s money. On the heels of a leak that they’re raising at a valuation as high as $100B, they announced Stripe Treasury and Stripe Capital for Platforms.
The treasury offering is a banking-as-a-service API that lets Stripe customers give their customers the ability to hold funds, pay bills, earn interest, and manage cash flow. They kicked off the service with a partnership with Shopify Balance, which will enable independent merchants on the Shopify platform to create financial products for their business needs.
They also announced an update to Stripe Capital, extending its reach to platforms. They’ll now let platform/marketplace companies help their users finance their businesses. Stripe handles the entire lending cycle, from underwriting to disbursement of funds — with loans being issued by bank partners. The underwriting models are based on transaction data from the millions of businesses that are already using Stripe— data that very few internet businesses possess.
From Ben Thompson — Stripe: Platform of Platforms
“[Small merchants don’t] have the wherewithal to open a business bank account at Goldman Sachs, and Goldman Sachs doesn’t have the flexibility to offer a banking account to individual entrepreneurs. This, though, is the exact sort of problem platforms solve: they provide an abstraction layer that connects different sides of a market, even if those different sides have dramatically different needs and capabilities.”
Stripe just built out the infrastructure for basically anyone to embed lending and banking services onto any platform (as Ben Thompson animates well below). I think it speaks directly to their mission of “Increasing the GDP of the internet.” They’re not replacing banks, but rather enabling anyone to become a vertically specific bank, and then lend to their customers without jumping through nearly as many regulatory and compliance hoops.
Stuff I’m Reading:
VC Financing Deals:
Folx Health 🏳️🌈
I first wrote about Folx Health in May when the stealth company raised $4.35M from Define Ventures, then WSJ Venture Capital picked up the round in August. It’s now been formally announced as a $4.4M seed round from Define Ventures, Bessemer, and Polaris Partners — and the service has officially launched.
Folx is building a telehealth and prescription delivery marketplace for the queer community. It’s founded by A.G. Breitenstein, who previously co-founded Optum Ventures and Humedica, and served on the board of Buoy Health, LetsGetChecked, Vim, and WellSky.
“Folx has built a network of 12 clinicians so far. The population Folx is working with is “grossly underestimated,” Breitenstein said. She estimates there are 11 million people in this group, many of whom are under 30 and don’t have a primary care physician. And the population continues to grow, especially as more people don’t identify as either male or female.” — Crunchbase
They’re starting with a selection of offerings including hormone therapy, ED treatment, STI test, prescriptions, consultations, and family creation.
Boston Meats 🥩
In July, Boston Meats co-founder Christophe Chantre announced the launch of an alternative meat product that will finally solve the industry’s greatest challenge: meat-like texture. The five-month-old company has now raised $1.3M — according to a Form D.
Chantre was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Wyss Institute, which has recently spun out some other interesting Boston-based, venture-backed startups like the robotic exosuit company Verve.
Embr Labs 🥶
Last month I wrote about a handful of Boston-based companies doing some fascinating things in the wearables space:
Whoop is the leading fitness & recovery wearable.
Dynocardia is the only wearable that can continuously track blood pressure.
Encora Therapeutics vibrates to reduce neurological tremors.
Biofourmis wants to predict your health problems and fine-tune drug delivery.
Sunu wants to give the blind echolocation abilities.
I missed a Cambridge-based company spun out of MIT called Embr Labs, which just received a strategic investment from Joy Ventures. The six-year-old company has previously raised $7.6M in debt and equity — Most recently a Series B from DigiTx Partners.
They’ve created a $250 bracelet called the Wave that can cool down or heat up your body with the click of a button. Apparently changing the temperature of your wrist can trick the rest of your body into feeling about the same temperature because it’s one of the most temperature-sensitive parts of your body.
One of the use cases touted on the website is using it for more comfortable sleep. Other tech companies like Chili Technology and Eight Sleep have been tackling this problem through temperature-controlled mattress covers that go for over $1K. It has also gained recognition as a therapeutics tool for menopause symptoms.
ecoText (New Hampshire)📚
In September I wrote about an NH-based company started by my close friends and classmates called ecoText when they raised $166K in crowdfunding. Last week, their textbook aggregation platform raised a seed round from Valor Ventures and won $200K from the Millworks Fund at the NH Tech Alliance Innovation Summit. Check them out here.
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