Welcome to the June installment of Fin Capital's newsletter. It’s been a busy month for the team and our portfolio companies! From Amsterdam to Berlin to London, we extend a big thank you to the investors, founders, and friends who joined us throughout June to discuss the current state of European fintech and more at our Money20/20 Happy Hour, London Investor Dinner, and at SuperReturn Berlin.

What’s next for the Fin team? We’ll be at TIDE SPARK and we'd love to connect with you there!

Congratulations, Salt Labs

Portfolio company, Salt Labs, announced this week they have been acquired by Chime. We extend a heartfelt congratulations to Salt Labs Founder, Jason Lee, and the entire team!

Founded in 2022, Salt Labs’ flagship product, Salt, is an employee rewards benefit that acts like a savings account for everyday Americans. In line with the acquisition, Chime will launch a new business unit called Chime Enterprise, led by Jason Lee, that will be focused on accelerating Chime’s growth through the employer channel, beyond Salt Labs’ flagship products. Read the full announcement from Chime here and more from Jason here.

Welcome, Liminal

We are thrilled to share our latest investment in Liminal and congratulate the entire team on their seed round. Founded by Steven Walchek and Aaron Bach, Liminal helps regulated enterprises securely deploy and leverage generative AI across all use cases.

As Fin General Partner, Christian Ostberg, shared in the announcement, "We are already seeing the transformative power of AI in financial services. However, the barriers to its full adoption and potential are significant. With generative AI budgets expected to triple between 2023 and 2025, Liminal is uniquely positioned to unlock the adoption of AI for large enterprises in regulated industries by solving AI data privacy, security, and sovereignty.”

Our Latest GTM Navigator

In our latest episode, Stephanie Perez, our Managing Director of Business Development, speaks with Chris Chen, GTM Advisor and Managing Partner at CoPilot about customer retention and account expansion.

In this episode you'll gain a better understanding of strategic approaches to customer retention and account expansion, the importance of deepening customer relationships, and how to drive revenue growth within existing accounts. 

Introducing Fin Capital’s Fintech CEO Pulse Survey

We are excited to introduce Fin Capital’s Fintech CEO Pulse. This biannual survey is designed to take the pulse of the fintech landscape through the eyes of the industry’s leading voices—CEOs of B2B fintech companies. 

In an ever-evolving market, understanding the perspectives and priorities of fintech leaders is crucial. Our 10-question survey aims to gather insights directly from CEOs, providing a snapshot of their outlook on the industry, the challenges they face, and their strategic priorities for the coming months.  By participating, you’ll contribute to:

1. A Temperature Check for the Ecosystem: Gain a collective view of where the fintech industry stands today.

2. Strategic Priorities of CEOs: Share and understand the top priorities and challenges for the months ahead.

3. A Call to Investors: Highlight where CEOs need support the most right now.

Talking Apple on CNBC Squawk Box

"Orchestration of AI in the enterprise is the number one opportunity for investors," Fin Managing Partner & Founder, Logan Allin, joined CNBC Squawk Box Europe and shared his POV on AI adoption as well as how Apple continues to take meaningful share from fintechs and traditional banks in its continued push into the fintech. Catch a clip of the conversation below:

Portfolio Spotlight

It’s been a busy month, sharing some of the latest moments from across portfolio…

• Banyan has welcomed Bilt Rewards onto its platform, which will provide Bilt with item-level data capabilities thereby opening exciting new opportunities for Bilt and its rewards network partners to power ever more relevant, tailored, and unique rewards and benefits experiences for members. 

• Figure Technology Solutions has launched “Figure Connect”, a first-of-its-kind blockchain-based multi-seller, multi-buyer marketplace of private credit loans.

• Greenlight has teamed up with U.S. Bank to offer free kids’ banking, helping more families teach and learn money-smart habits.  

• Maxwell co-founders John Paasonen and Rutul Davé were recognized as 2024 Inman Best of Finance Winners.

• Opto Investments announced a strategic partnership with Mercer Advisors to equip the Mercer Advisors client-facing team with a modern, tech-driven solution to bring private markets investments into client portfolios at scale and in a cost-efficient manner.  

• Pipe CEO, Luke Voiles, discusses the benefits of vertical software companies partnering with an embedded capital partner vs. developing in-house embedded financing capabilities.  

• Refine Intelligence launched new Check Fraud Prevention solution for banks, addressing a growing wave of check fraud fueled by mail theft and advanced counterfeiting techniques.  

• SumUp partners with Adyen to enable accelerated settlements for small businesses in Europe and the United Kingdom, expanding the availability of SumUp’s near-instant settlements offering that already serves more than 4 million merchants in 36 markets around the world.  

• Ternary was named a Leader in the GigaOm Radar Report for Cloud FinOps, which assessed 16 cloud FinOps solutions in the market and compared them based on key capabilities and business criteria.  

• Tunic Pay co-founder, Nico Barawind, was featured in This Week in FinTech’s recent OpEd addressing fraud prevention in the UK and why the industry needs to be more ambitious in building data-sharing protocols to address scams.  

What We’re Reading

INDUSTRY RESEARCH 

• Andreessen Horowitz: Death, Taxes, and AI: How Generative AI Will Change Accounting (Read More).  

• ICONIQ: What it Takes to Raise a Series B (Read More). 

BLOGS, PODCASTS AND VIDEOS 

• Andreessen Horowitz: Predicting Revenue in Usage-based Pricing (Listen Here).  

• Growth Unhinged: Growth or Profitability? Unpacking burn rates, data on what's “normal”, and how burn impacts valuations (Read More).  

• Lenny’s Newsletter: When and How to Run a Billboard Campaign (Read More).  

• Wrap Text by Equals: Why We Changed Pricing 3 Times in 1 Year (Read More). 

Thanks for reading!

We are grateful for your partnership and support, and welcome any feedback you have. We’ll see you next month with more!

-The Fin Capital team

_Disclaimer

_{This material is provided for informational purposes, and it is not, and may not be relied on in any manner as, legal, tax or investment advice or as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any fund or investment vehicle managed by Fin Venture Capital Management LLC (“Fin”) or its affiliates. Content obtained from third-party sources, although believed to be reliable, has not been independently verified as to its accuracy or completeness and cannot be guaranteed. Fin has no obligation to update, modify or amend the content of this post nor notify its readers in the event that any information, opinion, projection, forecast or estimate included, changes or subsequently becomes inaccurate.}