Marcel van Oost

Hey FinTech Fanatic! Two big rounds, two huge valuations. Upgrade just raised $165 million at a $7.3 billion valuation. The online lender, founded by LendingClub’s Renaud Laplanche, hasn’t raised since 2021 and has been profitable for three years. With annualized revenue now above $1 billion, Upgrade says

Hey FinTech Fanatic, Coinbase is re-entering the Indian market with a fresh investment in Mumbai-based CoinDCX. Just over two months ago, Mint reported talks of a potential Coinbase acquisition of CoinDCX, once valued at $2.2 billion, with whispers that its valuation had dipped below $1 billion. The investment is

Hey FinTech Fanatic! A few days ago, I read an interview with Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, and he didn’t hold back. While many tech leaders keep saying AI will create more jobs than it replaces, Siemiatkowski warns that the short-term impact could be far more painful. Klarna itself has

Hey FinTech Fanatic! The AI wave in FinTech is accelerating. First up: Tabby, the GCC’s most valuable FinTech ($3.3B), just announced plans to build its own AI factory in Saudi Arabia, powered by NVIDIA HGX systems. Think local compute, faster responses, and total data control. From fraud detection

Hey FinTech Fanatic! The stablecoin wars just went nuclear. Coinbase and Mastercard are reportedly battling it out to acquire stablecoin infrastructure startup BVNK—for a jaw-dropping $2 billion—just one day after BVNK’s fresh funding round with Citi. 🤯 Negotiations suggest a price between $1.5B and $2.5B, and

Hey FinTech Fanatic! The line between payments and crypto is disappearing fast. 🇯🇵 In Japan, PayPay, the country’s biggest digital wallet with 70 million (‼️) users, just acquired a 40% stake in Binance Japan. Together, they’re building a bridge between cashless payments and crypto: users will soon buy and sell