Payment company Paymentus saw its share price open up 37% at $28.76. The company raised $210M by pricing 10 million shares at $21 and currently enjoys a $3.4B valuation. (Click To Tweet)

Micro-investing and robo-investing startup Acorns plans to go public via the special purpose acquisition company Pioneer Merger Corp. at a $2.2B post-money valuation. The company raised $207M since its 2012 inception from investors including PayPal Ventures, Comcast Ventures, and NBCUniversal, among others.

More:

• The startup's app allows individuals to round up purchases and automatically invest the change. The available investment instruments include a portfolio of exchange-traded funds (stocks and bonds) offered by asset managers such as Vanguard and BlackRock.
• As of May, Acorns had $4.74B in assets under management (AUM), reports WSJ.
• Acorns' basic plan costs $1 a month, while $3-a-month and $5-a-month plans include retirement, banking, education, rewards, and smart deposit tools. The business model brought $71M in sales last year and is planned to generate $126M this year and $309M in 2023.
• Its subscriber base in America is more than 4 million people and is forecasted to grow to 10 million by 2025.
• Pioneer Merger Corp's sponsor is an affiliate of Falcon Edge Capital and Patriot Global Management. 
• The SPAC will pay $400M in cash, with another $165M raised through private investment in public equity. Wellington Management, TPG, and funds managed by BlackRock have committed to the deal.
• Acorns CEO Noah Kerner and Pioneer's sponsor plan to dedicate 10% of their stakes to a program providing shares to some Acorns customers. 

Zoom out:

• Companies like Acorns tend to expand into other business verticals with higher margins. Access to the current customer data ensures higher efficiencies and strategic advantages.
• Wealthsimple, which recently raised $610Mat a $5B valuation, offers Robo-adviser tools such as automated savings and investing products. It now has 1.5 million users and $10B in AUM. 
  • Going beyond wealth management, the company entered the tax filing business and planned to assist customers in other financial life aspects.
• Asia-based Robo advisor StashAway raised $25Mand surpassed $1B in AUM earlier this year.
  • The company recently announced its expansion into the life insurance business as a part of its wealth management platform. StashAway will leverage users' data so that the insurance applications only take a few minutes.
  • Employers are now able to provide benefits like pensions and vesting schedules through the startup's platform.
• In emerging markets like Southeast Asia, startups take a longer path of expanding their market by acquiring previously underserved customers. For example, Bibit, a robo-advisor services platform, claims that 90% of its users are millennials and first-time investors. The company recently raised $65M, led by Sequoia Capital India.
• Recently, FinTech players like SoFi have been giving customers, holding a certain balance on their platforms, an opportunity to participate in new stock offerings before they hit the public markets. It allows companies to increase AUM and attract investors and customers willing to advocate for its product.

AI research and deployment company, OpenAI, is launching a $100M fund to invest in early-stage startups that play a role in various industries' advancement through the artificial intelligence technology application. Microsoft and other partners invested in the fund, which will be directly managed by OpenAI.

More:

• The fund will focus on ventures working in industries where artificial intelligence can have a transformative effect—like health care, climate change, education, or developers of AI tools that help people be more productive. OpenAI founder Sam Altman also announced that the number of companies it invests in would probably not exceed 10.
• The funding recipients will have early access to new OpenAI systems and Azure resources.
• OpenAI includes an artificial intelligence research laboratory, a for-profit corporation, and its parent, a not-for-profit company. OpenAI's goal is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.
• According to TechCrunch, a one-minute video will be required as a part of the application process. The fund also expressed a particular interest in founders from underrepresented groups.

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Crypto Funding:

Fold, a crypto reward card developer, raised a $13M Series A funding round for the “sats-back” debit card. The round was led by Craft Ventures, with participation from M13, Slow Ventures, and Bessemer.

More:

• Fold plans on investing the money in further developing its rewards system so it can bring bitcoin rewards to international credit and debit cards.
• 20K cardholders participated in an early access program in November 2020, where the cards saw $100M in transaction volume.
• Fold is now available for all U.S. residents.

Meme.com, an NFT marketplace startup, raised $5M with participation from Outlier Ventures, Digital Finance Group (DFG), Morningstar, Blockhype, Spark Digital Capital, Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal, and others.

More:

• Meme.com provides a marketplace for meme NFTs and meme tokens.
• Memetic tokens are minted by users and are valued at the perceived value of the underlying meme it represents.
• The startup’s developers hope the platform can become a “CoinMarketCap for memetic content” with comparative charts to track the trends and performances of memes.

This story first appeared in Inside Cryptocurrency. You can read the full issue here.

Quick Hits:

• You could have finished that project by now. Get used to getting to the finish line faster with expert freelancers by your side.*
• Kevin O’Leary, a Canadian businessman, author and politician, led a $20M funding round for DeFi Ventures and plans to rename it WonderFi. The company aims to simplify user interaction with decentralized finance, and remove complexities, preventing mainstream adoption of DeFi. 
• Chamath Palihapitiya's Social Capital Hedosophia Corp (IPOE) shareholders will vote on the SoFi acquisition today. SoFi's plans to go public via SPAC were announced in January. The online finance startup will be valued at around $8.65B. IPOE shares are down 2.4% today.
• TxK Gaming raised more than $285K on Kickstarter for its "Dungeon Full Dive" tabletop gaming platform for PC and PC VR. It's due out in Q1 2022 for SteamVR headsets and the Oculus Rift.
• Instacart is looking to enter new markets ahead of a potential IPO later this year. The grocery delivery service was valued at $39B as of March.
• DataDhome raised $35M in its Series B funding round. The startup protects e-commerce companies from bot attacks and will use the funds for research and development.
• The strongest customer relationships are built on trust—not third-party cookies! Download the eBook to start your first-party data strategy.*

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