First Carolina Acquires BMTX; Upstart Targets Prime Borrowers; Fundraising News
Cole Gottlieb, Research Analyst
GDP grew at a healthy clip in Q2. Employment metrics remain robust. Wildfire, Interface.ai announce new funding. First Carolina Bank acquires digital bank platform BMTX. Investors upsize Klarna’s valuation. Nymbus and PeoplesBank partner on financial health products. Upstart targets prime borrowers. Array acquires Payitoff. nCino acquires compliance platform FullCircl.
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Consumer Spending Powers U.S. GDP
U.S. consumers continue to power the economy, third quarter data indicates. Inflation-adjusted GDP grew at an annualized rate of 2.8% in Q3. Consumer spending, the largest share of economic activity, grew at a 3.7% annualized rate. That marks the fastest expansion since early 2023, led by household goods, autos, and recreational items, among other categories. The economy has continued to outperform expectations, with meaningful progress on inflation without the potential recession many had feared. Employment metrics have remained robust, with private payrolls exceeding forecasts, jumping by 233,000 workers in October, per the ADP Research Institute.
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Wildfire Raises $16Mn Series B
Loyalty and rewards platform Wildfire announced it has raised a $16Mn Series B. The round was co-led by Mucker Capital and Intuit Ventures, with participation from Samsung Next, Evolution VC, QED, Citi Ventures, and others. Wildfire’s capabilities include loyalty programs, shopping companions, and content monetization. The company intends to use the new funding to continue developing its innovative platform, including features to help its clients build new revenue streams, stay top of mind, and increase share of spend. Wildfire’s founder and CEO Jordan Glazier said of the news, “Our mission is to provide consumers with personalized, meaningful benefits throughout their entire online shopping journey, while empowering our partners to deliver distinctive, value-added services to their users.”
Interface.ai Announces $30Mn Fundraise
Interface.ai, which provides “agentic” AI solutions designed for community banks and credit unions, announced it has raised $30Mn in capital, after being bootstrapped since its founding in 2019. “Agentic” AI refers to emerging artificial intelligence capabilities that are empowered to undertake tasks in the real world without human intervention or oversight. Interface.ai is designed to leverage core banking functions to intelligently handle customer inquiries. The company hasn’t revealed much about its books, beyond saying it serves around 100 customers and has reached “several tens of millions of dollars” in revenue.
First Carolina Acquires BMTX
First Carolina Bank has entered into an agreement to acquire digital banking platform BM Technologies, Inc., commonly known as BMTX. First Carolina will pay a 55% premium to BMTX’s trade price, or about $5 per share, in an all-cash deal that values BMTX at about $67Mn. Following the close of the transaction, BMTX will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of First Carolina, though it will continue operating under the same name and will be led by current BMTX President and CTO Jamie Donahue.
Investor Upsizes Klarna’s Valuation
An investor in Klarna has marked up the value of the stake it holds in the company, a vote of confidence in advance of the BNPL provider’s highly anticipated public offering. The firm, Chrysalis Investments, increased the value it assigned to its share from £100.3Mn in the second quarter to £120.6Mn, the firm’s most recent filings indicate. The move implies Klarna’s total valuation is around $14.6Bn, according to analysts at Deutsche Bank. Chrysalis justified the higher numbers by pointing to public market comps Affirm and Paypal, which have seen their share prices grow by 145% and 59%, respectively, in the past year. Klarna has previously been reported to be targeting a valuation of as much as $20Bn in an IPO, which could come as soon as the first half of next year.
Nymbus and PeoplesBank Partner on FinHealth Products
Cloud-based core banking provider Nymbus has announced a new partnership with PeoplesBank that will enable the bank to offer two new financial health-focused products. The products, dubbed “Employer-Led Bank” and “Union Workers Financial Services,” will enable organizations to offer their own digital banking products and services, including deposit accounts and debit cards, high-yield savings, emergency loans, and credit-building features. According to Nymbus and PeoplesBank, “several major organizations and unions” are planning to launch tools powered by the platform in the coming months.
Upstart Targets Prime Borrowers
Marketplace lender Upstart is moving up market with its “T-Prime” offering, which will enable its bank and credit union partners to leverage Upstart’s marketing channels and lending infrastructure to target super prime borrowers. Historically, Upstart has positioned itself as using novel approaches to underwriting, including AI, to identify “hidden” or “future” prime borrowers. But some of Upstart’s lending partners, like Chicago-based Alliant Credit Union, have been looking to serve higher credit quality customers as part of a strategy to serve existing and acquire new customers, Alliant CEO Dennis Devine said in a recent interview.
Consumer Engagement Platform Array Acquires Payitoff
Consumer financial engagement platform Array announced it has acquired debt management startup Payitoff. Payitoff was originally founded to help families better manage student loan debt and grew over time to a comprehensive set of debt management tools. Payitoff found traction with industry players that include Earnest, LendKey, and U.S. Bank. Payitoff’s capabilities will augment Array’s embedded consumer products platform, which includes credit management, identity protection, subscription management, and rent reporting.
Core Bank Startup nCino Acquires Full Circle
Banking tech provider nCino has entered into an agreement to acquire regtech startup FullCircl. The all-cash deal values FullCircl at $135Mn. FullCircl’s compliance platform offers capabilities to help financial institutions identify, acquire, verify, onboard, and retain customers. U.K.-based FullCircl boasts more than 500 clients, including NatWest, American Express, and Solaris. nCino’s acquisition of FullCircl comes about a year after the two firms struck a partnership making FullCircl’s capabilities available within nCino’s platform.
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