Autonomous vehicle technology startup Motional has secured a bridge loan that provides a temporary financial reprieve as the company searches for a longer-term source of funding, TechCrunch has learned.
Motional CEO Karl Iagnemma told staff in a companywide email viewed by TechCrunch that the company’s board of directors approved the bridge financing.
After a wave of consolidation and shutdowns in the nascent autonomous vehicle industry, Motional is one of the few companies left that’s still pursuing a commercial robotaxi service.
The company operates an autonomous vehicle taxi service in Las Vegas (still with human safety operators behind the wheel) on Uber, Lyft and Via platforms.
The autonomous vehicle company last had layoffs in December 2022, when it cut about 10% of its workforce.
Bfree, a tech-enabled debt collection startup based in Nigeria, was founded to automate and introduce ethical debt recovery processes after its founders witnessed the use and adverse effects of aggressive retrieval techniques, such as incessant calling and debt-shaming, by predatory digital lenders.
It also launched a loan collection management SaaS dubbed Workflow, which targets companies with in-house collection teams or those that are not keen to outsource.
Bfree to create secondary market for loansIts current loan portfolio stands at over $400 million, out of which it has managed to collect 12.5%.
He added that they also have an analytics solution for banks to help them gain insights into secondary debt markets.
“We foresee the growing prominence of credit management and are confident that Bfree will spearhead the creation of a secondary market on the continent for distressed assets.
Polestar secured a $950 million loan from a dozen banks, critical funds needed to keep its EV plans moving forward following Volvo’s decision to pull back its financial support of the electric automaker.
Polestar, which has cut 10% of jobs since mid-2023, said it plans to make another 15% cut this year.
Polestar currently produces the Polestar 2, Polestar 3, which recently started production in China, and the Polestar 4.
The company said it has successfully completed test production runs for the Polestar 3 at its factory in South Carolina.
The $950 million loan follows Volvo Cars’ decision last month to reduce its 48% holding in Polestar and let parent company Geely take over financial responsibility.
About 16.6 million LoanDepot customers had their “sensitive personal” information” stolen in a cyberattack earlier this month, which the loan and mortgage giant has described as ransomware.
The loan company said in a filing with federal regulators on Monday that it would notify the affected customers of the data breach.
LoanDepot did not say what kind of sensitive and personal customer data was stolen.
When reached by email, LoanDepot spokesperson Jonathan Fine declined to tell TechCrunch what specific types of customer data was taken.
LoanDepot said it has “not yet determined” whether the cybersecurity incident will materially impact the company’s financial condition.
European insurtech company Getsafe has acquired deineStudienfinanzierung, an aptly named German digital platform for student loans that was showcased on the local version of “Shark Tank” in 2019.
“Student loans are the second most popular form of external student financing in Germany after [grants].
Unlike in the U.S., universities in Germany are largely tuition-free, which means that student loans are generally used to cover living expenses.
The financing volume has returned to previous levels since.”Just like Getsafe didn’t invent insurance, deineStudienfinanzierung didn’t invent student loans.
By the time customers apply for a student loan, the barriers to switch are quite high.
When reached by email, LoanDepot spokesperson Jonathan Fine reiterated the company’s statement, but declined to comment further or say whether the company has received a ransom demand from the hackers.
LoanDepot says it assists more than 27,000 customers monthly.
A November ransomware attack on Fidelity National Financial, one of the largest insurance providers in the United States, knocked the company offline for more than a week.
In December, mortgage and loan company Mr. Cooper said hackers had stolen the personal data on more than 14 million customers during an earlier October cyberattack.
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