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Enterprise, Fintech, Startups

“Unveiling Robinhood’s Latest Offering: The Gold Card, Disrupting BaaS and the Underdog Startup that Impressed Stripe”

This week, we’re looking at Robinhood’s new Gold Card, challenges in the BaaS space and how a tiny startup caught Stripe’s eye. BaaS startup Synctera recently conducted a restructuring that affects about 15% of employees. The startup is not the only VC-backed BaaS company to have resorted to layoffs to preserve cash over the past year. MassMutual Ventures also participated in Qoala’s new $47 million round of funding. It has more primary customers than ChaseInside a CEO’s bold claims about her hot fintech startup, which TC previously covered here.

Kira Kim
March 31, 2024
1 Comment

Startups

Supaglue: The 4-Person Startup That Captured Stripe’s Attention

In Stripe’s annual letter, the company discussed several fast-growing areas, one of them being the “Revenue and Finance Automation” unit. Stripe’s RFA unit will reach a $500 million annual run rate this year, the company said. So they built a product that helps companies import and centralize customer data from third-party data sources like Salesforce or other customer relationship management systems into their own applications. How did a tiny four-person startup catch the attention, and an acquisition offer, from mighty Stripe? Considering the growth Stripe alluded to in its annual letter, Supaglue will likely quickly find fast friends within Stripe’s ecosystem.

Dylan Williams
March 29, 2024
2 Comments

Apps, Enterprise

“Goodbye, Castro? Third-Party Podcast App Seemingly Meets its End While Company Remains Silent”

The once popular third-party podcast app Castro has seemingly shut down, after earlier saying that it was “actively seeking a new home” for its product. Concerns over Castro’s future, and the fate of the indie podcast app industry as a whole, have broadened in recent years as Spotify entered the market to compete with Apple Podcasts. That move influenced the exits of other smaller podcast apps, which included the sale of Pocket Casts to a collective of radio broadcasters, including NPR and BBC Studios. Satellite radio provider and Pandora owner SiriusXM also bought the podcast app Stitcher in 2020 for $325 million. Another request for comment from Casto owner Tiny was not returned as of the time of writing, but we’ll update if more information is provided.

Max Chen
January 8, 2024

Apps, Media & Entertainment

Tiny Hydraulic Haptics Enable Touchscreen Notifications You Can Feel

Researchers develop tiny hydraulic haptics for touchscreen notifications you can physically feel

Smartphones are already capable of exploiting a variety of distraction options to sidestep notification eradication techniques, but if recent research into flat panel haptics is commercialized, smartphone makers will likely…