To meet this need, leading global payment network Visa has forged hundreds of strategic business partnerships, invested in dozens of companies, and made a few acquisitions over the last 2 years. 

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The post Analyzing Visa’s growth strategy: How the company is facilitating seamless customer experiences and expanding access to financial products appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Crypto payments for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) provide the infrastructure that enables merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments and make payouts in crypto, either online or in person.

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In an effort to boost growth, Santander has acquired, partnered with, and invested in fintech companies that enable better customer experiences, make it easier to access credit, and help businesses manage their finances. It has also launched new tech-forward payments and banking products (such as PagoNxt) and stepped into digital asset trading.

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Cross-border payments for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) include companies that enable SMBs to accept payments and send funds to other businesses internationally. Many providers offer financial infrastructure and application programming interfaces (APIs) that help companies operate despite borders.

Some companies build products like multi-currency debit cards and other online payment capabilities.

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According to SVB, its clients account for 71% of all fintech IPOs since 2020. It’s clearly plugged into the fintech ecosystem.

The fallout from recent events may leave a hole in fintech that won’t easily be filled. While moving to a new bank for your deposits might be simple, searching for and setting up a payment rails and processing partner is a more difficult process.

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The post Silicon Valley Bank was at the center of the fintech ecosystem. We break down every fintech sector it touched and 45 companies affected by its uncertain future. appeared first on CB Insights Research.

The company’s portfolio includes some of the most iconic and successful companies in the world, like SolarWinds, Blue Coat, Stamps.com, and SailPoint.

Thoma Bravo has participated in 27 transactions since 2022. The firm also invested in 5 mega-round ($100M+) deals and took multiple companies private at billion-dollar valuations during that time frame.

Using CB Insights data, we mapped how Thoma Bravo spread its investments and acquisitions since 2022 across categories like cybersecurity, financial services, enterprise software, and more.

CB Insights clients can dig deeper into all 27 deals listed above using this CB Insights platform search.

The post Analyzing Thoma Bravo’s investment strategy: Where the PE firm is betting big across key industries appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Despite a slowdown in the rate of growth, e-commerce’s share of total retail sales remains higher than it was pre-pandemic — and associated revenues in the US are projected to keep rising. Funding to e-commerce enablement companies topped $11B last year as an increasing number of vendors entered the market.

Reflecting this growth, e-commerce tech stacks are becoming much more complex.

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The post 217 companies building the new e-commerce tech stack appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Secure payment platforms secure the acceptance of e-commerce and point-of-sale payments through authentication, encryption, and tokenization.

This market includes payment gateways, processors, all-in-one payment acceptance platforms, and token service providers.

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The company, which provides commerce solutions for millions of businesses, was founded in 2009 and went public in 2015.

In December 2021, Square changed its corporate name to Block to reflect its growing number of business lines — or “building blocks” as it calls them (including Square, Cash App, and Tidal). 

We dig into what Square customers are saying about its strategy but first, some context.

While the $40B company is expanding into new spaces (see our Block strategy map below), one of its primary goals remains clear: making Square the go-to platform for payments and business software. 

The restaurant industry has been a key focus area for Square’s expansion. 

In May 2022, Square acquired GoParrot (its 26th acquisition), a restaurant ordering and marketing platform that offers a white-label app and loyalty tracking. 

It’s also teamed up with a number of companies to better serve its restaurant partners — from SoundHound (conversational AI ordering automation) to Craftable (profit management and analytics) — as highlighted on its CB Insights profile below. 

What are actual customers saying about Square and its competition? Read on for insights from Yardstiq’s software buyer interviews.

Square’s acquisition of GoParrot keeps customer on board for another year

Square

We’d really outgrown Square’s system. It was very restrictive. It did not give us a lot of functionality from an enterprise standpoint…We were about to install a test for NorthStar in one of our locations and we just happened to get an email from Square saying, hey, we just bought this new company called GoParrot. We’re doing this “Square for Restaurants” now, and it was something that fulfilled a lot of the needs that we had that started the whole evaluation process. It’s a better enterprise solution for us and that’s what we ended up committing to testing for the next year. — Senior Director of Marketing, Restaurant chain

Read the full transcript here.

Integrations are a plus, though customer would prefer something built in

Square

Another integration that we had with Square was with Craftable, which was our inventory system and it works well. It is a big lift in terms of labor of keeping that up to date and managing that so that we can take a look at costs on a week-by-week basis…I don’t think Toast was set up really to handle complicated recipes. Lightspeed actually has their own kind of built-in programming for that…I think a [built-in program] was something that we were really interested in [when we reevaluated], in figuring out if that was something that we could either get through another POS system or another integration. — General Manager, Brewing company

Read the full transcript here.

While Square’s product breadth impressed this buyer, Toast won on simplicity

Toast

Overall, Square was Toast’s biggest competitor. Because at the same time we were also introducing our e-commerce business and Square had a very good product which would feed not only this food and beverage or restaurant business but also our retail business where we were introducing the e-commerce part. So we were thinking whether or not to go for Square because they would be able to cover two additional areas. But then at the end of the day, we knew the implementation time was going to be crucial for us. That’s why we thought that we should go for a simpler version which was Toast. — Operations Director, Supermarket chain

Read the full transcript here.

Shift4 Payments pricing beats out Square’s for this customer

Shift4 payments

Ultimately, we found that Square was not as flexible as Shift4. Their rates were not as competitive — they were significantly higher, at least in the offer that we were shown. PayPal and Venmo, again, likewise higher rates, not as much flexibility in the hospitality space. Toast was a good potential solution if you were a smaller restaurant or hospitality operator. We had concerns about their ability to handle the transaction volume and the development of their point-of-sale system over an environment like a sports and entertainment venue like we are. — Director of Food & Beverage, Large venue

Read the full transcript here.

What’s next? Buyer thinks Square will make a 360 view into live sales possible

Square

I think, personally, that within the next year, year and a half, that Square is going to be able to figure out what Avero Slingshot does and they’re going to bring the whole entire thing in-house, just because of the fact that in the economy we’re going into 2023, labor the way it is — everybody is going to want to see live inventory. Everybody is going to want to see live labor and everybody wants to see it now. I don’t want to have to scroll through three platforms to find the information that I want. Time is money and I don’t have the time to waste. — Director of Food & Beverage, Restaurant chain

Read the full transcript here.

Clients can learn more about Square’s moves into banking and mobile payments here.

The post Where Square is expanding — and what customers are saying about the fintech’s strategy appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Fraud prevention platforms protect organizations and their customers from a variety of online threats, such as illegitimate transactions, chargebacks, account hijacking, fake accounts, scams, and counterfeit products.

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The post Market Trend Report: Fraud prevention for payments leaders appeared first on CB Insights Research.

However, some top investors like Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) remained active in the space across various deal stages, valuations, geographies, and sub-industries. 

Fintech is central to a16z’s investment strategy. In recent years, the firm has not only shored up its presence in more familiar sectors like banking, but also reached deeper into newer territory like blockchain. 

Of the 206 deals a16z participated in last year, almost a quarter went to fintech companies — more than any other industry. Sixty percent of these fintech investments closed in H1’22, and the remaining 40% closed in H2’22.

Using CB Insights data, we mapped how a16z spread these fintech investments across categories like payments, blockchain, digital lending, and more. 

Below, we dig into a16z’s top 3 fintech targets in 2022, including key deals in each category.

Payments 

More than a quarter (28%) of a16z’s fintech investments in 2022 went to the payments category. Notable investments include:

• SpotOn ($300M Series F): SpotOn offers a cloud-based platform that provides payment solutions for restaurants and small retailers. 
• Jeeves ($180M Series C): Jeeves offers corporate cards and other expense management tools for businesses, with a focus on credit and payments rails across countries and currencies.
• Tally Technologies ($80M Series C): Tally’s app helps consumers pay off credit card debt more quickly by automating payments.

Blockchain

a16z has actively invested in companies developing blockchain platforms for years. In 2022, 22% of its fintech deal volume went to blockchain companies — although most of these deals closed between January and June, before the year-end turmoil that rocked the cryptocurrency markets. Notable investments include: 

• Matter Labs ($200M Series C): Matter Labs is an Ethereum development company building a rollup layer 2 network designed to lower fees and speed up transactions. 
• Lightspark ($175M Series A): Lightspark, launched in May 2022, is building a Bitcoin payments tool.
• NEAR Protocol ($150M Series B): NEAR Protocol is developing a platform for blockchain-based decentralized applications, with a heavy focus on Web3.
  

Digital lending

a16z’s third-most popular fintech category in 2022 was digital lending, accounting for 12% of the firm’s fintech deal flow. Notable investments include: 

• Point Digital Finance ($115M Series C): Point provides a lending marketplace that allows homeowners to borrow against a percentage of the future value of their property.
• Valon ($60M Series B): Valon offers residential mortgage loan servicing technology through a cloud-native platform. 
• Vesta ($30M Series A): Vesta provides a platform for mortgage origination and underwriting that is designed to streamline processes, reduce risk, and help lenders improve their book of business. 

The post Analyzing a16z’s fintech investment strategy: Where did the VC place its biggest bets in 2022? appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Identity verification, know-your-customer (KYC), and anti-money laundering (AML) solutions verify customers’ identities to protect organizations from malicious attacks and help them comply with regulations.

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Download our scorecard to quickly compare the below vendors. To read the interview transcripts for each solution, reserve your Yardstiq subscription here.

• Adyen
• dLocal
• Ebanx
• MFS Africa
• Nium
• Rapyd

Other cross-border payments vendors mentioned by buyers include:

• Airwallex
• Currencycloud
• HomeSend
• Railsr
• Stripe
• Thunes
• Wise

The post Top cross-border payments companies — and why customers chose them appeared first on CB Insights Research.

In December 2021, Square changed its corporate name to Block, separating the corporate entity from its subsidiary businesses that it calls its “building blocks.” Those include Square, Cash App, Spiral, Tidal, and TBD.

Over the last 2 years, Block’s expansion activity through acquisitions, investments, and partnerships point to 2 clear goals for the evolution of the company and its subsidiaries: 

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The post Analyzing Block’s growth strategy: How the fintech giant formerly known as Square is evolving beyond payments appeared first on CB Insights Research.

As Affirm looks to enhance its core BNPL offering — and drive profitability and new growth — the company has forged hundreds of partnerships, invested in a handful of companies, and made 2 acquisitions over the last 3 years.

For example, the BNPL leader has deepened its partnerships with e-commerce platforms like Shopify and Amazon, reducing its reliance on Peloton — historically one of Affirm’s most important partners. Meanwhile, the company has grown its presence in new retail verticals and industries like travel. And its made strategic relationships, including the December 2020 acquisition of Canada-based BNPL provider PayBright, to expand beyond the US into Canada.

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The post Analyzing Affirm’s growth strategy: How the BNPL company is expanding beyond e-commerce appeared first on CB Insights Research.

We mined Yardstiq’s interviews with software buyers as well as vendors’ submitted Analyst Briefings and used these proprietary insights to map the cross-border payments landscape and help you quickly build your RFP vendor shortlist.

The Cross-Border Payments RFP Vendor Shortlist features RFP insights on 8 vendors including:

• Adyen
• Stripe
• Rapyd
• Nium
• Thunes
• And 3 others

The post Cross-Border Payments RFP Vendor Shortlist: Which vendors should you invite to your RFPs and vendor evaluations? appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Customer authentication is the process of confirming a user’s identity to allow access to an account or application or to accept payments (i.e., payment authentication).

Companies in this category provide customer and payment authentication to merchants, card issuers, and payment networks.

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The tech giant has other ideas.

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The post Analyzing Google’s blockchain strategy: How the search giant is prepping for Web3 appeared first on CB Insights Research.

To be successful, they need digital payment solutions that enable them to build, scale, and expand across the world. 

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The post Prioritizing 8 technologies helping small businesses build payment solutions appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Data privacy and security providers protect company, payment, card, and consumer data while reducing regulatory and privacy risks.

Data privacy and security solutions include data anonymization and pseudonymization, data discovery and mapping, consent management, and data request management. Data security protects data in use, in transit, and at rest with encryption, tokenization, anonymization, backup, governance, and monitoring.

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Crypto compliance and transaction monitoring providers monitor blockchains and cryptocurrency transactions to ensure compliance, combat fraud, and reduce financial crime.

These companies serve crypto businesses, financial institutions, payment providers, digital wallet providers, and government agencies.

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Companies in this space offer software-as-a-service (SaaS) for anti-fraud and chargeback prevention technologies. This technology uses behavioral analysis and machine learning to verify a customer’s identity to prevent account hacking and fraudulent transactions.

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A physical point-of-sale (POS) system is the hardware and software that help businesses accept payments from customers in person.

Companies in this space focus on brick-and-mortar POS services and solutions. These include card and chip readers, which are often bundled with tablet-based business management solutions.

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Payment application programming interfaces (APIs) and infrastructure companies enable businesses to seamlessly manage payments for e-commerce. APIs provide direct connections to payments infrastructure to power faster, more secure, and lower-cost transactions.

These technologies can handle a wide array of payment tasks — from one-time and installment payments to subscription payments — to create a smooth checkout experience for e-commerce retailers and shoppers.

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The continent’s antiquated banking system (serving mainly the affluent) and largely underbanked population have created the perfect breeding ground for fintech growth, speeding up both development and adoption of new technologies.

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