By: Alex Wilhelm, Natasha Mascarenhas
Nov. 3, 2019
Neo banks (a fancy term to describe upstart digital banks working on everything from savings and checking accounts to mobile debit cards) focus on bringing banking services to users both underbanked and not.
But, notably, it’s not just startups that started off life looking to build a neo bank who are building out banking-like services. In fact, so many startups are racing to offer banking tools that an early outline of this piece had to be amended to break the examples into several sections for the sake of bucketing and clarity.
In the coming weeks, we’ll explore more deeply why the startup banking gold-rush is under way. Today we’ll lay out the players and talk over the broad strokes of what’s going on.
Recent News
News broke earlier this month that Chime, a well-known startup that we’ve covered before, is in the process of raising new capital at what Axios pegged as a “valuation north of $5 billion.” The news wasn’t too surprising. Chime has been on a tear lately, raising a $200 million round this March, and $70 million the preceding May.
Read more >> https://news.crunchbase.com/news/why-is-every-startup-a-bank-these-days/
