<p>Rillet directly pulls data from their customers&#8217; banks and platforms to generate financial statements, including the balance sheet and income statement.</p>

<p>Other than AI Siemiatkowski admission, it wasn&#8217;t obvious that this was AI. There were only a few subtle signs.</p>

<p>In the U.S., a number of startups aim to be the corporate spend manager of choice for small and large businesses. Brex, Ramp, and Mercury are among those companies, just to name a few. Moving north of the border to Canada, the options are fewer, but growing. Keep is a startup that has built a [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Brex has once again made the surprising, but perhaps realistic, decision to partner with another one-time competitor. This time Zip, the CEOs of both companies told TechCrunch exclusively.&nbsp; In April 2022, fintech Brex announced it was making “a big push” into both the enterprise and software. The news was notable considering that Brex originally was [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Affiniti founders Aaron Bai and Sahil Phadnis are building the kind of expense management software for main street small businesses that tech startups have enjoyed for years.</p>

<p>Monzo, Britain&#8217;s biggest digital bank, is still synonymous with its neon debit cards, extensive use of emojis, and free spending abroad. But it’s no longer just trying to be cool; it’s trying to become a major financial institution. That shift, from an upstart fintech beloved by millennials to a mature, sustainable business, is what makes [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Last year, Klarna announced a significant initiative to leverage its internally developed AI systems, powered by OpenAI, across its operations. This wasn&#8217;t empty talk for the buy now, pay later giant. The company not only ended its pricey contract with Salesforce CRM, but also curtailed its hiring efforts, allowing AI to do some of the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Savings and investing startup Acorns has acquired EarlyBird, an investment gifting platform for families, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. As part of the acquisition, EarlyBird will shut down, and all customer accounts will officially close on June 23. Customers&#8217; funds will be returned to the bank [&hellip;]</p>

<p>At long last, digital consumer bank Chime has moved forward with its IPO by filing its S-1 paperwork Tuesday. Chime had reportedly filed confidential S-1 paperwork back in December. S-1 filings typically reveal all kinds of information, covering financial, legal, and other risk factors. But Chime’s S-1 documents still have a lot of blank spaces. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Melbourne O&#8217;Banion co-founded insurtech Bestow with Jonathan Abelmann in 2017 after struggling to secure his own life insurance policy. His goal was to make it easier for people to obtain life insurance and make the process more tech-enabled. Initially, Bestow operated as a direct-to-consumer insurance provider &#8212; selling, underwriting, and servicing life insurance policies. In [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Rep. Gerald Connolly, ranking member of the U.S. House Oversight Committee, has initiated an investigation into whether expense management startup Ramp is receiving preferential treatment in its bid for a $25 million government contract. Connolly sent a letter to General Services Administration (GSA) Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian demanding information and documents related to the GSA’s [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Fintech giant Stripe announced Wednesday a slew of new product launches at its annual Stripe Sessions user event. The highlights include a new AI foundation model for payments; stablecoin-powered accounts; a new Orchestration offering, and a recent migration with chip behemoth Nvidia. Stripe’s payments foundation model has been trained on tens of billions of transactions, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Finom, an Amsterdam-based digital bank for small- and medium-sized businesses, has raised €92.7 million (roughly $105 million) in a growth investment from General Catalyst&#8217;s Customer Value Fund, the company tells TechCrunch exclusively. The capital infusion &#8220;will be used exclusively and only for growth&#8221; and not for operational expenses or product development, Kos Stiskin, Finom’s chairman [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Agree.com says its AI-powered e-signature platform is different from competitors because it includes invoicing and payment processing. That’s why the company might have a shot at tackling the industry Goliath, Docusign.  Because the startup makes its money from transaction fees for any money movement facilitated by its platform, Agree.com has made e-signatures free to all [&hellip;]</p>

<p>While most African digital lenders depend on working capital to fuel growth, MoneyFellows has quietly done what few others have: lend billions of Egyptian pounds with almost no debt or balance sheet exposure. Now, after raising $13 million in a pre-Series C round led by Casablanca-based Al Mada Ventures and DPI’s Nclude Fund, the Cairo-based [&hellip;]</p>

<p>World, the biometric ID company best known for its eyeball-scanning Orb devices, on Wednesday announced several partnerships aimed at driving sign-ups and demonstrating the applications of its tech. World is partnering with Match Group, the dating app conglomerate, to verify the identities of Tinder users in Japan using World&#8217;s identity verification system. Additionally, World has [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Artificial intelligence is not just infiltrating the startup world. Now credit card giants Visa and Mastercard are getting into the AI game. Visa announced on Wednesday “Intelligent Commerce,” which it says enables AI “to find and buy.” AI agents will be able to shop and make purchases on behalf of consumers, based on preselected preferences. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Nuvo, a company that has built a social-like platform to facilitate easier purchasing of physical goods between businesses, has raised a $34 million Series A from Sequoia Capital and Spark Capital, it tells TechCrunch exclusively. The San Francisco-based startup previously raised $11 million in an undisclosed seed round led by Founders Fund and Index Ventures [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Kintsugi, a Silicon Valley-based startup that helps companies offload and automate their sales tax compliance, has raised $18 million in new funding led by global indirect tax technology solution provider Vertex. The startup plans to enable more small and medium businesses to use its AI-enabled capabilities for tax calculations and filings. The ongoing growth of [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Most mortgage lenders would rather people didn’t pay off their mortgages early. After all, that’s how they make their money. Indeed, overpayment is positively discouraged and sometimes even penalized. What if there was a solution that solved the technology behind it, alongside the financing arrangements? That’s the idea behind the Sprive fintech app. This is [&hellip;]</p>