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Saving money for a rainy day (or year) ☔

Saving money for a rainy day (or year) ☔
March 2, 2021

The Daily Stack is a daily private market insights newsletter by PrivCo, a private company intelligence platform. Read our previous insights.
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In honor of Women’s History Month, we launched an exclusive report entitled Funding Diversity. By sharing actual figures of funding to female-led companies, we hope to help shine a light on improvements that need to be made to boost funding to female-led companies.

While the latest relief bill is still in discussion, we are seeing that many of the stimulus checks aimed at promoting spending during the pandemic are not in fact used for spending but rather saved for future rainy days, especially by households with higher disposable incomes. This trend is in part driven by startups that are offering smarter ways to save money. According to AP, the overall personal savings rate jumped to 20.5% in January, up from 13.4% in December.


🏦  Neobank Startups
Startups like Chime Bank, Aspiration, and Revolut are neobanks that operate exclusively online, without physical branches. They have thrived during the pandemic as traditional banks with physical branches were closed due to social distancing and lockdowns, and users got used to the lack of physical branches. Because all transactions are made online, these niche banking platforms can offer convenience, lower commissions, higher savings rates, and lower barriers to account opening. 

💵  No-frill investing 
Aside from stock trading apps like Robinhood, hugely popular via “meme stocks,” companies like Motley Fool, Stash, and others are lowering the barriers to investing with education content on investing as well as low-cost plans to support stock trading and retirement IRAs. 

🤖  AI for loans & debt
The pandemic has left many households in high debt, causing them to fall behind on credit card payments, student loan debt, and more. Companies like Symend are attracting attention from VCs for their use of AI to help customers resolve past-due bills. Similarly, Utah-based Lendio operates a marketplace that leverages AI to help small businesses find the right small business loans.

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Since last week, PrivCo has added:
6,804 Companies | 265 Funding Activities | 131 M&A Deals

Funding & Deal Highlights:

Newsela raises $100MM
Edtech Software & Internet Services • Round D • Forest Hills, NY

Platform9 Systems raises $12.5MM led by WRVI Capital
Cloud Software & Internet Services • Equity • Sunnyvale, CA

Electric AI raises $40MM led by Greenspring Associates
Communications Technology Services • Round C • New York, NY

Shippo raises $45MM led by D1 Capital Partners
Logistics Software & Internet Services • Round C • San Francisco, CA

Splice raises $55MM from Goldman Sachs Group
Digital Media Software & Internet Services • Round A • New York, NY

Shield AI raises $20MM
AI Industrial Products • Debt • San Diego, CA

Blocpower raises two rounds of funding totaling $63MM
Investment Management & Financial Advisory • Debt & Round A • New York, NY

Praxis Labs raises $3.2MM
Education Services • Seed • Stanford, CA

Koffie Labs raises $4.5MM co-lead by Anthemis Group and Lerer Hippeau Ventures
Insurtech Software & Internet Services • Seed • Brooklyn, NY

Creatio raises $68MM led by Volition Capital
CRM Software & Internet Services • Equity • Boston, MA

ABclonal raises $93MM
Biotechnology • Round C • Woburn, MA

Contra.Work raises $14.5MM led by Unusual Ventures
Networking Software & Internet Services • Round A • San Francisco, CA

Sound Commerce Technologies raises $15MM led by Emergence Capital Partners
Logistics Software & Internet Services • Round A • Seattle, WA

Codecademy raises $40MM led by Owl Ventures
E-learning Software & Internet Services • Round D • San Francisco, CA

Atlassian Corporation acquires Chart.Io
Consulting • Acquisition • San Francisco, CA

Rocket Lab merges with Vector Acquisition Corp
Aerospace & Defense • SPAC • Huntington Beach, CA

NavSight Holdings merges with Spire Global 
Aerospace & Defense • SPAC • San Francisco, CA

Roviant acquires Silicon Therapeutics for $450MM
Biotechnology • Acquisition • Boston, MA

Digital Turbine acquires AdColony
Advertising Software & Internet Services • Acquisition • Los Angeles, CA

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