Weekly Roundup

FinTech Infrastructure Fund: Infinity Ventures is launching its inaugural $158 million fund to help fuel fintech infrastructure, commerce enablement and other startups.

SEC Budget: SEC Chair Gensler testified before the U.S. House Appropriations Committee for an increased SEC budget, citing crypto oversight and enforcement.

APAC FinTech Fundraising: According to a report by S&P Global Market Intelligence, fintech companies based in the Asia-Pacific region raised $3.3 billion in over 186 deals in Q1 2022 — the most in any March quarter in the past three years.

New Robinhood App: Robinhood is launching an app that will let users store non-fungible tokens, and connect to NFT marketplaces and “decentralized” stock exchanges. It will also let users earn yield through other platforms and access a “variety” of crypto assets on other exchanges.

S&P DeFi Strategy Group: S&P Global Ratings announced the formation of a new DeFi strategy group to advance their approach to decentralized markets.

Source Code: Google Cloud announced a new open source software security tool that enables enterprise and public sector users to incorporate the same security packages that Google uses into its own developer workflows.

In the Mix: This Week’s Top FinTech Thought Leader

  • Deniece Laurent-Mantey, Director for Africa, White House Security Council, delivered a keynote address at the Africa FinTech Summit in Washington D.C., stating “we are in the midst of an unprecedented revolution in the digital technology – one which is impacting every sector of the economy and social life, bringing people and nations closer together, and making the world a true global village.”
  • Rob Frohwein and Kathryn Petralia, Founders, Kabbage, launched Keep Financial Technologies, a platform for companies to offer employees upfront cash payments that vest over time.
  • Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, spoke about creating a new oversight body for emerging financial technologies that do not fall under the jurisdiction of existing regulators during a webinar for the American Enterprise Institute.