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US insurance giant Travelers acquires majority stake in Zensurance (BETAKIT)
Documents obtained by BetaKit show that Travelers now owns approximately 60 percent of the Toronto-based FinTech startup.
Credit Karma acquires mortgage platform Approved (TECHCRUNCH)
“The acquisition is just the continuing effort of saying, ‘look, we’re serious about taking our scale and being that trusted destination for our members as it relates to helping them with their mortgage.'”
Impak Finance raises $1.1 million from angel investors(BETAKIT)
Participants in the angel round include Anges Québec, Anges Québec Capital, and private investors from Canada and France.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan invest in Axoni’s $32 million funding round(COINDESK)
Axoni said it plans to use the funds to continue developing both its data synchronization technology and its ethereum-compatible smart contracting language, AxLang, as well as increase the number of products relating to its auditable distributed ledger-based network, dubbed AxCore.
Messaging firm Line launches a dedicated crypto fund(TECHCRUNCH)
The fund will be called Unblock Ventures and it will initially have a capital pool of $10 million.
Square’s stock jumps to all-time high after Cash app downloads surpass PayPal’s Venmo(CNBC)
The Cash app’s cumulative downloads now total 33.5 million, exceeding Venmo’s 32.9 million for the first time ever, after Square’s service grew three times faster than its competitor from PayPal in July.
Square can now process chip cards in two seconds(TECHCRUNCH)
Square said its contactless and chip Readers and Registers can now process chip cards in two seconds. To achieve this, the company is streamlining the process so that you can remove your card as soon as it’s read, without waiting for the response from the card issuer.
Overstock blockchain spin-off raises $134 million – with millions more committed(COINDESK)
TZero, an alternative trading system for securities issued on a blockchain, has raised $134 million in its security token offering.
Coinbase acquires decentralised ID startup(FINEXTRA)
Coinbase has acquired Distributed Systems in a bid to create a decentralised digital identity platform for crypto-wallet enthusiasts and Web merchants.
Wealthsimple launching zero-commission stock trading service in Canada
(BETAKIT)
Wealthsimple Trade will give users access to unlimited zero-commission trades of over 8,000 publicly-traded stocks and ETFs listed in Canadian and US exchanges.
China’s payments giant is ready to boost financial inclusion in Africa
(QZ)
Ant Financial, the payments and financial services arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, is expanding to Africa to promote digital financial inclusion in the continent through investments and technical assistance.
Progressa closes $84 million funding round as company preps for IPO (BETAKIT)
Progressa said the latest funding round is expected to be its last private round as the company is prepping for an IPO before the end of 2019.
