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BFD Expert Voices - Private Credit

BFD Expert Voices

Bilt Rewards, which offers credit cards for renters, has doubled its valuation to $3.1 billion and added former American Express CEO Ken Chenault to its board of directors, Ryan and Lucinda write.

Why it matters: This is a mega up round for a consumer-facing fintech — one of the most beaten-down sectors of venture capital in recent years.

Driving the news: Bilt raised $200 million in the round led by General Catalyst. Other investors included Eldridge, Left Lane Capital, Camber Creek and Prosus Ventures.

Along with the funding, General Catalyst chairman and managing director Ken Chenault is joining Bilt's board of directors.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is also joining the board as an independent director.

Of note: Chenault once served as chairman and CEO of American Express and currently sits on the boards of Airbnb, Berkshire Hathaway and Chief.

He has also served on the boards of IBM, P&G and Facebook.

Between the lines: Though known as a card company, most of Bilt's revenue does not come from interchange, CEO Ankur Jain says. A popular source of income from consumer fintechs in the past, interchange-based models have fallen out of favor in recent years.

Instead, Bilt earns revenue from processing payments for apartment buildings, acting as a loyalty program for merchants, and some interchange (that largely gets kicked back as rewards) from its co-branded card.

Buildings partnered with Bilt, meanwhile, earn a certain percentage of the consumer's spending, even beyond rental payments.

Notably, the company allows buildings to take payments via check, cash and debit, as well as credit through its platform.

Context: The New York-based startup, which offers rewards points to users paying their rent through its platform, says it reached EBITDA profitability in 2023.

It also says its members spend nearly $20 billion annually on its platform.

Bilt offers a co-branded credit card consumers can use to earn points on other purchases. Bilt points can be used to book travel or fitness classes or to shop on Amazon, or they can be redeemed for credits toward rent.

Flashback: Bilt last raised $150 million at a $1.5 billion valuation in October 2022.

What's next: The company plans to expand into condos and mortgages. It also plans to grow its network of merchants.

"We're focused on really expanding our loyalty platform," says Jain. "That's why Ken joined, because he built that for American Express."

Bilt raises $200m at a $3.1b valuation, adds Ken Chenault to board

1 big thing: Bilt raises $200 million

Illustration of a repeating pattern of houses made out of hundred dollar bills. 

BillingPlatform, a Denver-based enterprise revenue lifecycle management startup, raised $90 million in growth equity from FTV Capital, Ryan writes.

Why it's the BFD: Companies with complex billing relationships need tools that can manage customer relationships and maximize profitability.

How it works: BillingPlatform helps clients manage everything from simple subscriptions to sophisticated use-based pricing models, enabling them to reduce operational costs and increase profitability.

The platform ingests end customer data from its clients, turns it into chargeable events, pushes those chargeable events into invoices, and acts as an AR [accounts receivable] sub-ledger, enabling enterprises to recognize that revenue, according to CEO Dennis Wall.

It also provides a module to automate the collections process and a customer portal for vendors and end customers to interact with for invoicing, bill payments and other communications.

Between the lines: The company serves mainly large enterprise customers with complex billing needs and customer relationships, but it has a particular strength in SaaS and fintech verticals, which is part of the reason for bringing on FTV as an investor.

"Their expertise, their pattern recognition, their past experience with SaaS companies [and] fintech companies, as well as supporting companies high-growth software companies, make them a great fit for us," Wall says.

The intrigue: BillingPlatform operates purely as a SaaS platform today, but there is potential for expansion.

For example, it integrates with customers' select payment processors but does not monetize the payment flow itself.

"As we've started to get larger, we believe there's a really interesting opportunity there for us to capture. ... I think it's one of the future strategies we will be exploring as we continue to scale," Wall says.

Of note: With the investment, FTV Capital partners Kyle Griswold and Richard Liu will join BillingPlatform's board.

Stifel acted as financial adviser to BillingPlatform, and DLA Piper and Kirkland & Ellis served as the parties' legal advisers.

2. The BFD: BillingPlatform's $90M growth round

Illustration of a magnet attracting hundred dollar bills

Corporate card and spend management company Brex laid off about 20% of its workforce yesterday, and it restructured its management.

Why it matters: The layoffs follow concerns about its cash runway; an Information piece reported Brex was burning $17 million a month.

Details: Brex laid off 282 people yesterday and transitioned COO Michael Tannenbaum to board member, co-CEO Pedro Franceschi wrote in an email to employees.

CTO Cosmin Nicolaescu will transition to an adviser role this summer.

SVP of global operations Camilla Matias Morais is expected to take over as COO.

What we're watching: The company is expected to have an all-hands meeting today to discuss the changes.

Brex lays off 20% of workforce

3: Layoffs at Brex

Illustration of a pixel trash can with the lid off and a fire inside

💳 Credit card debt is up — and it's taking longer to pay down (WSJ)

The four biggest U.S. banks reported higher credit card spending in 2023 compared with the previous year, and it has steadily increased at three of the four since 2020.

Customers aren't paying off their charges quickly. Credit card loans, or unpaid balances on accounts, jumped 14% at JPMorgan compared with a year earlier and 9% at Bank of America.

❌ FINRA finds violations in 70% of crypto communications (Cointelegraph)

An agency report said it had reviewed  500+ crypto asset-related retail communications starting in November 2022 and that more than 70% of reviewed communications had "potential substantive violations" of its rules on communications with the public.

💸 63% of financial advice on TikTok is misleading (FastCo)

TikTok videos tagged with the hashtag #wealth have been viewed 55 million times in the last month, but a recent study from WallStreetZen found 63% of stock-related videos on TikTok were misleading. Worse yet, 95% contain no disclaimers about investment risks.

🍎 Apple plans new fees for downloads outside App Store (WSJ)

Apple's plan, which would apply only in Europe, will enable it to review each app downloaded outside its App Store. It also plans to collect fees from developers offering those downloads.

4. Credit score 

Illustration of a dart in the bullseye of a dartboard that says "credit score."

Go deeper by searching the 50,000+ deals in our Axios Pro Deals Tracker.

• Clerk, an SF-based user authentication platform, raised $30m in Series B funding. CRV led and was joined by a16z, Stripe and Madrona. https://axios.link/3SrpMia

• Polymer Labs, an ethereum interoperability hub, raised $23m in Series A funding co-led by Blockchain Capital, Maven 11 and Distributed Global. https://axios.link/3vNqc9M

• Ozone API, a U.K.-based open banking API platform, raised £8.5m in Series A funding led by Gresham House Ventures. https://axios.link/48WSgpC

• WealthKernel, a London-based wealth management startup, raised a £6m Series A extension led by ETFS Capital, with participation from XTX Ventures. https://axios.link/47MXwuH

• Naq, a Dutch automated compliance platform, raised €3m led by No Such Ventures. https://axios.link/4b6gzTL

• Singular, a cross-chain lending protocol NFTs, raised $3m in seed funding. IOBC Capital led and was joined by BCH Foundation, Bing Ventures, DG Capital and Divide Labs. https://axios.link/48BQxGh

• Yieldstreet, a VC-backed multi-asset alternative investment platform, completed its purchase of Cadre, a New York-based real estate tech firm. Cadre had raised around $130m in VC funding from backers like Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Spur Capital Partners, Khosla Ventures, Lakestar and Jaws Ventures. https://axios.link/47Ed8Bp

• Six Group, operator of the Swiss stock exchange, is considering a takeover bid for fund distribution group Allfunds (Ams: ALLFG), per Reuters. https://axios.link/3Oc8yCI

• 1RoundTable Partners (1RT), a crypto venture firm, is raising between $200m and $800m for its next growth fund. https://axios.link/3U7C5S3

5. Deals!

• Kate Karimson has joined enterprise distributed ledger technology firm R3 as chief commercial officer. r3.com

• Glenn Murray, former VP of strategic growth at Sutton Bank, joins Evolution 2100 as chief strategy officer. https://axios.link/42810a5

• Roxanne Martinez, formerly EVP and chief human resources officer of DentaQuest Ventures, joined CSI as chief people officer. https://axios.link/3UcmgcJ

6. It's personnel

🔗 One bad link: We had a bad link in yesterday's newsletter. If you tried to obtain our IPO report and could not, hit reply to this email and we will hook you up.

Thanks to George Moriarty and Rob Reinalda for today's edits.

And thanks to you for reading. Please tell your fintech and Beanie Baby friends about this newsletter. They can sign up here.

January 24, 2024

1 big thing: Bilt raises $200 million