PayPal Ventures’ first AI investment, a credit-based dating app and Robinhood’s good week

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Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (previously The Interchange)! This week, we’re a brand new finance-based courting app, Robinhood’s earnings outcomes and the startup wherein PayPal Ventures made its first funding. Let’s dive in!

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The large story

A brand new courting app was launched simply in time for Valentine’s Day, however there’s a catch: You will need to have no less than a 675 credit score rating to make use of it. Launched by monetary platform Neon Cash Membership, Rating is a dating app for people with good to excellent credit, and it seeks to assist elevate consciousness in regards to the significance of funds in relationships. TC’s Dominic-Madori Davis gave us a take a look at what the startup goals to do and the way it happened. Studying all of the feedback on X and LI was additionally fairly entertaining!

Evaluation of the week

Robinhood’s inventory received an enormous enhance final week when the corporate posted a shock revenue within the fourth quarter “pushed by larger curiosity revenue from clients paying again loans and a rebound in buying and selling,” in accordance with Reuters. It additionally revealed that it could possibly be breakeven or worthwhile by next year. Shares climbed to their highest worth final week in almost two years and closed at $14 on Friday, up 17% from an in depth of $11.94 on February 13. When public fintechs do properly, it often means good issues for privately held fintechs. CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt final yr — learn all about that here.

{Dollars} and cents

Finom, a European challenger financial institution geared toward SMEs and freelancers, has raised €50 million ($54 million) in a Sequence B fairness spherical of funding.

FlowFi, a startup making a market of finance consultants for entrepreneurs, closed on $9 million in seed funding. Blumberg Capital led the funding.

Daring, a monetary know-how firm constructing an digital funds infrastructure in Colombia, raised $50 million in Series C funding in a spherical led by current investor Basic Atlantic.

Rasa, an enterprise-focused conversational generative AI platform with monetary providers corporations as shoppers, raised $30 million in a Sequence C spherical co-led by StepStone Capital and PayPal Ventures. Notably, this marked PayPal’s first AI funding.

What else we’re writing

India is facing a quandary in imposing long-delayed guidelines to curb the dominance of PhonePe and Google Pay within the nation’s ubiquitous UPI funds community, which processes over 10 billion transactions month-to-month.

After current launches within the U.Ok. and Eire, workforce administration platform Rippling is constant its bold worldwide growth with the opening of its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Sydney, Australia. The corporate additionally poached Eisar Lipkovitz from JPMorgan to function its new chief product officer.

Apple’s current transfer to boost the interest rate for its Apple Card financial savings account to 4.5% is now prompting a competitor to do the identical. Money App introduced it’s going to now provide “as much as” a 4.5% APY (annual percentage yield) for its Cash App Savings customers, with just a few caveats.