• Chime plans to acquire Salt Labs, an employee savings and rewards program to help companies motivate their workforces.
• Along with the acquisition, Chime is launching Chime Enterprise, a new business unit that will help Chime grow users via the employer channel.
• Salt Labs Founder and CEO Jason Lee will lead Chime Enterprise.

Challenger bank Chime made an acquisition today that will help it expand into the enterprise arena. The San Francisco-based digital bank announced today that it has acquired Salt Labs, an employee savings and rewards program to help companies motivate their workforces.

Salt was founded in 2022 to offer enterprises a new way to incentivize their hourly employees. The company helps mitigate turnover while engaging employees by allowing workers to earn one “Salt Asset” for each hour they work. If they stay with the company for long enough, employees can exchange accumulated Salt Assets for a special purchase, college fund distribution, or an investment.

Until now, Chime has strictly offered services directly to end consumers. With the acquisition of Salt, however, Chime will make a move to acquire new users through their employers. Salt Founder and CEO and Founder of DailyPay Jason Lee will lead Chime’s new business unit, Chime Enterprise, to help Chime grow its client base via the employer channel.

“This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for Chime to acquire an innovative employee rewards company that has key employer relationships, and a founding team that has created some of the most disruptive technology in the enterprise earned wage access space,” said Chime COO Mark Troughton. “Through this acquisition, we will aim to partner directly with employers to reach millions of consumers and introduce them to the Chime platform. We look forward to leveraging Salt Labs’ existing relationships with employers and building upon the Chime MyPay earned wage access platform to further address the needs of everyday people.”

Chime is well known in fintech for offering tools and services that cater to its low-to-middle income target market. In addition to its earned wage access tool that allows users to receive their paycheck up to two days earlier when they set up direct deposit, Chime also offers a credit-building tool and a feature that will spot users up to $200 to avoid account overdrafts.

Chime did not publicly disclose the acquisition amount. However, some sources report that the deal, which is expected to be finalized later this week, could close for as much as $173 million after Chime provides an up-front payment of $14 million.

“We’ve always believed that financial progress begins with employment and should be centered around the primary financial account,” said Lee. “We are thrilled to be part of this next stage of growth at Chime and to build Chime Enterprise alongside the incredible team at Chime.”

Photo by Jason Tuinstra on Unsplash

• Robinhood has agreed to acquire digital currency marketplace Bitstamp for $200 million in cash.
• The acquisition will help Robinhood fuel its global expansion and serve institutional clients, a new market for the company.
• The acquisition announcement comes one month after Robinhood received a Wells Notice from the SEC for violating Sections 15(a) and 17A of the Securities Exchange Act.

Hours after I published a piece mourning the lack of application of the blockchain in fintech, I get to report on some news that proves me wrong. Digital stock brokerage app Robinhood has agreed to acquire digital currency marketplace Bitstamp for $200 million in an all-cash deal.

U.K.-based Bitstamp has offices in Luxembourg, the U.K., Slovenia, Singapore, and the U.S. and holds over 50 active licenses and registrations globally. Robinhood, which made its first foray into crypto in 2018, anticipates the deal will “significantly accelerate Robinhood Crypto’s expansion worldwide.” Specifically, Robinhood said that Bitstamp will bring Robinhood customers from across the E.U., U.K., U.S., and Asia.

The move will also help Robinhood cater to its first institutional clients. Until now, Robinhood has primarily catered to individual retail investors. Bitstamp, on the other hand, already has a strong presence in the institutional market. The company offers trade execution, deep order books, API connectivity, white label solutions, institutional lending, and staking. By integrating Bitstamp’s services and established relationships into its existing operations, Robinhood can start offering services specifically designed for serving larger, more complex clients such as large financial organizations, investment firms, and professional traders.

“The acquisition of Bitstamp is a major step in growing our crypto business. Bitstamp’s highly trusted and long standing global exchange has shown resilience through market cycles. By seamlessly coupling customer experience with safety across geographies, the Bitstamp team has established one of the strongest reputations across retail and institutional crypto investors,” said Robinhood Crypto General Manager Johann Kerbrat. “Through this strategic combination, we are better positioned to expand our footprint outside of the U.S. and welcome institutional customers to Robinhood.”

Bitstamp launched its crypto exchange in 2011 and currently has more than 5 million retail and institutional customers. The company’s core spot exchange offers over 85 tradable assets, as well as products such as staking and lending,

“As the world’s longest running cryptocurrency exchange, Bitstamp is known as one of the most-trusted and transparent crypto platforms worldwide,” said Bitstamp CEO JB Graftieaux. “Bringing Bitstamp’s platform and expertise into Robinhood’s ecosystem will give users an enhanced trading experience with a continuing commitment to compliance, security, and customer-centricity.”

Notably, Robinhood’s announcement comes a month after the California-based company received a Wells Notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for violating Sections 15(a) and 17A of the Securities Exchange Act. “After years of good faith attempts to work with the SEC for regulatory clarity including our well-known attempt to ‘come in and register,’ we are disappointed that the agency has decided to issue a Wells Notice related to our U.S. crypto business,” said Robinhood Markets Chief Legal, Compliance, and Corporate Affairs Officer Dan Gallagher in a statement at the time. “We firmly believe that the assets listed on our platform are not securities and we look forward to engaging with the SEC to make clear just how weak any case against Robinhood Crypto would be on both the facts and the law.”

The $200 million cash amount is subject to customary purchase price adjustments, and the deal is subject to closing conditions such as regulatory approvals and is expected to be finalized in the first half of 2025.

• ComplyAdvantage announced plans to acquire knowledge engine builder Golden Recursion for an undisclosed amount.
• ComplyAdvantage will implement Golden’s data extraction and disambiguation methods to help financial institutions minimize their risk of financial crime.
• The deal will also increase ComplyAdvantage’s footprint in the U.S. and will make Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) a top shareholder of ComplyAdvantage.

Fraud and AML risk detection platform ComplyAdvantage announced it has agreed to acquire knowledge engine builder Golden Recursion. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2017, Golden is developing a self-constructing knowledge database used to accelerate discovery and education. The San Francisco-based company combines human effort and machine intelligence to simplify the process of gathering and communicating knowledge. As a result, Golden has created one of the world’s largest knowledge graphs, a diagram that facilitates information analysis by displaying interconnected data points and their relationships.

“By combining our experienced team of AI and large language model (LLM) specialists with ComplyAdvantage’s industry-leading data science team, we are creating a global team of data experts,” said Golden Founder and CEO Jude Gomila. “Together, I’m confident we will transform financial crime risk management for businesses worldwide.” Gomila will join ComplyAdvantage as a board observer and special advisor.

Golden has raised almost $60 million, having Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as one of its top contributors. As part of today’s deal, a16z will become a top ComplyAdvantage shareholder, joining Goldman Sachs, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital.

“We are excited to welcome their talented team to the ComplyAdvantage family, alongside a16z, who bring powerful expertise as we embark on the next phase of our growth journey,” said ComplyAdvantage CEO Vatsa Narasimha.

U.K.-based ComplyAdvantage offers financial institutions a wide view of their vulnerability to financial crime. The company leverages AI and machine learning to sort through ComplyAdvantage’s database of entities, which is updated continuously to ensure accuracy. The company plans to implement Golden’s data extraction and disambiguation methods that use natural language processing to bring supplementary, disparate data sources into what ComplyAdvantage calls its “data ingestion layer.” These additional data points will offer ComplyAdvantage clients more comprehensive, real-time financial crime risk insights.

“Delivering AI-enriched financial crime insights to our customers through a best-in-class user experience built on the most interconnected data has been our north star at ComplyAdvantage since day one. The acquisition of Golden is a critical milestone on that journey,” said Narasimha.

The acquisition will also help ComplyAdvantage expand its footprint in North America, specifically in the U.S. With its five offices based in New York, London, Singapore, Cluj-Napoca, and Lisbon, the company currently serves more than 1,000 organizations in 75 countries.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov