Deal activity is picking up in the fintech space as smaller startups that had great promise are being scooped up by the big boys. This M&A activity is expected to accelerate as the market starts to feel the impact of the Coronavirus. We will see the big players such as Paypal, the banks, Visa and Mastercard will be leading the way:

A surge in deals began just as the contagion was spreading. In January Visa announced it would pay $5.3 billion to purchase San Francisco’s Plaid, a tech platform connecting bank accounts to apps, and in February Intuit said it would pay $7.1 billion for Credit Karma. The coronavirus pandemic—and the business disruptions it is causing—will quicken the pace of transactions over the next year. Already, Motif, a 10-year old stock investing fintech backed by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan that was once valued at $440 million, announced that it would shutter and sell its tech and intellectual property to Charles Schwab. Some like Motif and On Deck will end up in shotgun weddings, but others will find happy marriages of convenience.

Let’s see how this plays out.

If you’re looking for quick cash for your house, you now have several apps to choose from. The business plan for these apps are interesting:

Think of them as house-flippers that work for you. Sellers fill out an online questionnaire, and an iBuyer uses proprietary modeling to assess the home’s value. The company then makes an all-cash offer within 72 hours, sight unseen. (The iBuyer keeps a 6 to 10 percent commission off the price.) They make light renovations and relist the house at a markup. Home buyers can browse and make an offer via app.

It will be interesting to see how much participation these apps generate. There’s a lot of VC money behind these startups.

Airbnb has had an enormous impact on the travel and hospitality industries, offering unprecedented choice and convenience to travelers all around the world. Whether you need a bed for the night or a vacation rental for a month, the service provides a variety of options. Meanwhile, homeowners and anyone having a spare room can now monetize the asset very easily.

These conveniences, however, have disrupted markets in dense cities like New York while also creating incidents where users created damage and noise problems.

As a result, cities like New York are trying to crack down, and now Airbnb seems poised to fight back. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

There’s been plenty of hot air lately over the notion of whether we have another tech bubble on our hands. Like most topics these days, much of this is driven by the need to talk about something to fill airtime and drive clicks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Did you capitalize on Brian Hoyer starting for the Cleveland Browns once Brandon Weeden got hurt? Or have you been riding Peyton Manning’s incredible performances so far this season. You might think I’m referring to typical conversations for fantasy football, but with the explosion of daily fantasy sports games, millions of dollars are legally changing hands as websites and now even apps try to capitalize on these games of skill. This has completely changed the landscape of sports betting as players now have the option of risking cash on daily fantasy games as opposed to the traditional method of picking games against the spread. Now with SideDraft being added to the Apple app store we might see the games become even more popular.

The key revolves around the notion that picking lineups in a fantasy game makes these games “skill” games that are not prohibited by various state and federal laws. With the popularity of fantasy football and other sports, these new sites just add the cash element and suddenly we have a new niche exploding around the web. The key difference from a game point of view is that you pick different players each week, so you’re not stuck with a crappy like regular fantasy football if you have a bad draft or have key injuries on your roster.

Most of these games have salary cap of course, so you’ll pay a price for using Manning or someone like Adrian Peterson. The key is finding cheap bargains who can have big games, like Hoyer of course. Even veterans like Philip Rivers of the San Diego Chargers can help you win, as he’s having a huge year but wasn’t in great demand in typical fantasy leagues.

These games can be just as addicting as regular gambling or regular fantasy football, so the popularity isn’t surprising. I am surprised however that some lawmakers have tried to stop everyone from having so much fun.