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The round brings One’s total raised since its January 2019 inception to $26 million. The startup, which is based in San Francisco and Sacramento, previously raised $9 million from its chairman and co-founder .

We’ve been covering the rise of neobanks globally. Just last week, for example, I wrote about , a New York-based digital bank aimed at small and medium businesses (SMBs), raising a $21 million Series A.

This news caught my attention for a couple of reasons. For one, One’s co-founders are serial entrepreneurs with deep industry experience. Former CEO and founding CEO serves as One’s chairman. who co-founded PushPoint (which was ), is CEO of One.

I’m also intrigued by the company’s emphasis on the middle class. To be clear, there are other digital banks focused on this demographic (, which neared unicorn status last year with a $100 million Series C, being a prime example). But there’s no doubt that as the country faces a potential recession fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, the middle class will be among the hardest hit.

The company told me: “We are focused on middle-income families across the US. This includes traditional families, but also single partners, people who support parents, kids and other family members; roommates and more.”

I also find it interesting that Obvious Ventures, an impact investor, put money in the round. One, which today said it is opening up early access to its private beta, also claims to be the first digital banking service to integrate credit with the goal of “making it seamless to save, spend and borrow money.” The thought behind that is that in the current financial system, people’s money is broken up into siloes, according to Hamilton.

“Most people have a balance in their checking account that earns nothing and outstanding debt on their credit card that costs too much,” he said in a written statement. “One is designed to maximize a family’s hard-earned paycheck by unifying saving, spending and borrowing into one account. When this money is being managed from one place, people save more, are charged less and gain control.”

To Harris, One addresses a gap in the banking industry.

“Traditional banks cater mostly to affluent customers and new digital banks target younger individuals with simpler financial needs,” Harris said in a written statement. “Middle-class American families are being left out.”

One is planning for a public launch this summer, and its new capital will help it scale toward that goal. The company currently has 40 employees.

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According to the company, the equity round was oversubscribed by existing investors including , , , and . It brings Lendio’ssince it was founded in 2011 to $108.5 million. The company’s last funding was a $19 million , raised at a pre-money valuation of $75 million in October 2016, according to Cruchbase data.

Lendio plans to use the new capital “to increase the scope and precision” of its loan marketplace while expanding new bookkeeping and lender services functions.

The startup has 75 loan products on tap and describes itself as a one-stop-shop for business owners looking for capital to start, operate and grow. Lendio has facilitated more than 100,000 loans to nearly 35,000 business owners across the U.S. to date, totaling over $2 billion. It says its year-over-year growth rate has averaged 75 percent over the past two years. The company has more than doubled its customer base in the last two years, according to CEO and co-founder .

It’s also nearly doubled its headcount from 170 people about one year ago to just over 300 today.

Lendio reduced its monthly burn rate to break-even since taking on the Series D round of funding in 2016, according to Blake.

“While the company was in a position of profitability and didn’t need to raise funds, this Series E round will allow Lendio to grow several recently-launched business units,” he wrote via email.

What it does

The company says it wants to make it easy for small business owners to get loans. Owners can complete a 15-minute online loan application that is processed by Lendio’s machine-learning algorithms and matched with” a pool of suitable lenders.”

Lendio’s loan team reviews those options with the business owners and then works to facilitate the loans, often within 24 hours, it claims.

The company has strategic partnerships with the likes of , , , , , Comcast Business, and .

For Mercato Partners’ Senior Investor , Lendio’s “ability to combine data analytics with the human touch to connect small businesses quickly and precisely with ideal lending partners has made all the difference in its success.”

The new capital will be used in part to expand the company’s online bookkeeping platform and further integrate it with its loan marketplace platform, Sunrise by Lendio. It also plans to enhance its lender services division. The company gives banks, credit unions and other online lenders access to its white-labeled online application via a software-as-a-service partnership model.

Meanwhile, lenders are now outsourcing the customer-facing sales function to Lendio, the company said.

The company also has a social component (which I always love). For every new loan facilitated on Lendio’s marketplace platform, Lendio Gives–an employee contribution and employer matching program–provides a microloan to a low-income entrepreneur around the world through .

Blake said Utah was an obvious choice to start a fintech company.

“From a regulatory standpoint, Utah is very business friendly, the cost of living is affordable, and there’s a deep talent pool to draw from,” he said. Plus, he appreciated “the strong VC community and the entrepreneurial culture pervasive across the state.”

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The Los Angeles startup, founded in 2012 by Ryan Hudson and George Ruan, makes technology that helps users discover rewards and deals while shopping. In light of this acquisition, Honey is set to adopt PayPal and Venmo’s 275 million active consumer accounts. Additionally, Honey will tap into PayPal’s 24 million merchant accounts, .

Think of Honey as an add-on extension to user browsers. After the deal closes, Honey will remain in its Los Angeles headquarters and operate under its own brand.

There’s no doubt that a $4 billion deal is a big one, for both Honey and the overall Los Angeles ecosystem. Per Crunchbase data, this is the fifth biggest acquisition deal – and the biggest tech acquisition deal – in Los Angeles history.

“Honey is amongst the most transformative acquisitions in PayPal’s history,” said Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal, in a statement. Looking a bit deeper into Schulman’s statement, let’s look at the previous acquisitions by one of the world’s largest online payments systems, owned by eBay. In other words, let’s fact check him.

Dipping Into The Past

PayPal has acquired over 20 known companies to date, .

Price-wise, based on Crunchbase data, Honey is Paypal’s biggest deal yet, thanks to a $4 billion price tag. In second place is PayPal’s acquisition of , a payments point-of-sales company, for $2.2 billion in 2018.

Now, is Honey ‘transformative’ beyond a big dollar amount? The startup is PayPal’s second acquisition of 2019, while in 2018 the payments company scooped up four other companies. It signals a slight slowdown from the payment powerhouse.

In its acquisition history, PayPal has scooped up companies that touch all parts of a singular transaction. For example, it put cash into companies that help with payment processing, like its acquisition of , which provides third party payment services for governments and corporations, or , which has a set of tools to help online businesses process payments. It has also scooped up companies that help its users transfer money easier, like . And .

Additionally, it has engaged in data and security, like its buy of , to prevent fraud and abuse in real time, or its acquisition of , which is a predictive cybersecurity company. Or , which is self explanatory.

So when examining PayPal’s known acquisitions, Honey stands out as unique. It shows that the payment giant is betting big on becoming more involved in its users lives, beyond just the point-of-purchase moment, but throughout the shopping journey as well.  And with every startup and tech company becoming a bank, that might not be a bad idea after all.

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