Three months after its CEO, Vishal Garg, fired over 900 employees on a Zoom call, Better.com announced on Tuesday that it will terminate more than a third of its staff this week. 

When mortgage rates were low and the online lending business developed, the SoftBank-backed company, which has just over 9,000 employees in the US and India, quadrupled in size. However, real estate market fluctuations and the likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate hike this month have hurt it.

Brex raised $300 million in a Series D-2 round in the latest fintech megaround, raising its valuation to $12.3 billion. 

Brex initially offered credit cards to entrepreneurs and SMBs. It has evolved to become a one-stop funding shop for these enterprises. Brex Premium, a $49-per-month service, combines credit cards, company cash accounts, and new spend control and bill pay software under a single dashboard last April. Since its founding, the company has concentrated on corporate cards, banking, and cost management. Its goal is to be a "financial operating system" for clients.

PayPal is closing its San Francisco headquarters to assess its global footprint. 

Multiple sources suggest the payments giant is closing its Xoom facility on 425 Market St. in San Francisco. In 2015, PayPal bought online money transfer company Xoom. According to a corporate insider, personnel from that office will work remotely from the San Jose headquarters. The decision affects an unknown number of employees.

British shoppers plan to spend just four per cent less per person compared to last year, despite rising cost pressures, as the lure of festive bargains means retailers are forecast a busy end to 2022.

New research from Barclaycard Payments, which processes £1 in every £3 spent on credit and debit cards in the UK, shows that the average shopper intends to buy £229 worth of items in the post-Christmas sales period, a reduction of £18 compared to 2021’s figures.

Astar Network, the smart contract platform for multichain, has been awarded the Product of the Year at the 4th annual Blockchain Award by the Japan Blockchain Association. Astar Network’s founder and CEO Sota Watanabe bagged the Person of the Year award for the second consecutive year at the same event.

Digital wallets design insights

After a funding round spearheaded by Lightspeed and Silver Lake, Web3 developer platform Alchemy announced its valuation has nearly tripled to $10.2 billion.  The $200 million round included Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue Management, Pantera Capital, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Dubai-based buy-now-pay-later Tabby received $150 million in debt financing from two US companies, one of the largest GCC FinTech start-up credit lines. 

The financing from New York-based Atalaya Capital Management and existing investor Partners for Growth (PFG) “fortifies Tabby's balance sheet and supports its continuous growth in transaction volumes and product expansion,” the business said on Wednesday.

Hosam Arab, CEO and co-founder of Tabby:

On November 11, 2022, prominent cryptocurrency exchange FTX and its U.S. counterpart FTX.US filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Former founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on Dec. 12 and extradited to the U.S. to face eight criminal accusations, including wire fraud and conspiracy to deceive investors. 

On November 11, 2022, prominent cryptocurrency exchange FTX and its U.S. counterpart FTX.US filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Former founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on Dec. 12 and extradited to the U.S. to face eight criminal accusations, including wire fraud and conspiracy to deceive investors.