San Francisco-based blockchain payments company Ripple, which is embroiled in a high-profile battle with the U.S. securities regulator, is interested in potentially purchasing assets of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network, according to a company spokesperson.

“We are interested in learning about Celsius and its assets, and whether any could be relevant to our business,” the spokesperson said, declining to say if Ripple was interested in acquiring Celsius outright.

Ripple has continued to grow through the crypto market turmoil and “is actively looking for M&A opportunities to strategically scale the company,” the spokesperson said.

New Jersey-based Celsius froze withdrawals in June citing “extreme” market conditions and filed for bankruptcy in New York last month, listing a $1.19 billion deficit on its balance sheet.

Last week, lawyers for Ripple submitted filings to the bankruptcy court seeking to be represented in the proceedings. The court approved the filing earlier this week. Ripple is not among Celsius’ major creditors, Celsius’ bankruptcy filings show. Ripple provided the comment in response to Reuters’ queries regarding the court filings.

A lawyer approved to represent Ripple declined to comment. Celsius did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Privately owned Ripple has not previously done any major deals. It was valued at around $15 billion following a private stock buyback in January, the company said, although industry valuations have fallen significantly during a cryptocurrency price crash over the past few months which helped topple Celsius and other cryptocurrency firms.

Ripple’s total sales of its cryptocurrency XRP, net of purchases, were $408.9 million in the second quarter, compared with $273.27 million in the first quarter, according to a report the company put out in July.

The company was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2020 over XRP. The agency alleges that Ripple and its current and former chief executives have been conducting a $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering by selling XRP, which Ripple’s founders created in 2012.

Ripple and the executives have denied the allegations, and the company has argued that XRP has traded and been used as a digital currency.

Fintech platform Pomelo Pay has partnered with cryptocurrency payments services provider TripleA to enable businesses financial institutions, merchant acquirers, payment service providers and other fintechs, to offer cryptocurrency payments and pay-outs 

Pomelo’s B2B platform supports businesses with frictionless payments, merchant acquiring services and more. As a unified white label solution, businesses can enable their merchants or partners to accept popular international payment methods securely with the latest technology. 

Following growing demand, Pomelo has expanded its offering opening up more businesses to accept cryptocurrencies directly through secure QR codes and user-friendly payment link technology. With quicker settlement periods and low transaction fees, this new mode of payment saves businesses time and money.

Licensed by Singapore’s Central Bank, TripleA is a white-label crypto payment gateway that connects both crypto users and non-users around the world in a safe and secure manner.  With its instant confirmation, locked-in exchange rates, and real-time fiat conversions, businesses get to pay and get paid in crypto without the hassle of holding or converting digital currencies. Businesses are also shielded from the risk of fraudulent transactions with no chargebacks.

Luxury hospitality pioneer Soneva has become the first business to benefit from the partnership, which will enable it to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrencies across each of its resorts. Enhancing ease of transaction, guests can now confidently make secure international payments at Soneva Fushi, Soneva Jani and Soneva in Aqua in the Maldives, and Soneva Kiri in Thailand.

Tagged as the ‘currency of the future’, cryptocurrency payments are becoming increasingly popular. Nearly 75% of retailers plan to accept either cryptocurrency or stablecoin payments within the next two years, according to a June survey conducted by Deloitte, titled Merchants getting ready for crypto.

Vincent Choi, CEO of Pomelo Pay said, “We are excited to be joining forces with TripleA to enable cryptocurrency as a direct form of payment. TripleA is a reliable and regulated crypto payment solutions provider entrusted by users and merchants, so it is the perfect partner for us. With the growing demand for crypto as a form of payment, this is an exciting next stage in our mission to help businesses innovate payments acceptance and give consumers the choice to pay the way they want to”.

"TripleA is thrilled to partner with Pomelo Pay to allow businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments," said Eric Barbier, CEO of TripleA. "With our partnership, businesses get to tap into the spending power of more than 300 million crypto owners globally, without bearing any price volatility risk." 

"At Soneva, we have always endeavoured to be a pioneer in the hospitality industry, hence accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment method is another example of enabling our international guests to make payments from anywhere in the world easily," says Bruce Bromley, Chief Financial Officer, and Deputy CEO of Soneva.

Upper90, a leading provider of hybrid growth capital, has raised $180 million in a capped initial closing for its third fund. Commitments came from a strategic investor base of 300 entrepreneurs to help founders scale with less dilution. The firm has pioneered a new investment model combining tailored credit and equity for alignment with technology businesses that have predictable revenue or collateral. Since raising Fund I in 2018, Upper90 manages and has syndicated over $2.2 billion across 43 portfolio companies generating attractive risk-adjusted returns through asset-backed credit structures.

Upper90 was an initial institutional capital partner to some of today's fastest-growing e-commerce and fintech startups including Octane, Crusoe Energy, Mundi, Thrasio, Filmrise, Heroes, Clutch, Karat, Beacon and Settle. The firm was built around an investor base of proven operators who provide access to proprietary opportunities and strategic advice to portfolio companies, creating a competitive advantage. With Fund III, Upper90 will continue to lead with founder-friendly credit, helping businesses solve their most pressing capital needs while maximizing ownership and control.

“Over the last 10 years, founders have faced fifty per cent dilution through Series B rounds. Upper90-backed founders, conversely, own materially more by utilizing credit earlier for the healthier parts of their businesses. With pressure on valuations, access to alternative financing solutions is top of mind,” said Billy Libby, co-founder and CEO of Upper90. “Ninety per cent of the world’s data has been created over the last year, which has personalized every part of our lives, and we launched Upper90 because there should be a similar trend in how startups are capitalized.”

“Somewhere along the way founders started getting judged on how much money they raised instead of how much ownership they retained. This is backwards,” said Jason Finger, co-founder and Chairman of Upper90 and co-founder of Seamless-GrubHub. “Debt has been viewed as a four-letter word but, in reality, by looking at how it is utilized in real estate, it is clear that online business models that have predictability or asset collateral can massively enhance equity returns by being thoughtful with credit.”

“Certainty, flexibility, then cost are the most important factors when choosing your initial financing partner. Upper90 is a credit firm that thinks like an equity owner. Their bespoke facility helped us capture market share quickly and scale more efficiently. Any fintech startup would benefit from having Upper90 in their capital structure,” said Martin Pustilnick, Founder and CEO of Mundi.

Over one million people have completed Revolut's crypto education course in the first month since its launch, demonstrating a public appetite for the speculative asset class during times of rampant inflation.

Wise has struck an open finance agreement with Plaid that will enable the former's 13 million customers to connect their accounts to thousands of apps.

Based on Plaid's open finance tool Core Exchange, the arrangement means that people can connect their Wise USD local account to thousands of other apps - including Venmo, Truebill and Chime - to easily move money back and forth.

The integration is already live and being used for things such as P2P payments and investment platforms, says Wise. Business customers in the US are using it to send funds to payroll companies, and firms globally are connecting to neobanks, as well as paying credit card bills and paying tax.

Sharon Ann Kean, senior director, global expansion, Wise, says: “By working with Plaid, we’re giving customers the ability to connect their accounts to the apps and services they know and love in the US instantly and without hidden fees. As we build money without borders, our customers will continue to see deeper integrations in the market to ensure the Wise account meets the local functionality needed for American consumers.”

Raja Chakravorti, universal data access lead, Plaid, adds: "Delivering secure data connectivity solutions to consumers is central to our mission of unlocking financial freedom for everyone. Our Wise partnership ensures access, transparency, and control for millions of consumers to securely connect their accounts to the apps and services they choose."

Payments infrastructure platform Finix has raised $30 million in a funding round joined by American Express.

The General Partnership, Franklin Templeton, Acrew Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Cap Table Coalition, Homebrew, Insight Partners, Inspired Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Precursor Ventures, PSP Growth, and Vamos Ventures participated in the round.

In a tough funding environment, Finix says that the financing is at an increased valuation on its last round in early 2020. However, it has not specified the valuation.

Built by former executives from Stripe, Klarna, PayPal, and Worldpay, Finix enables companies to build their own payments processing stack using a series of basic APIs and dashboard reporting systems.

With clients including Lightspeed POS, Passport, and Kabbage from American Express. the firm says it doubled total annual payments volume from 2020 to 2021, grew to support over 12,000 active sub-merchants each month, and handled billions of API calls with 99.999% uptime.

Matt Harris, MD at Bain Capital Ventures and Finix board member, says: "The next generation of fintech is all about businesses embedding financial services when and where their customers need them most. Finix is a leading example of the type of state-of-the-art payments infrastructure provider that makes this embedded experience possible."

BitPay, the world’s largest provider of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment services, today added a reward program to its BitPay Prepaid Card. Cardlytics, a cash-back rewards platform, is managing the rewards where the BitPay cardholder automatically receives up to 15 per cent cash back on purchases every time they use their card at participating retailers.