Plaid

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! We’re back after a brief hiatus, and I can tell you that judging by the volume of pitches I received last week, venture investing in the fintech space is definitely picking up. This week, we’re looking at Plaid’s latest step toward an IPO, one BNPL company’s financial results, and more. Let’s dive in! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Sunday at 7:30 a.m. PT, subscribe…

Could 2024 be the year for fintech IPOs? Quite possibly, according to F-Prime Capital’s State of Fintech 2024 report. F-Prime — a VC firm with over $4.5 billion in assets under management that tracks the performance of emerging, publicly traded and privately held financial technology companies — naturally remains bullish on the fintech space, noting that: “In aggregate, fintech companies have captured <10% of financial services revenue, yet many scaled private fintech companies are generating $1B+ revenue, still…

Ferrari is testing a Tesla Model S Plaid ahead of launching its own first all-electric supercar, which should be coming in the next two years. Over the last few years, Tesla vehicles have been among the most reverse-engineered and tested by automakers. Tesla was early in the electric vehicle space, and it was the first to deliver compelling long-range electric vehicles. It makes sense for other automakers to try to learn from them ahead of their own EV efforts. We have seen Tesla vehicles…

Exponent Founders Capital, an early-stage venture firm founded by alumni of startups such as Plaid, Robinhood and Ramp, has closed on $75 million in capital commitments, TechCrunch is the first to report.  The firm, which is emerging from stealth today, raised $50 million for its first fund in November of 2021. Managing Partners Charley Ma and Mahdi Raza co-founded Exponent after meeting while Ma was leading fintech growth at Plaid, and Raza was leading growth and payments at Robinhood. At the time, Robinhood was one…

A new Porsche Taycan is expected to be unveiled soon. Ahead of its release, Porsche tested the pre-series Taycan out at the Nurburgring. The new Porsche Taycan lapped the Nurburgring 26 seconds quicker than the current version, topping the Tesla Model S Plaid by a whopping 18 seconds. New Porsche Taycan tops Tesla Model S Plaid record Porsche has been testing the new Taycan for several months now. We got our first look at the new sporty Taycan Turbo GT in Sept as the Tesla Model S rival lapped…

If a cat had a thousand lives, we would name it Plaid — in recognition of the fintech startup giant that moves forward relentlessly, regardless of obstacles along the way. Case in point: When the Department of Justice scuttled a $5 billion acquisition deal with Visa, Plaid barely blinked. Instead, it continued its quest to make open banking a reality by releasing new features and raising more money. It’s been an impressive performance, considering the challenges presented by the…

Tesla has reclaimed the production EV lap record on the famous Nürburgring race track with a new Model S Plaid equipped with the Track package. Nürburgring has been a fighting ground for Tesla and Porsche over the last few years. After Porsche brought its brand-new Taycan electric car to the Nürburgring racetrack to break a record in 2019, Tesla CEO Elon Musk decided to use the famous proving grounds for the electric automaker’s own latest performance vehicle. Tesla started testing early…

Tesla has unveiled a $20,000 track package for the Model S Plaid, finally allowing it to reach the 200 MPH top speed the automaker promised when it was first announced. The Model S Plaid vehicles the company delivered after they became available could only reach around 163mph, which is fast, but not 200 MPH fast. Turned out Tesla put a limitation on its software to prevent it from reaching its full potential. According to Electrek, the company wanted the vehicle to have bigger brakes first, so they could slow down better…

The Model S Plaid is already an insanely fast car, but apparently, 175 miles per hour isn’t enough for Tesla. The company took to Twitter today to tease a new “track package” for the sedan. The video, which shows the Model S Plaid driving on the Circuit Paul Ricard in France, teases the car reaching speeds of 322 kilometers per hour. That translates to a top speed of 200 miles per hour, a truly insane speed for a car you can also drive to the grocery store. In the video, the speed that the car is going…

Lotus has officially unveiled its all-electric hyper SUV, the Lotus Eletre, deemed the most advanced vehicle the brand has ever made. With up to 905hp and a 0 to 60 mph in under three seconds, is it enough to beat the Tesla Model X Plaid? The Lotus Eletre is expected to play a key role in the automaker’s transition to a fully electric lineup. Lotus has pledged to release only all-electric production cars starting this year. Lotus’s transformation began with the Envija electric hypercar –…