Atlanta Crypto Fintech Starter Labs Lost $1M to North Koreans Scammers Posing as a Developers 🇺🇸
We're also covering Ramp hiring a redditor 🇺🇸, OpenAI vs Robinhood token fight 🇺🇸, Qonto's bank charter push 🇫🇷, a new WhatsApp banking bot 🇳🇬 & Adyen entering lending in Canada 🇨🇦
I had heard that the Stripe brothers were really smart, but before researching their lives, I had no idea they were actually geniuses. Hope you enjoy sliding through their incredible story as much as I had fun researching it!
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🇺🇸 Atlanta Crypto Fintech Starter Labs Lost $1M to North Koreans Scammers Posing as a Developers
Atlanta-based crypto startup Starter Labs lost over $1 million to a North Korean scammer posing as a remote developer. Marlon Williams (pictured above), CEO of Starter Labs, hired the man in 2020, believing he was a Nepali programmer named “Sherpa.” In the crypto world’s anonymous, remote work culture, Williams thought nothing of it. Over 20 months, Sherpa and his team earned $400,000 in wages and gained access to the platform, which has handled over $45 million in crypto. In March 2022, Sherpa withdrew hundreds of thousands before vanishing.
“I have to see your wife, your family, your kids. We have to have lunch together,” Williams told The Wall Street Journal, now refusing to hire anyone he hasn't met in person. The FBI later identified Sherpa as Kim Kwang Jin, part of a North Korean group charged with wire fraud and money laundering. His accomplices include Kang Tae Bok, Jong Pong Ju, and Chang Nam Il. The group used “laptop farms” in 16 U.S. states, clusters of devices run by a few people to fake multiple remote workers. On July 1, FBI Atlanta warned that North Korean agents increasingly rely on AI and face-swapping tech to infiltrate Western companies.
Coincidentally, the risks of hiring remote workers were heavily discussed on social media last week, when Indian software engineer Soham Parekh went viral after being exposed by Playground AI founder Suhail Doshi for simultaneously working at multiple Silicon Valley startups. Doshi's X post, which had generated 22 million views, warned that Parekh had been "preying on YC companies" while juggling 3-4 jobs at once. Multiple founders later came forward stating they had hired and fired Parekh, either because he was not meeting deadlines or because they actually discovered he was juggling multiple jobs.
While Parekh claimed he performed all work himself, many in the tech community questioned this assertion. This skepticism is reasonable given the conversations we can read on the subreddit r/overemployed, where workers (including some claiming to work for fintechs) share strategies for managing multiple jobs, including outsourcing their actual work to cheaper developers. Even if the primary hire has no malicious intent beyond seeking financial gain, the outsourced workers could easily steal proprietary algorithms, customer data, or intellectual property.
Sources: Global Fintech Insider, Wall Street Journal & Fox 5 Atlanta
🇺🇸 Ramp Hires "Professional Redditor" as Platform Becomes Key AI Visibility Channel
Ramp, a spend management fintech valued at $13B, posted a "Professional Redditor" job at $40-84 per hour as Reddit becomes critical to be included in chatbots’ answers. Ramp’s Marketing lead William Yen posted the job on July 1, seeking someone with “thick skin” to lead ad campaigns, run AMAs, track engagement metrics, and actively participate in Reddit communities. Ramp's Reddit account has 253 members at the time of writing.
Reddit has become a key visibility channel for consumer-facing brands in AI search, according to data released by AI analytics firm Profound. The firm revealed that platforms like Perplexity source nearly 47% of their top citations from Reddit. Even ChatGPT draws 11.3% of its responses from Reddit, second only to Wikipedia’s 47.9%, according to Profound’s analysis of 30 million citations from August 2024 to June 2025. “You’ll need different strategies for different platforms,” said James Cadwallader, co-founder of Profound, in a LinkedIn post, sharing the data. In 2024, Reddit inked licensing deals with both Google and OpenAI, allowing its archive of discussions to be used in training large language models.
Source: Global Fintech Insider
🇬🇧 Yonder, The Credit Card Fintech Launched By Clearscore Alumni, Launches A Premium Debit Card
British credit card rewards startup Yonder has launched its first premium debit cards, bringing rewards typically associated with credit cards to users that might not qualify for one. “We now have a debit card to give those looking for rewards but without the credit debt”, wrote Theso Jivajirajah (pictured in the middle), chief risk officer at Yonder, in a LinkedIn post. The new Mastercard debit cards offer the same perks as Yonder's credit card: points earning, zero foreign exchange fees, curated local rewards and travel-friendly benefits. The Yonder Free Debit earns one point per £1 spent with no monthly fee, while the Yonder Full Debit earns four points per £1 spent, but comes with a monthly fee of £15 ($20.36). Founded by Clearscore alumni Tim Chong (left), Harry Jell (right) and Theso Jivajirajah (middle), Yonder uses open banking data to build a more nuanced picture of their customers' credit worthiness.
Sources: Finextra & Global Fintech Insider
🇫🇷 Neobank Qonto Applies for Banking License to Compete with Revolut's French Expansion
French B2B neobank Qonto has reached 600,000 customers and is now applying for a full banking licence in France, CEO Alexandre Prot (picture above) revealed. The $5 billion startup is racing to expand into lending before rival Revolut sets up its European base in Paris. The move comes as Revolut steps up its push into French B2B banking, with plans to make Paris its Western Europe headquarters. "Having achieved profitability ahead of schedule in 2023" drove the timing, said Prot to TechCrunch. Qonto CEO, who happens to be the son of former BNP Paribas president Baudouin Prot, had previously ruled out a banking licence due to capital requirements. But with Qonto now profitable, Prot said the company won’t need additional funding beyond the $552 million raised in 2022.
Qonto currently holds a payment licence that limits loans to 12 months and requires lending only from its own funds. A banking licence would enable longer-term credit and access to customer deposits, a key step to hitting its 2030 goal of 2 million users. Germany is now Qonto's largest market after France, with recent expansion into Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal. The company offers digital banking tools for businesses through a subscription model, handling payments, expenses, and accounting.
Source: TechCrunch
🇨🇳 Chinese Giant Ant Group Launches AI Travel Assistant Voyager In Asia’s Top E-Wallets
Ant International, the overseas arm of Chinese payments giant Ant Group, has launched Alipay+ Voyager, an AI-powered travel assistant built directly into Asia’s most popular digital wallets. Douglas Feagin (pictured above), president of Ant International, said Voyager isn’t meant to replace booking sites or search engines but to work alongside them. “A close collaboration between travel merchants like OTAs (online travel agencies), wallets and Alipay+, that ultimately aims to benefit travellers,” he said in an interview with Skift. Voyager is now available in Alipay (China), AlipayHK (Hong Kong), and GCash (Philippines), offering travel bookings through Agoda, Trip.com, and Fliggy. Users can plan and book trips directly in their wallets using text, voice, or real-time suggestions. Unlike separate travel apps, Voyager is built into the wallet and can handle things like flight delays while offering personalised tips. For OTAs, it opens access to Alipay+’s network of 36 wallet partners, 100 million merchants, and 70 markets.
Source: Skift
🇺🇸 Erebor Bank, Backed by Palmer Luckey and Peter Thiel, Targets Crypto and Defense Startups
Tech billionaires Palmer Luckey (pictured above), Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale are funding Erebor Bank to serve crypto and defense start-ups that traditional banks won't touch. The move aims to fill the gap left by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023. Named after the treasure-filled mountain in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Erebor is backed by heavy hitters including Founders Fund and Lonsdale's 8VC.
Stablecoins pegged to real assets like the dollar will be a major part of operations, with Erebor aiming to become "the most regulated entity conducting and facilitating stablecoin transactions,’’ according to a filing by the bank to US financial regulators. The digital-only bank will serve customers entirely through apps and websites from its headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. Co-CEOs Jacob Hirshman, former Circle advisor, and Owen Rapaport, founder of digital assets compliance firm Aer Compliance, will run day-to-day operations. Mike Hagedorn, former Valley National Bank executive, serves as president.
Source: Financial Times
🇳🇬 Nigeria's Plaid Equivalent Okra Closes Operations After Six Years
Nigerian open banking startup Okra has quietly shut down, marking the end of a six-year journey. Co-founder and former CEO Fara Ashiru Jituboh (pictured above) said the company “made the decision to wind down operations in May,’’ according to Techpadi. She has since joined UK-based RevOps startup Kernel as Head of Engineering. Okra struggled to keep its business running as cloud costs soared due to the falling Nigerian naira. To cut expenses, it launched Nebula, a local cloud service priced in naira to rival AWS and Microsoft Azure. But the shift from open banking to cloud services was tough: APIs didn’t bring in enough revenue and cloud infrastructure needed far more funding than Okra had. Okra had previously raised over $15 million from international investors, including TLcom Capital and Susa Ventures. It built secure APIs that allowed users to link their bank accounts with third-party apps, essentially creating a Nigerian equivalent of Plaid. The shutdown comes just months ahead of Nigeria’s new open banking rules and amid wider consolidation in Africa’s fintech sector.
Sources: Techpadi & Nairametrics
🇺🇸 OpenAI Warns Against Robinhood's Fake Equity Offering
OpenAI publicly criticized Robinhood for allowing the public to buy tokenized stakes in the AI company now valued at $300 billion. “These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity. We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it. Any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval, we did not approve any transfer. Please be careful,’’ OpenAI said on an X post. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev (pictured above) quickly defended the move, calling the tokens legitimate financial instruments. “While it is true that they aren’t technically ‘equity’, the tokens effectively give retail investors exposure to these private assets,’’ he said in a post on X.
The backlash came just days after Robinhood allowed their European clients to get exposure to hot companies that are still private such as OpenAI and Space X. Backed by corresponding special purpose vehicles (SPV), the tokens give users indirect exposure to privately held companies, but without voting rights.
Sources: Bloomberg & Global Fintech Insider
🇺🇸 Perplexity Adds Morningstar’s Reports In Its Quest to Rival Bloomberg With Perplexity Finance
AI search engine Perplexity has partnered with financial research firm Morningstar, integrating its data into the platform’s $20/month Perplexity Finance product. But the upgrade follows a major retreat by CEO Aravind Srinivas, who earlier claimed the tool could rival the $30,000/year Bloomberg Terminal. "Maybe it was unnecessary to position it (Perplexity) as an alternative, and my understanding of the Terminal was quite limited," Srinivas said in a post on X. The retreat came after Mumbai-based AI analytics firm CompoundingAI found the platform had overstated Sterlite Technologies’ related party transactions by $154 million, confusing approved limits with actual figures. It also invented fictitious entities and overstated other financials by $14.9 million.
Perplexity Finance aims to offer real-time quotes, earnings data, and AI-generated insights through its Pro accounts, targeting beginners or retail investors rather than Bloomberg's institutional market. Youssef Ben Mahmoud, CTO of Paris-based wealthtech firm Impactfull, said Perplexity Finance delivers 80% of the value for just $240 a year. “When the competition charges $30,000 a year, you don’t need to be perfect, you just need to be good enough,” he wrote on a LinkedIn post. Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya issued a sharper warning in a post on X, urging Perplexity to tighten its backend to make sure it’s “bulletproof at math”
Sources: Analytics India Magazine, ZDNET & Global Fintech Insider
🇳🇬 Meet Xara, Nigeria’s New WhatsApp Banking Bot, That Allows Users To Send Money By Sharing Photos of Account Numbers
Nigerian software engineer Sulaiman Adewale (pictured above) has launched Xara, a WhatsApp-based AI bot that lets users send money, pay bills, and track spending. “I wanted an easier way that carries everybody along in banking, and if you look at it properly, you will see that WhatsApp is what even the oldest people among us use,” Adewale told TechCabal. Launched in June of this year, Xara has already signed up 10,000 Nigerian users and processed over ₦135 million (US$88,200) in transactions in just two weeks. The bot understands both English and Nigerian Pidgin, allowing users to type, speak, or even send photos of account numbers to complete transfers with no app switching or QR scanning required. Adewale plans to expand Xara across Africa, with upcoming features like savings plans, utility payments, and e-commerce support.
Source: TechCabal
🇨🇦 Dutch Payments Giant Adyen Will Start Offering Loans To Canadian Small Businesses Using Real Time Sales Data
Dutch payments giant Adyen has launched Capital in Canada, a financing solution that allows businesses to receive advances within hours based on the sales data captured by Adyen’s point of sale (POS) terminals. The $49 billion market cap company, which is Stripe's biggest competitor, first launched Capital overseas in 2023 and allows businesses to bypass lengthy applications and hidden fees that business owners might encounter with traditional bank loans. "With Capital, Adyen manages eligibility and pre-approves customers of SaaS platforms based on processing data," explains Sander Meijers (pictured above on the right), Canada's Country Manager for Adyen. Capital charges one flat fixed fee and repayments are automatically collected as a fixed percentage of an SMB's daily sales. Last year, Adyen opened a Canadian headquarters in Toronto after doing business in the country since 2020.
Source: Fintech.ca
🇺🇸 Bank of New York Mellon Gives Its AI Bots Email Accounts
Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) has deployed dozens of AI bots with full company logins that work autonomously alongside human staff. Those bots have direct managers, operate independently on coding and payment validation, and will soon get email accounts and Microsoft Teams access. "I’m sure in six months’ time it will become very, very prevalent," said BNY CIO Leigh-Ann Russell (pictured above) to the Wall Street Journal. BNY created two AI personas in three months, with one fixing code vulnerabilities and another validating payments. As an example, a digital engineer can log into company systems, see a vulnerability, write code to patch it, and pass it to a human manager for approval.
Another Banking giant, JPMorgan Chase, however, is more cautious, with its Chief Analytics Officer Derek Waldron, still determining access controls while 230,000 employees use AI chatbots. Waldron explained to the Wall Street Journal that he envisioned every employee will have an AI assistant and every client experience will have an AI concierge.
Source: Wall Street Journal
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Who Am I?
Hi, my name is Julien Brault.
From 2017 to 2024, I was the CEO of Hardbacon, a fintech I co-founded, which reached 400,000 unique visitors at its peak.
A Google update ultimately sealed the company’s faith and I started this newsletter to keep myself busy in the aftermath.
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Wow, I didn't know that about Perplexity and Reddit. And I am a pro subscriber.