Tags: fintech

Robinhood announced new AI agentic features that let users create dedicated accounts for autonomous trading bots and grant them a virtual credit card for payments. The beta service links agents to a pre‑loaded wallet, limits their spending, and provides real‑time notifications and fraud monitoring. While only stock trades are supported today, the firm plans to expand to options, crypto and other markets later. The virtual card is initially available to Robinhood Gold Card holders, with monthly caps and optional approval prompts. Ler mais

A new AI Index from fintech firm Ramp reveals that Anthropic now has more verified business customers than OpenAI for the first time. The survey, based on expense data from over 50,000 companies, shows 34.4% of participating firms paying for Anthropic services versus 32.3% for OpenAI. Ramp economist Ara Kharazian attributes the shift to Anthropic’s early focus on technical customers and recent expansion tools like Cowork, though he cautions the lead may be temporary. Ler mais

Anthropic announced the launch of ten pre‑built AI agents tailored for banks, insurers and other financial firms. The agents, powered by the new Claude Opus 4.7 model, are available through Claude Cowork, Claude Code and a Managed Agents beta, and can be deployed in days rather than months. Anthropic also highlighted Claude’s new integration directly into Microsoft Excel and other Office apps, promising faster, more accurate handling of time‑consuming financial tasks. Ler mais

OpenAI announced two back‑to‑back acquisitions: personal‑finance startup Hiro and media company TBPN, a business‑talk show producer. The moves come as the company faces pressure to expand beyond ChatGPT and to counter Anthropic’s gains in the enterprise market. Analysts see the deals as talent grabs aimed at diversifying OpenAI’s product lineup and improving its public image amid growing scrutiny. Ler mais

OpenAI announced it has acquired Hiro Finance, a fledgling AI‑driven personal finance startup founded by serial entrepreneur Ethan Bloch. The deal brings roughly ten Hiro employees into OpenAI as the startup prepares to shut down its service on April 20 and delete user data by May 13. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Backed by Ribbit Capital, General Catalyst and Restive, Hiro offered a verification‑enabled tool that modeled salary, debt and expense scenarios for consumers. The acquisition marks OpenAI's latest foray into financial‑services technology, though its exact plans for the talent remain unclear. Ler mais

OpenAI announced Monday that it has bought Hiro Finance, an AI‑driven personal finance startup founded by serial entrepreneur Ethan Bloch. The deal, confirmed by both parties, will see Hiro shut down its consumer app and transfer its roughly ten‑person team to OpenAI. Backed by Ribbit Capital, General Catalyst and Restive, Hiro offered users scenario‑based budgeting powered by a model trained for financial math. While terms remain undisclosed, the acquisition signals OpenAI’s push to deepen its foothold in the fintech space and expand talent ahead of its next growth phase. Ler mais

OpenAI has partnered with Indian fintech firm Pine Labs to embed its application programming interfaces into the company’s payments and commerce platform. The collaboration aims to automate settlement, reconciliation and invoicing workflows, extending AI‑driven efficiencies from Pine Labs’ internal operations to merchants and corporate clients. The move reflects OpenAI’s broader push to deepen its presence in India beyond consumer‑facing tools, while Pine Labs seeks to boost B2B adoption of AI agents for high‑volume financial tasks. The partnership is non‑exclusive, does not involve revenue sharing, and includes new security and compliance measures. Ler mais

San Francisco startup Sapiom has closed a $15 million seed round led by Accel, with participation from Okta Ventures, Gradient Ventures, Array Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Anthropic, and Coinbase Ventures. The company is building a financial layer that enables AI agents to automatically purchase and access software, APIs, data, and compute services. By handling authentication and micro‑payments behind the scenes, Sapiom aims to remove infrastructure hurdles for non‑technical creators building AI‑driven applications, focusing initially on B2B use cases. Ler mais

Sphere, the AI-driven tax compliance platform founded by Nicholas Rudder, has closed a $21 million Series A round led by a16z, with participation from YC and Felicis Ventures. The San Francisco‑based startup automates global tax registration, calculation, filing, and remittance for companies expanding internationally. Integrations with major billing systems like Stripe enable real‑time tax assessment, while its proprietary AI engine, TRAM, codifies jurisdictional rules and provides citation‑backed determinations. Sphere aims to extend its infrastructure to more tax authorities, grow its engineering and sales teams, and become the essential tool for finance teams navigating cross‑border compliance. Ler mais

At TechCrunch Disrupt, solo investor Elad Gil said AI remains unpredictable but several segments now have clear frontrunners. He identified foundational model providers such as Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, xAI and Mistral as dominant, and noted AI‑assisted coding, medical transcription and customer‑support tools are also converging around a handful of firms. Gil pointed to fintech, accounting, AI security and other areas as still wide open, emphasizing that enterprise enthusiasm for AI can generate rapid revenue while long‑term sustainability remains uncertain. Ler mais

Numeral, a sales‑tax compliance startup founded by Sam Ross, announced a $35 million Series B financing round led by Mayfield, with participation from Benchmark, Uncork Capital, Y Combinator and Mantis. The funding values the two‑year‑old company at $350 million and will accelerate its AI‑driven platform that automates tax collection, filing and payment for e‑commerce and SaaS businesses across thousands of jurisdictions. Numeral’s growth includes a 3.5‑times revenue increase over the past year and a client base exceeding 2,000 firms, positioning it against incumbents such as Avalara. Ler mais

Google announced an open Agent Payments Protocol, dubbed AP2, to enable AI agents to shop and transact on behalf of users. Backed by dozens of merchants and major financial institutions, the protocol aims for interoperability across AI platforms, payment networks and vendors while maintaining a verifiable transaction trail. Google executives Stavan Parikh and Rao Surapaneni highlighted the commitment to an open, collaborative development process. AP2 introduces a two‑step approval system—intent and cart mandates—to safeguard user intent, and includes provisions for fully automated purchases. Partnerships with crypto firms such as Coinbase, Metamask and the Ethereum Foundation expand the protocol to digital wallets, while industry players like Perplexity, Stripe, Mastercard, American Express and PayPal have shown support. Ler mais

Rulebase, a Y Combinator‑backed startup founded by Nigerian engineers Gideon Ebose and Chidi Williams, has closed a $2.1 million pre‑seed round led by Bowery Capital. The company’s AI “agent coworker” automates back‑office functions such as compliance, quality assurance and dispute handling for financial‑service firms. Already deployed at U.S. business bank Rho and a Fortune 50 financial institution, the platform integrates with tools like Zendesk, Jira and Slack, evaluates 100 % of customer interactions, and claims cost reductions of up to 70 % and escalation cuts of up to 30 %. Rulebase plans to expand its workflow automation into fraud investigation, audit preparation and regulatory reporting. Ler mais