Welcome to my weekly fintech-focused column. I’ll be publishing this every Sunday, so in between posts, be sure to listen to the Equity podcast and hear Alex Wilhelm, Natasha Mascarenhas and me riff on all things startups! And if you want to have this hit your inbox directly once it officially turns into a newsletter on May 1, sign up here.
The big events in the fintech world over the last week felt like a very different vibe from 2021, which was filled with mega rounds, celebrations and lofty valuations.
First off, 3-year-old one-click checkout startup Fast announced it was shutting down after struggling to raise more capital to keep operations running. The announcement wasn’t a complete shock considering there were hints of trouble, as reported by The Information, the week prior. Those hints included the revelation that the startup had generated just $600,000 in revenue for all of 2021 despite raising $120 million in venture capital earlier in the year (in a round led by …
