Wealthfront targets $2B 🚀, Amazon + Visa agentic tools 🤝, Stripe bank charter pushback 🏦

Wealthfront is seeking up to a $2.05B valuation in its Nasdaq IPO, aiming to raise $485M as it leans into its robo-advisor model ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

Sign Up |Advertise|View Online TLDR Together With TLDR Fintech 2025-12-04 📈 Higher valuations, bigger checks: Startups on Carta broke a 3 year fundraising record in Q3 2025 (Sponsor) Startups on Carta raised $27.3 billion in new funding in Q3, up 48% over 2023. Mega-checks reaching billions of dollars for startups on the cutting edge of AI helped make this the best quarter for new funding in three years. 👉 Read the latest State of Private Markets report to learn what's happening in venture capital: 1️⃣ Which early-stage valuations are rising 2️⃣ Why down rounds are becoming less frequent 3️⃣ How the Bay Area still dominates 4️⃣ Why more capital is being raised in fewer rounds See the full report 📱 News & Trends Wealthfront targets a $2.05B valuation in upcoming IPO (2 minute read) Wealthfront is seeking up to a $2.05B valuation in its Nasdaq IPO, aiming to raise $485M as it leans into its AI-enhanced, Millennial- and Gen-Z-focused robo-advisor model. BlackRock and Wellington may anchor the deal with $150M in share purchases, marking another strong fintech debut in a revived US IPO market. Metronome agrees to join Stripe (3 minute read) Metronome has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Stripe, combining Metronome's usage-based monetization and billing engine with Stripe's payments and financial infrastructure. Metronome will become part of Stripe's product suite while speeding up its roadmap and improving reliability through Stripe's five 9s of uptime. Robinhood acquires LedgerX to expand prediction markets amid overwhelming growth (4 minute read) Robinhood is making a major push into prediction markets by acquiring a 90% stake in LedgerX, giving it the infrastructure to list and clear its own event-based contracts. The move comes after a breakout year for prediction trading on the platform, with users executing more than nine billion contracts and fueling Robinhood's fastest-growing revenue line. By launching its own exchange in 2026 and partnering with Susquehanna for liquidity, Robinhood is positioning itself to outpace rivals like Kalshi as sportsbooks and fantasy operators increasingly eye prediction markets. 🚀 Deep Dives & Reports Reflections from our 2025 AGM: $1T private companies, AI-driven fundraising, and the evolution of outbound sourcing (6 minute read) LPs still believe multi-billion-dollar VC funds can work. The emergence of future $1T private companies could make the math viable. AI companies' explosive, sometimes unconventional revenue ramps now set the tone for all fundraising. Outbound sourcing has become less differentiated as founders increasingly understand and game early-signal detection systems. Why healthcare revenue cycle management is still a large opportunity (7 minute read) Healthcare revenue cycle management remains a huge, under-modernized market. $300 billion in administrative costs and rising denial rates are creating a major opening for AI. The biggest opportunity lies in building AI software for large RCM service providers rather than selling to fragmented providers or slow-moving payers. Modernizing the way families manage and transfer wealth: an interview with Dr. Kirby Rosplock, founder and CEO of Tamarind Learning (7 minute read) Tamarind Learning is reshaping how inheritors and trustees prepare for major wealth transfers by delivering structured, AI-powered education rather than relying on occasional family meetings or ad-hoc advice. The platform pairs diagnostics, applied coursework, and its StewardAI assistant to help beneficiaries build real competence in everything from fiduciary duty to governance basics. As trillions move to the next generation, the most resilient families will treat education as core infrastructure, making capability, not just capital, the centerpiece of multigenerational success. 💻 Launches & Products Amazon and Visa team on agentic tools (3 minute read) Amazon and Visa are partnering to offer developers tools to build agentic commerce experiences, enabling AI agents to shop and pay autonomously on behalf of consumers. The companies aim to connect developers with an ecosystem of agentic providers across retail, travel, and B2B, as major payments players race to define early standards for bot-driven shopping. Klarna to launch dollar-backed stablecoin as race in digital payments heats up (4 minute read) Klarna is introducing a fully dollar-backed digital token as it pushes deeper into crypto-powered payments and cross-border transactions. The stablecoin, KlarnaUSD, will run on Tempo, a blockchain built by Stripe and Paradigm. It is positioned as a faster, cheaper alternative to traditional banking rails. With major players like PayPal and Stripe making similar moves and new regulatory frameworks taking shape, Klarna sees this as the start of its broader crypto strategy. AI wealth adviser startup Nevis attracts Sequoia, ICONIQ, and Ribbit (4 minute read) Sequoia, ICONIQ, and Ribbit have backed Nevis with a $35 million Series A at a $200 million valuation. The startup builds AI tools that automate the manual work of wealth advisers rather than replace them. Nevis is targeting the RIA market with software that generates meeting summaries, follow-ups, and emails. It plans to expand into operational tasks like account openings as adviser shortages intensify. Buy it in ChatGPT: instant checkout and the agentic commerce protocol (7 minute read) ChatGPT's Instant Checkout is a new way for users to buy products directly inside a conversation. It will roll out starting with US Etsy sellers and expand soon to over a million Shopify merchants. The feature is powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol, an open standard co-developed with Stripe that lets AI agents securely coordinate purchases between users and merchants without changing merchants' existing systems. 🎁 Miscellaneous Holiday data sends mixed signals (3 minute read) New data from Mastercard, Morgan Stanley, PwC, Fiserv, and others show consumers pulling back on holiday spending amid persistent inflation and weakening sentiment, even as Black Friday sales ticked up modestly. Surveys point to tighter budgets and higher price sensitivity, but early shopping results suggest demand is still holding up in pockets, creating a muddled picture heading into year-end. Fed's Bowman says regulators working on stablecoin rules (5 minute read) Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman told lawmakers she's pushing to build new guardrails for banks and stablecoin issuers, aiming to balance innovation with safety as fintechs and crypto firms compete more directly with traditional lenders. Her plan includes coordinating with other agencies to craft capital and diversification standards mandated by the Genius Act, which will require stablecoin issuers to register and maintain full dollar reserves. Bowman also signaled broader changes coming to bank capital rules, noting that updated mortgage risk treatment and a revised Basel III proposal could reshape how banks participate in home lending. Stripe faces bank charter pushback (5 minute read) A leading public-interest group is urging regulators to reject Stripe's bid for a national trust bank charter, arguing the move would let the company expand into banking services without meeting traditional oversight standards. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition, one of the most influential voices in US bank regulation, points to Stripe's past compliance issues and warns that granting the charter could blur the line between fintechs and federally supervised banks. ⚡ Quick Links Keith Rabois accuses Airwallex of exposing US customer data to China (3 minute read) Keith Rabois claims Airwallex's China-based employees, legal obligations, and investor ties create a pathway for the Chinese government to access sensitive financial data from major US companies without proper disclosure. 12 predictions for 2026 (4 minute read) Next year will be a breakout year for agentic AI, robotics, biotech, and crypto. 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