PayPal Ventures' First Investment In AI, A Credit-based Dating App And Robinhood's Happy Week

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Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! This week we look at a new finance-based dating app, Robinhood’s results, and the startup PayPal Ventures made its first investment in. Let’s go!

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The big story

A new dating app has launched just in time for Valentine’s Day, but there’s a catch: You need to have at least a 675 credit score to use it. Launched by the financial platform Neon Money Club, Score is a dating app for people with good to excellent credit, and it seeks to help raise awareness of the importance of finances in relationships. TC’s Dominic-Madori Davis gave us an overview of what the startup aims to do and how it came to be. Reading all the comments about X and LI was also a lot of fun!

Analysis of the week

Robinhood’s stock got a big boost last week when the company posted a surprise fourth-quarter profit “on higher interest income from customers repaying their loans and a rebound in trading,” according to Reuters. He also revealed that it could be profitable or profitable. by next year. Shares climbed last week to their highest price in nearly two years and closed at $14 on Friday, up 17% from a Feb. 13 close of $11.94. When public fintechs do well, it usually means good things for private fintechs. CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt last year – read all about it here.

Dollars and cents

Finom, a European challenger bank aimed at SMEs and the self-employed, has 50 million euros raised ($54 million) in a Series B equity funding round.

FlowFi, a startup creating a marketplace of finance experts for entrepreneurs, has closed its doors $9 million in seed funding. Blumberg Capital led the investment.

Bold, a fintech company building electronic payments infrastructure in Colombia, raised $50 million in Series C funding in a round led by existing investor General Atlantic.

Rasa, an enterprise-focused conversational generative AI platform with financial services companies as customers, raised $30 million in a Series C round co-led by StepStone Capital and PayPal Ventures. Notably, this is PayPal’s first investment in AI.

What else do we write

India is faced with a dilemma enforcing long-delayed rules to curb PhonePe and Google Pay’s dominance of the country’s ubiquitous UPI payments network, which processes more than 10 billion transactions per month.

Following recent launches in the UK and Ireland, workforce management platform Rippling continues its ambitious international expansion with the opening of its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Sydney, Australia. The company also has poached JPMorgan’s Eisar Lipkovitz as new chief product officer.

Apple’s recent decision to increase the interest rate for its 4.5% Apple Card savings account now encourages a competitor to do the same. Cash App announced that it will now offer “up to” one 4.5% APY (annual percentage yield) for its Cash App Savings customerswith a few caveats.