Ryan Lawler
TechCrunch
San Francisco, CA, United States
Contact Ryan
Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
| Recent: |
|
| Past: |
|
Past articles by Ryan:
How Credit Karma, acquired amid COVID chaos, fared in its first year under Intuit –
February 24, 2020, is a day Ken Lin will never forget. The Credit Karma CEO was about to announce that the company he founded 13 years earlier was about to be acquired for more than $7 billion. → Read More
In Amazon scuffle, Visa’s loss could be Affirm’s gain –
Let's look at why BNPL is becoming a more attractive payment option for big e-commerce companies like Amazon and Walmart, as well as merchant marketplaces like Square and Shopify. → Read More
Lessons we learned from the last week of fintech earnings –
Let’s examine a series of winning fintech results from BNPL, consumer finance, proptech and corporate finance before turning to fintech's earnings misses from Q3 2021. → Read More
Debt-as-a-service provider Sivo wants to power the next generation of lending startups –
Sivo wants to do for debt what Stripe did for payments: Make it as easy to access a debt facility as plugging into an API. → Read More
Expensify CEO David Barrett discusses going public and why expense management is a $1T opportunity –
"I think what is really driving this, honestly, is just liquidity for our early shareholders. We haven't raised money in so long that our VCs basically just need liquidity." → Read More
What does Zillow’s exit tell us about the health of the iBuying market? –
Selling an asset at a loss is a bad idea in most areas of business, but it is a particularly bad idea in a market where sales cycles are slow, unpredictable and largely out of your control. → Read More
Once focused on mortgage banking, Blend is now going after the broader fintech market –
Since it was founded in 2012, Blend has signed up some of the biggest banks in the country. Now, it’s setting its sights on the startup and fintech market, hoping to power fast-growing digital lenders → Read More
Credit card and payments companies compete for a slice of the growing BNPL market –
A year ago, the biggest players in the BNPL space were companies founded solely to offer consumers the ability to pay in installments at the point of sale. But the landscape looks very different now. → Read More
Zillow may be pulling up the welcome mat, but rival Opendoor is expanding into new markets –
Zillow announced that it was hitting pause on its iBuying operations earlier this week, but rival Opendoor says it is expanding operations and plowing ahead. → Read More
Potential winners and losers line up as Plaid pushes deeper into payments –
So now Plaid says it’s a payments company. It was only a matter of time, really. → Read More
Inside Plaid’s plans to build a new, global finance network –
When Visa announced plans to purchase Plaid for $5.3 billion in January 2020, the deal represented one of the largest acquisitions of a fintech upstart by an incumbent financial powerhouse. But 12 months, one pandemic and one DOJ antitrust lawsuit later, and the credit card network provider decided the “protracted and complex litigation” necessary to […] → Read More
BaaS served three ways: A closer look at a rapidly evolving market –
There's no one-size-fits-all solution, but having a better understanding of how BaaS providers position themselves between banks and fintechs can help potential customers determine which model is best for them. → Read More
Global startups raise $158B in Q3, an all-time record –
We're beginning to see why it feels so busy out there. It is! → Read More
Who needs a BaaS partner, anyway? –
Banking as a service will change not just the way financial services apps are built and embedded into new platforms, but also the way in which consumers and businesses alike interact with their finances. → Read More
Goldman says $2.2B purchase of BNPL provider GreenSky will help expand Marcus –
The acquisition is positioned to bolster the firm's consumer business and offer new products and new ways to attract consumers to its Marcus by Goldman Sachs brand of finance products. → Read More
Better.com acquires UK-based Property Partner ahead of SPAC close –
The deal could give Better a way to augment its lending business with the potential to enable fractional ownership of properties in the U.S. and other markets. → Read More
Anatomy of a SPAC: Inside Better.com’s ambitious plans –
“We aren't so easily categorized,” said Better CEO Vishal Garg. → Read More
All the reasons why you should launch a credit or debit card –
To learn more about the pros and cons, we spoke with executives from Marqeta, Expensify and Cardless. → Read More
Ramp and Brex draw diverging market plans with M&A strategy –
From a high level, all of the recent deal-making in corporate cards and spend management shows that it’s not enough to just help companies track what employees are expensing these days. → Read More
Why fintechs are buying up legacy financial services companies –
As more fintech companies find their way to higher and higher valuations in both the private and public markets, expect to see more legacy banks and lenders be gobbled up by newer entrants. → Read More