Opendoor Cuts More Staff and Leads FinTech IPO Index Down 0.7%

Earnings season has yet to fully engulf the FinTech IPO sector.

But there was plenty of other news to go around — where macro headwinds were in evidence, forcing at least one platform to scale back its headcount.

Shares in Opendoor plunged 18.9% through the week, and the overall Index was off 0.7% through that timeframe.

Cutting Staff — Again 

The company said this week it was cutting roughly 560 jobs or 22% of the workforce. The latest move comes in the wake of the company laying off 18% of its workforce, at the time 550 jobs, back in November. In a statement emailed to Real Trends that “We’ve been weathering a sharp transition in the housing market — the steepest and fastest rate increase by the Fed in 40 years, the more than doubling of mortgage rates from historic lows, and the hit to home affordability have driven an approximately 30% decline in new listings from peak levels last year. We’re taking these actions now to better align our operational costs with the anticipated near-term market opportunity.”

As Reuters noted, Opendoor had nearly 13,000 unsold homes at year-end out of about 35,000 homes purchased in 2022.

Elsewhere, Lufax Holding listed shares in Hong Kong on April 13 and finished higher on its first trading day, closing at HK $34.75 after initially opening at HK $33.50. 

U.S. listed shares — included in our FinTech IPO group — lost 4.7% through the week.

nCino shares were up 1.4% through the past five sessions.

The company said this week that in South Africa, TUHF has selected nCino’s cloud banking platform to improve the lending process for its customers and “support the entire credit lifecycle journey across its commercial loan book.” The release noted that by leveraging nCino’s cloud banking platform, TUHF will accelerate its lending processes and scale its business efficiently.

Affirm and Stripe said they had expanded their partnership. As we noted at the time of the announcement, the expansion makes Affirm’s Adaptive Checkout feature available to eligible Canadian Stripe users.

In this case, that means offering payment options that range from six weeks to 36 months and start at 0% APR, the release said, without late fees. Affirm shares lost 4% through the last five sessions.

Nuvei shares gave up 3.4%, as short seller Spruce Point Capital Management LLC alleged, as detailed by Reuters, that its Paya acquisition masks Nuvei’s “growth challenges.”

Spruce Point issued a “strong sell” rating on Nuvei’s stock, estimating a 35% to 50% long-term downside risk to the stock. Paya, the short-selling report alleged, has been losing market share.

“Nuvei is exposed to slowing inflation and consumer spending. Our analysis also suggests that its underlying economics are deteriorating and that it is heavily reliant on buoying its stock price as a tool to attract, retain and compensate employees,” the report alleged, adding that Nuvei may have an equity interest in bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.

In separate Nuvei news, as spotlighted here, “Deadpool” actor Ryan Reynolds has invested in Nuvei. The investment came just weeks after Mint Mobile, a wireless provider in which Reynolds held a 25% stake, was purchased by T-Mobile for $1.35 billion. Reynolds also invests in American Aviation Gin and the U.K.’s Wrexham Football Club.

Shares in dLocal declined 3%.

In an announcement, the company said it launched a new all-in-one payment solution to manage global platform payments. The offering, dLocal for Platforms, is an end-to-end payment solution for marketplaces, on-demand services, and any other platform business models. dLocal for Platforms, per the release, onboards sellers, service providers or contractors onto the platform itself, while dLocal has them verified before paying out funds. The platform can then accept payments on behalf of its users, split the payments between one or more users, deduct costs as needed, and hold funds until payout. The company said funds could be moved within the platform to debit or credit funds.