Retail Sales Drop; Klarna Plans Mobile Phone Service; Payabli Raises $28Mn

Fed holds rates steady. Retail sales drop. Ramp valuation hits $16Bn. PostHog, GrailPay, Juniper Square, Payabli raise fresh funding. Klarna testing U.S. debit card, plans to offer mobile phone service. Happy Money inks $500Mn forward flow deal.

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Retail Sales Drop

As was widely expected, the Fed held rates steady at 4.25% to 4.5% at last week’s FOMC meeting. The central bank continues to expect two rate cuts this year, pointing to somewhat diminished economic uncertainty. Fed officials lowered their estimates for economic growth this year, while increasing forecasts for future inflation and unemployment. The Fed now expects inflation to end the year at 3%, up from a prior forecast of 2.7%, and economic growth to clock in at 1.4%, down from 1.7%.

Despite the Fed’s inflation projections, consumer sentiment improved in June, driven by consumers’ expectations of slowing price increases. Consumers expect prices to increase by 5.1% over the next year, down from 6.6% in May. The University of Michigan’s sentiment index came in at 60.5, an increase of 8.3 points compared to the month prior. Still, retail sales dropped for the second month in a row in May, suggesting consumers may be more cautious about opening their wallets. The 0.9% drop in May follows a downwardly revised 0.1% decrease in April, making the first back-to-back decline since 2023.

Ramp Valuation Jumps to $16Bn

Expense management and corporate card startup Ramp raised a fresh $200Mn in funding, increasing its valuation to $16Bn, Bloomberg is reporting. Peter Thiels’ Founders Fund is said to have led the round. The company was most recently valued at about $13Bn in a secondary share sale and had raised funding from investors at a $5.8Bn valuation in 2023.

PostHog Raises Series D Led by Stripe

PostHog, a product analytics and customer data infrastructure platform, announced it has raised a $70Mn Series D. The round was led by payments company Stripe, with participation from GV, Y Combinator, and Formus Capital. The investment puts PostHog’s valuation within spitting distance of “unicorn” territory, with the company now worth $920Mn. The deal reportedly came about after Stripe cofounder and CEO Patrick Collison tweeted about the company, which PostHog cofounder and CEO James Hawkins leveraged into a meeting. Stripe confirmed the investment in PostHog, though declined to comment on the terms of the deal.

GrailPay Bags $6.7Mn In New Funding

Risk and data analytics platform GrailPay announced it has raised $6.7Mn to continue building its risk and intelligence platform for bank payments. The round was led by Construct Capital, with participation from Broadhaven Ventures, Soma Capital, Grasshopper Bank, Commerce Ventures, and others. GrailPay’s platform offers a suite of capabilities to detect and mitigate risk in ACH payments. Although ACH is decades old, it remains the backbone of the U.S. interbank payment system, moving more than $86Tr last year alone. On the fundraise, GrailPay cofounder and CEO Will Messina said, “Credit cards have seen decades of innovation—fraud tooling, risk engines, analytics. But the same hasn’t happened for bank payments. We’re building the modern intelligence layer to unlock the next growth wave of payments tied to a bank account.”

Juniper Square Raises $130Mn to Build “JunieAI” Offering

Private market software maker Juniper Square announced it has raised a fresh $130Mn in funding. The Series D round was led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Blow Owl Capital, Redpoint Ventures, HighSage Ventures, Fifth Wall, and others. The transaction values Juniper Square at $1.1Bn. Juniper Square’s software facilitates investor reporting, fund administration, and fundraising. The company plans to use the additional capital to build its JunieAI offering, which it describes as the “first enterprise-grade AI built specifically for the needs of private markets GPs.”

Payabli Announces $28Mn Series B

Embedded payments startup Payabli announced it has raised a $28Mn Series B. The round was led by QED Investors and Fika Ventures, with participation from TTV Capital and Bling Capital. Payabli offers developers an integrated API for creating and managing nearly any kind of payments experience. The company said it has grown revenue by 7x year over year and now serves more than 50,000 merchants through its platform. Payabli cofounder and co-CEO Joseph Elias Phillips said of the news, “We’re fortunate to be experiencing rapid growth at a time when AI is poised to revolutionize the financial services industry. When our investors approached us about doubling down on Payabli, we saw a clear opportunity to go on the offensive by accelerating AI enablement across our platform and organization to drive further growth and bring groundbreaking new products and capabilities to market faster.”

Klarna Progresses Debit Card, Will Offer Mobile Phone Service

Klarna may have postponed its IPO, but that doesn’t mean the buy now, pay later provider hasn’t been plenty busy. The company is readying the launch of a debit card in the U.S. market, together with issuing platform Marqeta. The card, which leverages Visa’s “flexible credential,” is already in a trial phase, with a broader rollout expected later this year. Klarna is also expanding into telcom, offering its 25Mn U.S. users unlimited talk, text, and data service for $40. Klarna tapped telephony infrastructure provider Gigs and will leverage AT&T’s network. And last but not least, users can now give live feedback to the company’s CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski – sort of. Klarna is rolling out an AI-powered avatar trained on Siemiatkowski’s insights, experiences, and voice. User feedback provided via the avatar will be analyzed using large language models and will populate an internal dashboard.

Happy Money Signs $500Mn Forward Flow Deal

Happy Money, which offers unsecured personal loans, announced it has entered into a $500Mn forward flow purchase agreement with Fortress and Edge Focus. The agreement will allow Happy Money to further scale its lending business, which borrowers typically tap to refinance higher-rate credit card debt. Happy Money CEO Matt Potere said of the transaction, “At Happy Money, we're on a mission to use lending as a force for good, and this funding agreement will increase our capacity to help even more people improve their financial well-being. Partnering with Fortress and Edge Focus strengthens our ability to meet the rising demand for responsible lending and expand access to debt consolidation solutions that put borrowers first.”