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Let’s Do This is a YC alumni startup form 2018 which is a marketplace for endurance events, from a 5k fun run or an IronMan triathlon. It’s now raised a $5M seed round with Serena Williams and Usain Bolt participating. The round was led by Pete Flint (Partner at NFX, formerly Trulia, LastMinute).

Other investors include YCombinator, Shasta, Index, and FJ Labs. Other angels were Paul Buchheit (YC, Gmail), Yuri Sagalov (YC, AeroFS), Simon Nixon (MoneySupermarket), Tim Thackrah (Elmsleigh), Paul Radcliffe (Marathon World Record Holder) and Andy Philips (Booking.com).

The platform lists 30,000 races of all distances and disciplines and claims to be the largest marketplace for endurance events in the world, offering key information about the races and exclusive booking perks for members such as free cancellation protection.

They have recently agreed a partnership with Hearst to power all race listings across Runner’s World, Men’s Health and Women’s Health in the US and the UK.

Serena Williams, the 22 time Grand Slam Champion, said in a statement: “I’ve seen first-hand the incredible impact these events can have on making people fitter, healthier and happier. I love that Let’s Do This is not only making events like these more accessible but also helping to support athletes of all different fitness levels. Women are especially less likely to participate in marathons and obstacle races, so it’s really important there’s a platform encouraging people to step out of their comfort zones and make a positive difference in their lives.”

In a statement Flint said: “This is a $30bn global market with enormous growth potential and already 100 million people crossing a finish line in the US each year. In just 18 months they’ve gone from launch to building the world’s best online marketplace to find, learn about, and book your next race. With over 30,000 events across the US, UK, and Australasia, this team is just getting started.”

Usain Bolt, World Record holder in the 100m, 200m and 4 x 100m, said: “Throughout my career I’ve been lucky enough to inspire people to follow their dreams, get off the couch and get exercising. That’s what attracted me to Let’s Do This. It’s a company that is totally committed to changing the world and inspiring more people to get out there. Like me, their team doesn’t believe in limits and is totally committed to being the best in the world. It’s a really natural fit with what I care about and what I believe in so I am very happy to be supporting their mission to inspire more people to have epic experiences.”

The company was founded by childhood friends Alex Rose and Sam Browne who got into the space at University. Their team consists of people from Facebook, Google, Oracle, Deliveroo or SkyScanner.

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Railsbank, the open banking and compliance platform co-founded by CEO Nigel Verdon, who previously founded Currencycloud, has raised £10 million in Series A funding.

The new injection of capital will be used for further expand beyond Europe, including the U.S., Australia and South East Asia. The latter includes a new office in Singapore where a small team has already been assembled.

Backing Railsbank’s Series A is Moneta Capital, which led the round, alongside CreditEase, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Singapore Life. A number of existing investors also participated including Firestartr.

In a call with Verdon, who was talking to TechCrunch from Singapore, he explained that the new office is part of a strategy that will see Railsbank ride the next wave of fintech innovation, which he says is happening in South East Asia and where the playbook from London and New York 2011 is being repeated.

“In 2011, [we] saw the emergence of the finTech 1.0 scene with people like Currencycloud (which I also founded), TransferWise, Betterment, Bank Simple etc,” he tells me.

“This was enabled by the opening up of regulation as the macro trend. We currently see [a] similar regulator macro trend in SE Asia emerging and also the macro trend of tech companies being the distributors of financial products driven by access to cheap smart phones by firms like Xiaomi”.

To that end, Railsbank is positioning itself as a “utility” on which other companies — spanning fintech upstarts, challenger brands, to incumbent banks that want to re-factor their tech — can build and sell various financial services or add fintech features to their products.

“Just like the water company – reliable, safe and works 24×7 and priced at utility pricing,” Verdon says of Railsbank, likening it to what Amazon has done for data centres with AWS. “Railsbank is a utility for the compete financial services backend: platform, connectivity, operations, scheme memberships (e.g. Visa), regulation, and compliance”.

As an example of what the Railsbank platform is capable of, Verdon described how SingLife was able within 2 days to develop a completely working digital banking app with a own debit card and support for bank transfers, including dedicated account numbers and sort codes etc.

This, he tells me, is made possible because the Railsbank platform and API provides all of the tech, compliance and integration “hooks” required to build a full banking experience.

Meanwhile, although the startup continues to count other fintech startups as customers, Verdon says Railsbank is also working with brands offering financial products (e.g. supermarkets, travel, retail) and what he dubs “old fin”: companies looking to replace their own costly tech with a platform solution.

“We are also working with banks to provide a complete utility infrastructure and payments/card/ops rails to reduce their… operational costs,” he tells me.

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Tala, a Santa Monica, California-headquartered startup that creates a credit profile to provide uncollateralized loans to millions of people in emerging markets, has raised $110 million in a new financing round to enter India’s burgeoning fintech space.

The Series D financing for the five year-old startup was led by RPS Ventures, with GGV Capital and previous investors IVP, Revolution Growth, Lowercase Capital, Data Collective VC, ThomVest Ventures, and PayPal also participating in the round.

The new round, which takes the startup’s total fundraising to $215 million, valued it above $500 million, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Tala has also raised an additional $100 million in debt, including a $50 million facility led by Colchis in last one year.

Tala looks at a customer’s data on texts and calls, merchant transactions, overall app usage, and other behavioral data through its Android app to build their credit profile. Based on these pieces of information, it provides instant loans in the range of $10 to $500 to customers.

The loans are approved within minutes and disbursed via mobile payment platforms. The startup has lent over $1 billion to more than 4 million customers to date — up from issuing $300 million in loan to 1.3 million customers last year, Shivani Siroya, founder and CEO of Tala, told TechCrunch in an interview.

The startup, which employs more than 550 people, will use the new capital to enter India, Siroya, who built Tala after interviewing thousands of small and micro-businesses, said. In the run up to launch in India, Tala began a 12-month pilot program in the country last year to conduct user research and understand the market. It has also set up a technology hub in Bangalore, she said.

Shivani Siroya (Tala CEO) at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2017

“The opportunity is very massive in India, so we spent some time customizing our service for the local market,” she said.

According to World Bank, more than 2 billion people globally have limited access to financial services and working capital. For these people, many of whom live in India, securing a small size loan is extremely challenging as they don’t have a credit score.

In recent years, several major digital payment platforms in India including Paytm and MobiKwik have started to offer small loans to users. Traditional banks are still lagging to serve this segment, industry executives say.

Tala goes a step further and takes liability for any unpaid returns, Siroya said. More than 90% of Tala customers pay back their loan in 20 to 30 days and are recurring customers, she added.

The startup also forwards the positive credit history and rankings to the local credit bureaus to help people secure bigger and long-term loans in the future, she added.

Tala, which charges a one-time fee that is as low as 5% for each loan, relies on referrals, and some marketing through radio and television to acquire new customers. “But a lot of these users come because they heard about us from their friends,” Siryoa said.

As part of the new financing round, Kabir Misra, Founding General Partner of RPS Ventures, has joined Tata’s board of directors, the startup said.

Tata will also use a portion of its new fund to expand its footprint and team in its existing markets — East Africa, Mexico, and the Philippines — and also build new solutions.

Siroya said the startup has identified some more markets where it plans to enter next. She did not disclose the names, but said she is eyeing more countries in South Asia and Latin America.

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