Nilson Ivano

Cross-border payments could drop from $25-35 per transaction to just $1 - a staggering 95% cost reduction that will reshape global finance. Just analyzed McKinsey & SWIFT's latest research on the future of international payments, and the numbers reveal a seismic shift ahead. ↳ Stats that demand attention: 1/ Cross-border revenues hit $200B globally, representing 27% of all transaction revenues despite being only 1/6th of total transaction values 2/ Average revenue per cross-border transaction remains at $20+ vs domestic payments approaching $1 3/ Transaction volumes growing 6% annually while average ticket sizes dropped from $61k to $33k (2007-2016) 4/ Banking compliance costs consume up to 10% of revenues vs 3-5% for non-banks 5/ 0.7 annual cross-border transactions per capita globally (up from 0.5 in 2014) 6/ Cross-border flows average 1.8x global GDP, ranging from 0.7x in LatAm to 5.5x in Western Europe ↳ Three insights reshaping the industry: 1/ Market Fragmentation Accelerating > Customer-driven fragmentation replacing provider-led standards > Growth shifting from traditional B2B trade to ecommerce, remittances, and marketplace disbursements > SMEs gaining access to international payments previously reserved for large corporates 2/ Hidden Infrastructure Reality > Banks maintain liquidity advantage non-banks cannot replicate for large-value flows > Exception handling and claims management represent the largest cost differentials vs domestic payments > Regulatory convergence eliminating non-bank competitive advantages over time 3/ Economic Model Transformation > Revenue models shifting from transaction fees to service-based approaches and data monetization > "Clean" payments on major corridors already approaching commodity pricing > Premium pricing will persist only for specialized, high-touch, or exception-heavy transactions ↳ My take 1/ Scale Still Matters: Having built payments infrastructure, I've seen how liquidity management separates survivors from casualties. Non-banks promising $1 transactions often rely on banking partners for the heavy lifting. 2/ Regional vs Global: The "Single Global Payment Area" remains utopian due to geopolitical realities. Success requires mastering regional corridors first-exactly what we learned scaling across SEA's fragmented regulatory landscape. 3/ Tech vs Infra: DLT and blockchain get headlines, but correspondent banking processes the billions. The real innovation happens in exception handling, not rails. The $25-35 to $1 cost reduction requires operational transformation, not just new tech. 4/ Customer Experience Convergence: B2B payments are becoming consumerized. Corporate treasurers now expect Amazon-like experiences. Which factor will most determine cross-border payments winners by 2030? A) Regulatory arbitrage advantages B) Liquidity management capabilities C) Customer experience integration D) Technology infrastructure superiority

220

87 comentários

What happens to Series A startups? We think of Series A as a major checkpoint in a startup's lifecycle, often as evidence of product-market fit. But raising Series A is no guarantee of anything, really. Data below is from 4,514 US startup using Carta that raised their Series A rounds from 2019-2021. We did a simple check-in to answer the question: how far have they gotten? 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟵 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝘀 • 52% of Series As from 2019 made it to Series B • 21% made it to Series C (so far) • 6% to Series D (so far) 26% of 2019 Series A companies are still kicking at Series A 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝘀 • 54% of Series As from 2020 made it to Series B (ZIRP boost!) • 16% made it to Series C (so far) • 3% to Series D (so far) 27% of 2020 Series A companies are still kicking at Series A 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝘀 • 35% of Series As from 2021 made it to Series B (end-of-ZIRP decline) • 7% made it to Series C (so far) • 1.3% to Series D (so far) 50% of 2021 Series A companies are still kicking at Series A. I think one of the biggest remaining questions in venture is this: what happens to companies that had raised significant VC money before the AI explosion really began in late 2022? Will they be able to re-ignite growth to catch up to new AI-native rates? If not, will they be able to get to profitability and exit the venture track meet on their own terms? And failing that, are there really any major buyers for those companies left? We're talking about many, many startups in this bucket. More than 1,000 startups using Carta raised Series A in 2021 and haven't raised a round since. The more time passes, the more I worry about those cohorts 😬 #startups #SeriesA #SeriesB #founders #venturecapital  

259

50 comentários

If you want to stay on top of the latest trends and developments in the startup and venture capital ecosystem, these 30 charts from Carta will give you a clear and insightful picture. Some key insights: 1. Q2 2025- Total capital raised by startups using Carta stands $23.7B 2. New round every 18 months is not happening - Seed to Series A- 1.6year to 2.1year - Series A to Series B- 1.8year to 2.6year - Series B to Series C- 1.7year to 2.5year 3. Interestingly, Seed stage valuations are at all-time highs- $15.6mn and Series A valuation is $49.5mn 4. For AI SaaS companies at the Seed stage, median pre-money valuation is $18.1mn, whereas for non-AI companies, the valuation is $12.9mn. And at Series A pre-money valuation stands at $54mn and $43 mn simultaneously. 5. Median Dilution per round: - Priced Seed- 20.1%- 20.2% - Series A- 19% to 20.4% - Series B- 14.5% to 16% - Series C- 13% to 12% - Series D- 7.8% to 14% - Series E- 6.2% to 7.7% 6. ARR at Series A: - Top Quartile- $6.8mn - Median- $2.9mn - Bottom Quartile- $1.3mn 7. Team sizes are shrinking across stages 8. Hiring timeline: Average Days from Incorporation to - First hire- 320- 476 days - Second hire- 393- 552 days - Third hire- 476- 628 days 9. Equity Grants for top 8 hires: 75th Percentile - Hire 1- 4% - Hire 2- 2% - Hire 3- 1.2% - Hire 4- 1% - Hire 5- 0.8% - Hire 6- 0.66% - Hire 7- 0.55% - Hire 8- 0.5% 10. Ownership Check in: Pre-Fundraising - Founding Team- 89.5% - Advisors- 0.5% - Employee Pool- 10% After Fundraising (median Ownership): - Founding Team- 56.2% - Employee Pool- 11.8% - Investors in Round- 21% - All prior investors- 11% 11. Ownership check in: after Series A- Founders are below 50% 12. Median total investor ownership crosses 50% between Series A and Series B 13. Q1 2025 data shows a rise in M&A activities, reaching 180 deals, while Q2 recorded a total of 150 deals. 14. Regarding IPOs- let’s see and wait Thank you, Peter Walker, for creating this beautiful document. ~~~~~ ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost it so your network can learn from it, too. And follow me, Fazlur Shah, for more content like this. #startups #entrepreneurship #venturecapital #investing

81

4 comentários

Y Combinator just dropped their Fall 2025 request for startups.   Think of it less as a list of ideas and more as a window into what one of the most influential early-stage investors is prepared to fund right now.   This fall, they don't want AI as a feature. They want companies where AI is the foundation.   A few that stand out to me:   1/ Labor markets Everyone talks about GPUs, no one talks about electricians. The AI boom is hitting physical limits — welders, HVAC techs, and pipefitters. This fits into the narrative of who controls the supply chain of human capital for building AI’s infrastructure.   2/ Enterprise software The winners won’t be AI clones of Salesforce or Oracle. They’ll create net-new workflows that only make sense when AI is embedded by default. Just like SaaS winners weren’t just cloud ERP, they reinvented categories.   3/ Infrastructure Multi-agent systems look like toys today. In 5 years, they’ll look like AWS circa 2006 — “boring infra” that quietly underpins everything. Debugging, orchestration, observability… the tools are missing, and the founders who solve this will own the picks and shovels of the next wave.   4/ Market structures A 10-person, $100B company is less about efficiency and more about valuation paradigms breaking. Capital markets don’t know how to price that yet. Whoever figures out the funding model for these ultra-lean giants will make fortunes.   When you read YC’s list, don’t take it as “here are businesses to copy.” Read it as “here are the places where the economy is under stress.” That’s where the next enduring companies will be built.   Thanks to Rubén Domínguez Ibar for breaking it down into the visual.   #Venturecapital #AI #Deeptech #Startups   Follow us at APEX Ventures and subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive content on groundbreaking Deep Tech startups: 🔗 https://t2m.io/EV2qHQuo

126

6 comentários

Most founders overcomplicate growth strategy. If you're below $1,000,000 a year, do this: ❌ Avoid: - Testing 50 new ads per week - Tweaking sales script every call - Changing your landing page monthly ✅ Instead: - Clearly map your customer journey - Start collecting data on every step - Research industry 𝗯𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝘀 - Spot your biggest bottleneck - Fix it, then do a new one Focus on this until you get big enough so you have specific teams and departments, working on individual parts of the process. Until then, here's how you can do it: 𝟭/ 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 ↳ List all major steps people take from their first interaction with your business. 💡 Pro tip: Add steps after the sale, like activation, retention, referrals, etc. 𝟮/ 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽 ↳ Gather all metrics in a simple Google Sheet this will help you understand what's up. 💡 Pro tip: alongside conversion rates, track the time it takes to pass each stage. 𝟯/ 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝘀 ↳ Ask ChatGPT, talk to people, spy on competitors, read industry reports, listen to podcasts... Find the data! You need to know what's considered a good CTR, good contact rate, good close rate in your space, for businesses of similar size and services. 𝟰/ 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗸 ↳ Compare the success of your user journey with industry 𝗯𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝘀. Find the most lagging. 💁‍♂️ Example: Your contact rate is 40%, the industry average is 60% while your close rate is 10%, the industry average is 30%. Your contact rate is 1.5 times smaller than 'average.' Your close rate is 3 times smaller than the 'average.' Rank all your bottlenecks like that and work on what sucks the most. 💡 Pro tip: sometimes your close rate is bad because you don't qualify prospects enough. Keep in mind that each stage affects the next one. 𝟱/ 𝗙𝗶𝘅 𝗶𝘁, 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗮 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 ↳ Now, when you lined up your bottlenecks, analyzed probable causes, and picked one to fix. Dive into tactics if you don't know how to do it. 💁‍♂️ Example: You figured that your close rate sucks, so this is your target to solve. Why tho? • Google how to increase close rate • Read a chapter from a book • Watch a YouTube video • Ask your mentor • Figure it out 1. Close the knowledge gap. 2. Come up with the hypothesis. 3. Implement the change and test. Worked? — Great. ↳ Move to the next problem to solve. Didn't? — Great. ↳ Lesson learned. Try another way. This is about as complex as it should be before $1M. Good luck! P.S. Do you use benchmarks in your strategy? ♻️ Repost to help founders simplify growth. ➕ Follow for more business growth insights.

69

38 comentários

Top 10 fundraising resources for startup founders: 1. 70 Pitch Decks That Raised Over $1 Billion in 2024 📈💰: https://lnkd.in/dKKZASXM 2. 38 Y Combinator 1 Min Pitch Decks (X25) that raised millions: https://lnkd.in/dWVKyS8P 3. The Data Room Template VCs love: https://lnkd.in/d9SRw3jj 4. The Family Office List: https://lnkd.in/dyCUa3Dd 5. The Angel Investor List: https://lnkd.in/dQpQCkvq 6. How to Raise Venture Capital in 2025 from tier 1 VCs:https://lnkd.in/dfWa_HKH 7. Creandum fundraising Toolbox, from Seed to Series A: https://lnkd.in/dZSp8XRA 8. The Sequoia Fundraising Pack: https://lnkd.in/du7ShPUy 9.The Complete Startup Equity Guide: https://lnkd.in/dSCjrrck 10. The Khosla Ventures Fundraising Pack: https://lnkd.in/dFu3cpqY Save for when you are raising & repost so it helps more founders🔥

298

15 comentários