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I suspect you are on to something. Maybe they were waiting for valuations to return to earth? The make versus buy decision was much harder when these platform

I suspect you are on to something. Maybe they were waiting for valuations to return to earth? The make versus buy decision was much harder when these platforms were richly valued. I could a lot of acquisitions in the coming months as capital moves out of growth at all costs fintech space and startups need a lifeline.

TuringNYC 5y ago
I think the "build" can be considered a clear failure at this point, it would take 10min on the JPM "platform" to see that. Not acquiring ShareBuilder was a major loss, especially given that CapitalOne purchased ShareBuilder, took the customers, and killed the platform. Not sure why the platform couldnt have been spun off to JPM (?except perhaps competition?) GS purchased FolioFN, which was a lesser player, but still a decent platform. JPM is going to have to gulp down M1 Finance and pay for being so slow to the acquisition game <-- My prediction! Online brokerages selling order flow are very profitable, so even the "buy" decision seems like a no-brainer given the obvious monetization route. DRIP-style investment is even stickier -- you set it and forget it. Make it part of the Premier/Sapphire tiers and people dont want to move at all.
- somethoughts 5y ago
  No doubt building is always harder than it looks and it looks like JPM tried to build with Finn and stopped awhile back. GS seems to also have Marcus which is still going at least? I wouldn't count JPM out though. I'd imagine they have been bulking up on cash by taking on debt for future acquisitions while interest rates were/have been low. They know this game well. Now that interest rates are starting normalize - they can now go pick the best of the best them - be it HOOD, SOFI, etc. at more reasonable valuations (or at least 50%+ of their 2021 peaks). Does HOOD at $50B make more sense or maybe just wait until it hits $8B. Plus the DAUs are more stabilized now that the hype has died down. And you get Dodd Frank compliant/audited accounting data instead of VC style EBITDA/DAU only data? In addition they can pick based on who's app is actually the most sticky/metrics and get to see all the apps internal metrics while doing "due diligence for a potential aquisition".

TuringNYC 5y ago

I think the "build" can be considered a clear failure at this point, it would take 10min on the JPM "platform" to see that. Not acquiring ShareBuilder was a major loss, especially given that CapitalOne purchased ShareBuilder, took the customers, and killed the platform. Not sure why the platform couldnt have been spun off to JPM (?except perhaps competition?) GS purchased FolioFN, which was a lesser player, but still a decent platform. JPM is going to have to gulp down M1 Finance and pay for being so slow to the acquisition game <-- My prediction! Online brokerages selling order flow are very profitable, so even the "buy" decision seems like a no-brainer given the obvious monetization route. DRIP-style investment is even stickier -- you set it and forget it. Make it part of the Premier/Sapphire tiers and people dont want to move at all.

somethoughts 5y ago
No doubt building is always harder than it looks and it looks like JPM tried to build with Finn and stopped awhile back. GS seems to also have Marcus which is still going at least? I wouldn't count JPM out though. I'd imagine they have been bulking up on cash by taking on debt for future acquisitions while interest rates were/have been low. They know this game well. Now that interest rates are starting normalize - they can now go pick the best of the best them - be it HOOD, SOFI, etc. at more reasonable valuations (or at least 50%+ of their 2021 peaks). Does HOOD at $50B make more sense or maybe just wait until it hits $8B. Plus the DAUs are more stabilized now that the hype has died down. And you get Dodd Frank compliant/audited accounting data instead of VC style EBITDA/DAU only data? In addition they can pick based on who's app is actually the most sticky/metrics and get to see all the apps internal metrics while doing "due diligence for a potential aquisition".