#DoneDeal FinTech | 2022 #6
Weekly news up to Friday, February 11th, 2022
REPORT
Following a record-shattering 2021, FinTech financing volume in January 2022 reached $13.3 billion across 296 deals, the fifth largest monthly volume ever – See all of the details in Financial Technology Partners / FT Partners’ Global Monthly Infographic here👇
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Swedish payments firm Klarna Bank AB is weighing plans to raise new money in a funding round that would cement its status as Europe’s most valuable startup, people familiar with the matter said.
The Stockholm-based company is likely to attract sovereign wealth and pension funds as new investors, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. Klarna could potentially fetch a valuation of roughly $50 billion to $60 billion based on preliminary estimates, though it hasn’t finalized a precise target, the people said.
The startup raised $639 million in June from investors including SoftBank Group Corp., Sequoia Capital, and Permira. That round valued the company at $45.6 billion.
👉 Read more here
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📊 INFOGRAPHIC
Infographic: BNPL Consolidation via M&A👇 by Flagship Advisory Partners. Link here
📰 ARTICLE
Download the full Silicon Valley Bank report on The State of U.S. Early-Stage Venture & Startups: 2021. 👉Link here
👨💻 BLOG
💡INSIGHTS
🦄 UNICORN CLUB
British FinTech Railsbank is eyeing up ‘unicorn’ status as it looks to raise $100m funding that would value the firm at over $1bn, according to news reports. Link here
British payments company GoCardless has just raised a $312m Series G funding round. That makes it the UK’s 22nd fintech unicorn — and the first to join the UK fintech unicorn club this year, according to Sifted’s calculations. Link here
💰 VC FUNDS
ICHI has announced that it raised $3.5 million in new funding to empower any crypto project with community-controlled DeFi capabilities that keep value locked in their community. Link here
Tribal Credit, a business-to-business payments and financing platform for emerging markets, has raised $60 million in a Series B funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp. Latin America Fund, with participation from Coinbase Ventures. The round brings total funding for Tribal up to $140 million. Link here
The Bengaluru-based Jar said on Thursday it has raised $32 million in its Series A financing round, just months after securing its seed funding. Link here
Streetbeat announced that it has closed $10M in seed funding led by TTV Capital with additional backing from investors including Seraph Group and AAF Management Ltd. Link here
Midas, a retail investing startup that gives access to US and Turkish equities in Turkey, announced that it has raised $11 million in equity funding. Link here
Dubai-based fintech Zywa (YC W22) gets backed by Y Combinator and closes a $1 million pre-Seed round for its teen neobank. Link here
Bitcoin payment processor and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider OpenNode announced Wednesday that it has raised $20 million in Series A financing – at a $220 million valuation – to help the company achieve its goal of making Bitcoin payments simple and accessible for everyone and everywhere. Link here
One of the UAE fastest growing FinTechs, Pyypl (pronounced “People”), announces it has closed a US$ 11 million series A financing round with participation from a diverse group of international family offices and HNWI’s. Link here
Sardine, a behaviour-based fraud and compliance platform for fintechs developed by Coinbase, Revolut and PayPal veterans, has raised $19.5 million in a Series A funding round. Link here
🤝 M&As
Fiserv has struck a deal to acquire cloud-based core banking player Finxact for around $650 million. Link here
Revolut India, the Indian registered entity of UK-based FinTech Revolut, announced the strategic acquisition of international money transfer company, Arvog Forex as part of its multi-million dollar investment into the country. Link here
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NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🎉 NOTABLE FUNDING ROUNDS
⭐️ Venture capital firm Founders Fund has led a new investment in Ramp, a corporate credit card and spending management software startup that is less than three years old, at an $8 billion valuation, including the investment, said two people familiar with the matter. Link here
⭐️ Brick has raised $8.5 million of funding in a Seed investment round led by prominent global venture capital investors Flourish Ventures and the global venture capital firm Antler. Link here
⭐️ Tonik the parent company of Tonik Digital Bank in the Philippines, announced that it closed a US$131M round of Series B equity funding. Link here
⭐️ Egyptian investment app Thndr has raised a $20 million Series A round to democratize investing in the Middle East and North Africa. Link here
⭐️Mos has raised a $40M Series B at a $400M valuation, led by Tiger Global and joined by returning investors Sequoia, Khaled Helioui, Expa, Emerson Collective, and Lux Capital. Link here
UK 🇬🇧
Selina Finance, a London-based alternative lender which provides credit to business and consumer borrowers by unlocking the value tied up in their property, has raised $35m in equity from Lightrock and $115m in debt from Goldman Sachs and GGC. Link here
UK credit technology platform Fintern has raised £8 million in its latest funding round. The investment brings the company’s total capital raised to £40 million. Link here
UK fintech investment topped $37.3bn (£27.5bn) in 2021, a sevenfold increase compared to 2020, as dealmaking activity soared. A recent study revealed that usage of certain payment services has exploded during 2021 with nearly a fifth of UK adults now using payments services offered by the likes of Klarna and Clearpay at least once a month. Link here
UK credit technology platform Fintern has raised £8 million in its latest funding round. The investment brings the company’s total capital raised to £40 million. Link here
EUROPE 🇪🇺
Vivid Money, a challenger bank out of Berlin with 500,000 customers, has raised €100 million ($114 million), in a round of funding led by Greenoaks Capital, with Ribbit Capital and new backer SoftBank Vision Fund 2 also participating. Link here
French startup Alma is trying to build a new “buy now, pay later” giant in Europe. The company has closed a $130 million Series C round (€115 million). It has also raised $109 million (€95 million) in debt financing. Link here
USA 🇺🇸
Amira Yahyaoui is expanding Mos into a challenger bank. The goal convinced a slew of investors to compete for a spot in Mos’ newest funding round, a $40 million Series B that values the company at $400 million, up from a $50 million valuation in May 2020. Link here
Sequoia Capital is playing catchup with arch-rival Andreessen Horowitz in the race to invest in what could be the future of the internet — so-called Web3. The Silicon Valley Ventures capital firm led a $450 million investment in Polygon Technology, a blockchain network. Link here
Revere, a New York-based capital markets network and deal marketplace for commercial real estate (“CRE”) brokers, developers, owners, lenders, and investors, raised $5M in funding. Link here
Micruity Inc., a San Francisco, CA-based platform that powers annuities inside 401(k) plans, closed $5.1M in seed financing. Link here
California-based Neo.Tax wants to apply machine learning to taxes, upgrading them “from an ancient pain into a modern advantage.” Or in other words, it wants to make taxes more of an asset than a liability for SMBs and startups. Link here
CANADA
Equitable Bank, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Equitable Group Inc., the Credit Union Central of Saskatchewan and Concentra Bank announced that Equitable has entered into definitive agreements by which Equitable will acquire a majority interest in Concentra, the 13th largest Schedule I bank in Canada with $11.3 billion in assets at November 30, 2021. Link here
Newton Crypto, a low-cost cryptocurrency trading platform for Canadians, today announced that it has completed a US$20 million (CAD$25 million) Series B funding round, led by the partners from DV Chain and with participation from CI Financial Corp., a global asset and wealth management firm, along with Singh Capital Partners, Anthony Pompliano, Tiny Capital and Snowdevil Capital (founded by Shopify co-founder Tobias Lütke). Link here
LATAM
Bold, a technology company working to enable financial access to electronic payments in Colombia, has raised $55 million in a Series B funding round led by Tiger Global Management. Link here
Flexio, a B2B payments platform serving companies in Latin America, has raised $3 million in seed funding, the company said in a news release Feb. 4. Link here
New fintech challenger R2 announced that it has raised a $5.9 million Seed round led by General Catalyst. Family office 166 2nd and Y Combinator also participated in the fundraising. Link here
ASIA
Vietnam-focused retail investing app Infina.vn announced they have closed US$6 million in seed funding from investors such as Sequoia India's Surge, Y Combinator, Saison Capital, Starling Ventures, Alpha JWC Ventures, and AppWorks. Link here
Razorpay announced its first international expansion into Southeast Asia with the acquisition of a majority stake in Curlec, a Malaysian payments firm. Though the amount was not disclosed, Harshil Mathur, CEO and Co-Founder, Razorpay said that the valuation of Curlec was roughly around US$ 20 million. Link here
Malaysian fintech company IIMMPACT announced that it has rasied US$2 million in seed funding from Sequoia India’s Surge, a rapid scale-up programme for startups in Southeast Asia and India. Link here
AUSTRALIA 🇦🇺
Commonwealth Bank of Australia on Monday announced it has acquired a 20% stake in Brisbane-based fintech Paypa Plane. Link here
Australia's Slyp has experienced a significant show of confidence from the country's big four banks, who have joined a further $25 million funding round in the digital receipt startup. Link here
MIDDLE EAST
Rewire, an Israeli financial services platform for migrant workers, has secured a $25 million strategic investment to bring insurance products to its users. Link here
AFRICA
PalmPay raised a $100 million Series A round last year. TechCrunch spotted this news in Partech Africa’s latest end-of-year report on venture capital investments in Africa. Link here
Grey (YCombinator W’22), which recently changed its name from Aboki Africa in a bid to use a more international-friendly moniker — announced that it has been accepted into Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 startup batch. Link here
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Financial Venture Studio (FVS) has named Cameron Peake, a former startup founder and advisor, as its newest partner. Peake will work out of Austin — where she recently moved from the Bay Area — and focus on early-stage investments in fintech companies. Link here
If you are a fintech startup and have over 100 questions send me an email, maybe I can answer a few.