Hi there!
Before we dive into this week’s news overview, I would like to shine a light on the ‘Connecting the Dots in Payments’ newsletter that I launched last week together with my friend and fellow FinTech Geek Wouter de Vries.
Every Thursday we will summarize the latest Global Paytech News of that week for you to stay up to date on all things in digital payments. Sign up for this great newsletter and let me do the heavy lifting for you in sourcing and curating the news.
Many thanks for your support and enjoy this newsletter!
Cheers,
Marcel
WEEKLY FUNDRAISING ACTIVITY
Last week we saw 13 European FinTech Funding deals for a total of 314.6m€ raised.
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
General Atlantic poured another $100 million into PhonePe, three months after leading a $350 million investment.
The ongoing round values the Bengaluru-headquartered startup at $12 billion. PhonePe is eyeing to raise as much as another $250 million in the ongoing round.
🤝 M&As
Paymerang announced the asset acquisition of KwikTag, an invoice automation provider for Microsoft Dynamics ERP systems, and the share acquisition of Sypht.
UAE telecoms and technology company e& signed a $400 million deal to acquire a majority stake in Careem’s Super App spinout from Uber.
Walmart acquired Trafalgar, an electronic payment institution in Mexico. This is part of a larger trend of retailers and tech companies expanding into financial services.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🎉 NOTABLE FUNDING ROUNDS
⭐️ Clear Street raised $270 million in the second tranche of a Series B funding round at a $2 billion valuation.
⭐️ Pro Platforms exited stealth mode following the close of a $4.7m funding round from Social Leverage and Aperture VC.
⭐️ Altruist raised $112 million in a Series D funding round led by Insight Partners and Adams Street.
⭐️ AFG Partners closed its $30-million debut fund focused on B2B fintech opportunities in Asia and globally.
UK 🇬🇧
TerraPay raised $100m in equity and debt financing in its Series B round by IFC and supported by Prime Ventures, Partech Africa.
EUROPE 🇪🇺
SME Finance, a lender to small businesses based in Lithuania, agreed a new €100m credit facility with Fasanara Capital.
FIS.solutions received €250K from Expansion Capital to scale its operations by adding new members to the team.
USA 🇺🇸
Fire, a web3 fraud prevention startup, raised $3.5 million in funding led by Atomic to simplify and secure user transactions with its browser extension.
CAT Labs bagged $4.3m in its pre-seed round. The round was headed by Castle Island Ventures, Brevan Howard Digital, RW3 Ventures and CMT Digital.
LATAM
Pacto raised $4M from venture capital investors to take its business to a national level and to win over the Mexican POS market for the restaurant industry.
ASIA
GIC increased its stake in United States-Israeli fintech Pagaya Technologies from roughly 7% to 9%.
BankBazaar.com plans to launch IPO and aims to get listed in next 12-18 months.
MIDDLE EAST
Qlub raised $25 million in a fresh round of funding, bringing the company's total Seed capital to $42 million.
Hakbah, the Saudi-based fintech savings platform, announces its successful closing of a US$2 million, pre-Series A, funding round.
If you are a fintech startup and have over 100 questions send me an email, maybe I can answer a few.