Fintech Highlights - 3/22/2022

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Last month, Flutterwave became Africa’s highest-valued startup with a $3 billion valuation after raising $250 million in a Series D round of funding.

The six-year-old company started out as a payment processor, headquartered in San Francisco and based in Lagos. Over the years it’s grown to serve 900,000 businesses, with investors believing it’s building one of the most consequential fintech businesses in the world as Flutterwave expands its offering. For example, it launched a new remittance product last year, Send, for sending money to local bank accounts, mobile wallets, and cash pick-up locations across various countries around the world.

Ambitions reach beyond finance too with products like Flutterwave Grow, which provides business incorporation services. Flutterwave says it can help you can register a business in the US, UK, and Nigeria in 3 to 5 business days.

The funding announcement instigated recognition of funding growth for African fintech overall. Crunchbase data shows that Africa-headquartered fintech companies raised $2 billion in 2021, up from $230 million in 2020, and that doesn’t include Flutterwave since it’s based in the US.

With Flutterwave seriously shooting for the moon (its mission is “to create endless possibilities for customers and businesses in Africa and emerging markets”) and a ton of funds, expect acquisitions. More of them. The company already recently acquired Disha, another eCommerce store builder, and payment gateway CinetPay.

To dive more into Africa’s tech ecosystem, you can check out Built in Africa, a platform sharing stories and connecting African trailblazers.

The BFD

Navi Technologies, an India-based fintech offering loans and insurance, filed for an IPO in its home country to raise roughly $440 million.

Why it matters: This would be the most significant amount of outside funding Navi has raised since its founding — and a rare IPO at a time when few are willing to venture into the public market.

By the numbers: Navi posted income of about $93.9 million and a loss of about $27.9 million for the nine months ending December 2021.

Of note: Co-founder Sachin Bansal has largely funded Navi to its current stage and holds more than 97% of it, per the company’s prospectus.

• It's a far cry in terms of capital structure from Bansal's last company, Flipkart. That e-commerce business is majority-owned by Walmart and has raised from the likes of SoftBank and Accel.
• Bansal no longer owns a stake in Flipkart, though he is facing a handful of lawsuits from those days, per the filing.

The intrigue: Going public at this time may not have been Navi's first choice. Prior to this filing, the company sought funding from SoftBank at a $4 billion valuation, per TechCrunch, but that deal fell apart.

Fintechs

Cross River Bank, a Fort Lee, N.J.-based lender to fintech companies, is closing in on a $600m investment at a valuation north of $3b, per Bloomberg. Andreessen Horowitz and Eldridge Industries are co-leading, with T. Rowe Price and Whale Rock also participating.  More here ->

Ramp, a New York-based corporate card and spend management platform, confirmed earlier reports that it raised $200m in equity led by Founders Fund at an $8.1b valuation. It also secured $550m in new debt financing. More here ->

Stellar, an Austin, Texas-based credit-building startup, raised $7M. Stellar is a platform that aims to help consumers build credit. To do this, the service will consolidate users’ bills and pay them on their behalf. In turn, Stellar will report these on-time payments to credit bureaus to establish positive history. Additionally, the company notes that customers can earn rewards and cashback that can be redeemed when paying their connected bills. More here ->

Capitolis, a New York-based SaaS for helping banks pool trading resources, raised $110m in Series D funding at a $1.6b valuation. Capitolis is already working with more than 100 big banks, and it says that it has transacted over $60 billion “notional” from over 30 investors and has optimized over $13 trillion in trades through its “compression and novation engine” — all numbers that are up over the last year. More here ->

Finally, a Miami-based accounting and finance automation startup for small businesses raised $95m in Series A equity and debt funding. Finally enables companies to automate back office functions. Businesses can connect their bank and credit accounts and get immediate visibility into how their company is doing. With the launch of its corporate charge card, the company plans to make over $1 billion in credit available to small businesses.  More here ->

Kyash, a Japanese mobile financial app, raised $41m in Series D funding. Kyash offers a mobile banking app that enables consumers to make online and offline payments, remittances, and ATM withdrawal services. In addition, Kyash, the issuer of Visa cards, provides flexibility by issuing virtual and physical pre-paid debit cards.  More here ->

Payrails, an “operating system for payments,” raised $6.4m in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Payrails has built what its CEO and co-founder, Orkhan Abdullayev, describes as the “operating system for payments. More here ->

Helcim, a Canadian small business payments startup, raised C$16m in Series A funding. Helcim has built a payment acceptance solution for businesses spanning point-of-sale offerings, invoicing, a card vault, and e-commerce tools, such as its hosting service for online stores. More here ->

ClearBank, a British ranking rails provider, raised £175M. The company has built a new set of cloud-based financial rails that allows banks and other customers real-time clearance on payment transactions and other financial services. More here ->

Navi Technologies, an Indian fintech offering loans and insurance, filed for a local $440m IPO.  More here ->

Multiplier, an Indian remote work payment startup, raised $60m in Series B funding at a $400m valuation. The startup’s main product is an Employer of Record (EOR) solution that allows it to partner with clients, acting as the legal employer of their employees and enabling them to comply with local labor and tax laws. More here ->

Silent Eight, a Singapore-based compliance platform for financial institutions, raised $40m in Series B funding.  http://axios.link/DoNp

Crypto

Magic Eden, a Solana-based NFT marketplace, raised $27m in Series A funding. The firm claims to be the largest NFT marketplace on the Solana blockchain having surpassed transaction volume of more than 7.5 million SOL over the last six months. It also boasts over 90% market share for NFT games secondary-trading volume. More here ->

CoinRoutes, a Miami-based algo trading platform for digital assets, raised $16m in Series B funding. CoinRoutes began operations in 2017 and has been providing the institutional community with pure-play crypto SaaS trading technology for over five years More here ->

Prime Protocol, a decentralized prime brokerage that will work on multiple blockchains at once, raised $2.75M. Prime Protocol aims to refine DeFi a bit more, but crypto lending still has a long way to go before it can match the liquidity and flexibility of traditional finance. More here ->

Insuretechs

Cowbell Cyber, a Pleasanton, Calif.-based provider of cyber insurance for SMEs, raised $100M. More here ->

Socotra, an Austin, Texas-based insurance core platform, raised $50m in Series C funding. Founded in 2014, Socotra offers a a modern core platform. It now powers dozens of different insurance products for insurers across three continents. Customers include AXA, Mutual of Omaha, Symetra, MS Amlin, and IAG, as well as leading insurtech MGAs such as Hippo and Bamboo Insurance. More here ->

Policygenius, a New York-based online insurance marketplace, raised $125m in Series E funding. More here ->

Protech

Snappt, an LA-based provider of fraud detection solutions for property managers, raised $100m in Series A funding. www.snappt.com

From the Stash

The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Fintech Rules As Acorns And Stax Take In Big Deals — news.crunchbase.com After a slow-down of funding announcements last week—for obvious reasons— things got back to normal a little bit.

APIs Are Transforming Banking—But Not The Banks Themselves — www.forbes.com The number of application programming interfaces (APIs) being used in banking is growing, and it’s time for banks—even (and especially) those that rely on vendor applications—to get a handle on their API strategy.

TransUnion to Add BNPL to Reports (sort of); Citi Ends Overdraft Fees — fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com Goldman Seeks to Punish Walmart Defectors, Chime's IPO Plans Delayed

Canada’s Top 50 Fintech Companies and Startups For 2022 | Hardbacon — hardbacon.ca To save you some time searching, we’ve filtered hundreds of Canadian Fintech that have a bright future and put them into this list.

Reports / Webinars

The LiiP with LeX Tan, CEO, MotionsCloud, Ep75 — www.wearefinpro.com We may place these for analysis of our visitor data, to improve our website, show personalised content and to give you a great website experience. For more information about the cookies please visit our Privacy Policy.

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