Fintech Highlights - 5/14/2024
Charlesbank Capital Partners acquired Perspective Financial, a British financial advisory for both individuals and companies. Niro, an Indian embedded lending startup, raises a round.
Here's what we've been watching this week 👇
M&A
Charlesbank Capital Partners acquired Perspective Financial, a British financial advisory for both individuals and companies. More here ->
Ardonagh Group, a London insurer backed by Madison Dearborn and HPS Investment Partners, agreed to buy Australia's PSC Insurance (ASX: PSI) for A$2.26b. More here ->
Gallant Capital acquired Fime, a French company backed by Chequers Capital and Indigo Capital, plus the payments testing unit of UL Solutions (which will be merged into Fime). More here ->
Basware, a Finnish portfolio company of Accel-KKR, acquired AP Matching, a British platform for invoices and reconciling statements. More here ->
Bowhead Specialty, a New York property and casualty insurer, set IPO terms to 6.7m shares at $14-$16. It would have a $473m fully diluted market value, if it prices in the middle, and plans to list on the NYSE (BOW). Backers include Gallatin Point Capital. More here ->
TabaPay, a SoftBank portfolio company, abandoned plans to buy banking-as-a-service provider Synapse out of bankruptcy. Synapse had raised over $50m from firms like a16z, Trinity Ventures, and Core Innovation Capital. More here ->
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) agreed to buy around $5b in mortgage warehouse loans from New York Community Bancorp (NYSE: NYCB), the troubled lender that recently received a rescue investment from Steve Mnuchin's Liberty Strategic Capital.
Embedded Fintech
Niro, an Indian embedded lending startup, raised $4.3m from Marui Group, Elevar Equity, GMO Venture Partners, Rebright Partners, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance VC, ZNL Growth Fund, and Suneight. More here ->
Fintech
Monzo, a U.K. challenger bank, raised £150m in Series I funding from CapitalG, GV, HongShan Capital, Passion Capital, and Tencent. More here ->
Outpave, a Frisco, Texas spend management startup, raised $1.2m in seed funding led by Fritz-Pak Corp. More here ->
Roam, a New York assumable mortgage platform, raised $3m from Founders Fund. More here ->
Plenty, an SF financial planning app for couples, raised $5m in seed funding from Inovia Capital, Garage Capital, Otherwise Fund, and Interplay. More here ->
Butter, a startup addressing failed subscription payments, raised $10m at a $135m valuation from Atomic and Norwest Venture Partners, per Axios Pro. More here ->
Zeal, a British digital wallet, raised $2m from Gnosis. More here ->
Aplazo, a Mexican BNPL startup, raised $45m in Series B funding. QED Investors led, and was joined by Oak HC/FT, Kaszek, and Picus Capital. More here ->
Fintech Farm, a London neobank-in-a-box startup, raised $32m in Series B funding co-led by Nordstar and Bank of Georgia. More here ->
FinLocker, a white-label financial fitness app, raised $17m in Series B funding Radian Group and insiders. More here ->
Investtech
Provable Markets, a provider of APIs for the securities market, raised $8m in Series A funding. Dialectic Capital Management led, and was joined by Inkef Capital and Anthemis. More here ->
Polymarket, a New York prediction market, raised $45m in Series B funding. Founders Fund led, and was joined by insiders 1Confirmation and ParaFi. The company also disclosed a $25m Series A round led by General Catalyst. More here ->
⚡ Enspired, an Austrian power trading startup, raised €25.5m in Series B funding. Zouk Capital led, and was joined by Push VC, Banpu Next, Vopak Ventures and Presidio Ventures, Emerald Technology Ventures, Helen Ventures, 360 Capital, and EnBW New Ventures. More here ->
MNZL, an Egyptian asset-backed lending company, raised $3.5m in seed funding from P1 Ventures, Localglobe, and Ingressive Capital. More here ->
Crypto
Moso, a shop-to-earn platform that leverages crypto, raised $2m in seed funding from Symbolic Capital, Dao5, Coinlist, and Polygon Ventures. More here ->
Arbelos Markets, a New York liquidity provider for crypto derivatives markets, raised $28m. Dragonfly Capital led, and was joined by Room40 Ventures, Selini Capital, Breed VC, FalconX, and Circle Ventures. More here ->
Arch Labs, a Bitcoin-native application platform, raised $7m in seed funding. Multicoin Capital led, and was joined by Portal Ventures, OKX Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, CMS Holdings, and Tangent. More here ->
AgriDex, a British platform for tokenizing agricultural commodities, raised $5m. Endeavour Ventures led, and was joined by African Crops Limited, Oldenburg Vineyards, and Hank Oberoi. More here ->
Zest, a bitcoin lending protocol, raised $3.5m in seed funding led by Draper Associates. More here ->
Uxuy, a Singaporean multi-chain trading platform, raised $7m in seed funding from Binance Labs, Bitcoin Magazine, JDI Ventures, and Bixin Ventures. More here ->
Insuretech
CoverTree, a Detroit insurtech for owners of manufactured homes, raised $13m in Series A funding, per Axios Pro. Portage led, and was joined by AV8, Distributed Ventures, Detroit Venture Partners, Ludlow Ventures, and Annox Capital. More here ->
Proptech
Stonal, a French data management service for property owners and investors, raised €100m from Aareon. More here ->
From the Stash
Upstart automates 90% of unsecured loans in Q1 - Online lender Upstart automated 90% of its unsecured loans in the first quarter of 2024 as automation remained at the forefront of efforts to streamline its loan application process. Upstart originated $1.1 billion in personal loans, up 17% year over year, while home equity line of credit (HELOC) loan originations clocked in at $7 million More here ->
Envestnet invests in data, API solutions - Wealth-tech giant Envestnet is ramping up its investment in data and analytics to increase subscription-based revenue and create new products. The data and analytics business at Envestnet, which generates subscription-based revenues across open banking and alternative data offerings, generated revenue of $35 million in the first quarter, down 8% year over year. More here ->
FIs look to tech providers for RTP, FedNow onboarding - Adoption is ticking up for The Clearing House’ Real Time Payments network and the Federal Reserve’s FedNow payments rail as financial institutions add payment services to their platforms. The RTP network has more than 500 institutions on its network, according to The Clearing House’s website. More here ->
Instant payments company TabaPay has abandoned its plans to purchase the assets of troubled banking-as-a-service startup Synapse. - Synapse said the problem was banking partner Evolve Bank & Trust. And Evolve said it was not involved, and not to blame. Meanwhile, another player in the saga, Mercury, says Synapse’s allegations have “no merit.” What really happened? Perhaps one day we’ll find out. But for now we know for sure the $9.7 million deal is off.
Monzo has raised another $190 million, as the challenger bank looks to expand its presence internationally — particularly in the U.S. The new round comes just two months after Monzo raised $430 million, meaning the London-based company has now raised north of $620 million in 2024, and $1.5 billion since its inception nine years ago. More here ->
Ben Lambert founded an AI-powered workflow tools startup, Checkfirst, that allows for remote inspections and enables businesses to schedule inspectors based on geographical location and qualifications. The company has now raised a pre-seed $1.5 million led by Lisbon-based, early-stage venture firm Olisipo Way and solo GP firm Hiero VC. Notion Capital, and angel investors from companies like Source Point, Busuu, Swogo and FaceIT, also participated. More here ->
Digital banking startup Mercury is becoming a SaaS company, now layering software onto its bank accounts - This will give its business customers the ability to pay bills, invoice customers and reimburse employees, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The additional features put the company in even more direct competition with the likes of Brex and Ramp, two rival fintechs that have for years been fighting for market share in an increasingly crowded space. Mercury says that it has over 200,000 customers sending $4 billion in outgoing payments every month via its platform.
Reports / Webinars
The wealth management space has only just begun what is going to be a sustained period of change thanks to the Great Wealth Transfer and the emergence of an entirely new wealth generation, with an entirely new set of expectations.
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