Is the music stopping? - (13/03)

Is the music stopping? - (13/03)

Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

The big news last week was the rapid collapse of SVB and SVB UK, both of which were taken over by regulators. ย Insured deposits are likely to be paid out quickly on Monday, the recovery of the remainder of depositors assets will be a managed process likely to take more time.

The TWIF slack has a dedicated channel for folks with questions and founders looking for new banking alternatives. ย You can join the Slack here and participate.

Will this cause a shift in banking behaviour of businesses in the longer term? I would think customers are likely to spread their deposits across multiple bank accounts but that can become unmanageable with large amounts.

Please find another week of fintech news, financings and exits below.


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Funding ๐Ÿ’ธ

Highlights below of deals since the last post in the fintech space across the UK & Europe.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ B2B financing Aria raised a โ‚ฌ50m debt facility.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บTry before you buy fintech Elyn raised a โ‚ฌ2.5m pre-seed round led by Headline and Sequoia Arc.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Crypto tax platform Divly raised a $400k pre-seed round from Young Entrepreneurs of Sweden, Greens Ventures and DHS Venture Partners.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ AI liquidity platform Tidely raised a โ‚ฌ3.5m seed round led by TX Ventures.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Investment platform Change raised a โ‚ฌ2m seed round from Andromeda Capital.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Data platform wealth managers Aisot raised CHF 1.8m from Swiss ICT Investors Club and Haute Capital Partners.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Payments platform NX Technologies raised an โ‚ฌ11m Series A from Motive Partners and others.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Expense management software solution N2JSoft raised a โ‚ฌ24m round from PSG.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Lender Abound raised a ยฃ500m debt and equity round from Citi, Waterfall Asset Management, K3 Ventures, GSR Ventures and Hambro Perks.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Digital identity provider Yoti secured a ยฃ10m investment from Lloyds Bank.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง POS provider for hospitality sector Grafterr raised ยฃ100k.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Business banking provider ANNA Money raised $2.7m from angel investor Alex Fork.

๐ŸŒ Student debt platform Candidly raised a $10.5m Series B led by Altos Ventures.

๐ŸŒ Australian payments fintech Till Payments secured a $70m Series D.

๐ŸŒ Socure raised a $95m debt facility from JP Morgan, SVB and KeyBanc.

Challenger Banking ๐Ÿš€

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Rumours surround the culture at N26 after its risk officer left and with total senior departures numbering 20 since 2020 and a poor relationship between founders and management.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง BaaS platform Griffin has become a bank, after securing a banking licence from FCA. Its authorisation has some limitations on deposit amounts and payment services.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Starling Bank is creating 1,000 jobs in Manchester as part of a northern expansion and likely to help with costs.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งVibePay won its trademark dispute against Japanese company Rakuten.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Neobroker Freetrade is more than doubling the FX fee on its basic free tier, from 0.45% to 0.99% and also increasing fees on its paid tiers as it attempts to increase revenues.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Payment automation platform Numeral launches in the UK next week to help companies in the UK access the SEPA in the EU and fight IBAN discrimination.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Digital mortgage lender Molo has been acquired by Australian lender ColCap.

๐ŸŒ Amazon has partnered with online mortgage lender Better.com to offer its employees a way to use their vested equity for a down payment on homes.

๐ŸŒ Brex is integrating ChatGPT into its platform to automatically parse receipts and invoices to extract data.

๐ŸŒ Payroll and benefits platform for independent workers Catch has shut down.

Digital Assets โ‚ฟ

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ German regulator BaFin is investigating Uniswap.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Crypto payments provider BCB Group plans to offer fiat USD to crypto rails to take advantage of the issues at Silvergate and its closed SEN network.

๐ŸŒ Silvergate Bank has gone into liquidation after more customers are fled, causing the price of Bitcoin to drop. Circle, Crypto.com, Bitstamp, Cboe, Galaxy Digital and Gemini have suspended business with the beleaguered crypto bank. Silvergate also asked for more time to prepare its 2022 accounts and shut its SEN network.

๐ŸŒDapper Labs has laid off another 20% of staff whilst rumours of the CEOs extravagant spending habit and a culture if bullying have surfaced.

๐ŸŒ An SEC attorney has said the agency believes Binance.US is operating as an unregistered securities exchange.

๐ŸŒ ByBit has suspended its USD deposits via wire transfer due to issues with the processing partner.

๐ŸŒ FTX is suing Grayscale Investments in a bid to recoup the full value of the shares it holds (currently trading at a discount) to recoup for creditors.

๐ŸŒ Objections to Binance.US acquisition of the assets of Voyager Digital were overruled by a US bankruptcy judge, although the deal is still not finalised and the US DOJ wants to appeal.

๐ŸŒ US regulators have blocked the SEC from punishing executives at Voyager Digital who are creating a new crypto to help repay customers.

๐ŸŒ Coinbase purchased One River Digital, an asset management provider as it seeks to diversify its revenues.

๐ŸŒ USDC has depegged following the announcement from Circle that some $3bn of its funds are stuck at the now defunct SVB.

Traditional Banking ๐Ÿฆ

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ The Central Bank of Ireland is blocking staff using ChatGPT.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Nationwide is overhauling its payment infrastructure with the help of Form3 and Accenture.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Silicon Valley Bank UK, the UK arm of the US bank, has been placed into a "Bank Insolvency Procedure after it applied for nearly ยฃ2bn in liquidity. ย Depositors will be paid out the ยฃ85,000 quickly and liquidators managing the remaining assets.

๐ŸŒ After trading of Silicon Valley Bank stock was halted late last week and a stock sale failed, the regulator stepped in to shut down SVB, causing chaos amongst the startup and VC community. Depositors will receive up to the $250,000 insured amount on Monday.

Fintech Infrastructure ๐Ÿšง

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งIndustry body Innovate Finance is calling on regulators to extend open banking to include savings accounts, credit and mortgages to help consumers with the cost of living crisis.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง The UK's Pensions Dashboard project, think a way for consumers to have an overview of their pensions in one place, has been delayed for a second time.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งEmbedded finance provider Weavr has acquired B2B payments platform Comma Payments.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Embedded banking platform Railsr looks set to be sold through a pre-pack administration process to existing investors led by D Square Capital.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง London Stock Exchange Group is to partner with Mastercard to utilise its open banking solutions to offer secure account verification for customers.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Thought Machine signed US digital bank HMBradley as a customer for its core banking product. The digital bank also signed as a customer of sponsor bank NYCB.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Yapily has signed BNPL provider Zilch to improve its credit decisioning.

๐ŸŒ US BaaS platform Synctera is partnering with National Bank of Canada to expand in North America.

Payments ๐Ÿ’ฐ

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Adyen has embedded its click-to-pay experience into online checkout flows to speed up the checkout process and remove the need for a lot of manual data to be entered via using a previously used stored card.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Mercedes is introducing in-car fingerprint payments to its Germany drivers

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ BNPL provider Scalapay acquired payment provider Cabel IP to grow in Europe.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง mPOS has launched the next generation of its POS device for SMBs.

๐ŸŒ A CFPB report finds that many BNPL users are using the product out of choice and not due to financial stress. ย Lower credit score users are attractive compared to the higher rates of alternatives.

๐ŸŒ WhatsApp has been given the green light to allow its users to make payments to businesses in Brazil.

๐ŸŒ US Senators are pushing regulators to tackle fraud related to Zelle.

๐ŸŒ Affirm is exiting the Australia market due to competitive pressure and macroeconomic headwinds.


Longer reads ๐Ÿ“œ


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