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The Front Page of Global Fintech

The the largest fintech community in the world. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest in news opinions, and all things financial technology.

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This Week in Fintech UK & Europe (18/07)

This Week in Fintech UK & Europe (18/07)

Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

Just to let you know there will be no TWIF UK & Europe for the next two weeks ( 25th July and 1st August) but we will return to normal service on 7th August. Hope you all manage to stay cool in the meantime.

Please find another week of fintech news, financings and exits below. If you are reading this but havenโ€™t already subscribed, you can click below ๐Ÿ™

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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‡บKlarnaโ€™s rumoured funding round was confirmed, an $800m round at a $6.7bn valuation.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บDigital wealth manager RIDE Capital raised a โ‚ฌ3m seed round from angel ย including Lea-Sophie Cramer, Verena Pausder and footballer Mario Gotze.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Migrant employee payment fintech Kadmos raised a โ‚ฌ29m Series A from Atlantic Labs, Blossom Capital and Addition VC.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Digital mortgage software provider Oper raised a โ‚ฌ11m Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners and ABN Amro.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Business spend management provider Fuell raised a โ‚ฌ1.5m Series A led by YC and Fin Capital.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Alternative asset marketplace Stableton raised CHF 15m from TX Ventures.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Crypto lending DAO Morpho raised a $18m round co-led by a16z and Variant.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Swedish investor information app Quartr extended its seed round by $2.6m.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บClimate investing fintech Carbon Equity raised a โ‚ฌ1.8m Seed round from 4Impact, Wi Venture and AENU.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บB2B payments provider Hero raised a $12.4m Series A from Rapyd Ventures, Embedded.Capital and angels.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Digital insurance provider Calingo raised a CHF 1.5m seed round from Swiss Founders Fund, Swiss ICT Investors Club and others.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งNeobroker Lightyear raised a $25m Series A led by Lightspeed with Virgin Group also joining.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Revenue based lender Capchase has secured a $400m debt round from i80 Group.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งWorkplace pension provider Smart raised ยฃ40m from CIBC.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Cross border payments fintech Zazuu raised a $2m seed round led by Launch Africa and Founders Factory Africa.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Layer 1 sustainable blockchain 5ire raised a $100m Series A from SRAM & MRAM Group.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Pension finding fintech Penny raised a ยฃ4m seed round led by Gradient Ventures.

๐ŸŒ PE firm Motive Partners raised $2.45bn for a new fintech fund.

๐ŸŒ Digital asset management fintech Gnosis Safe raised $100m from Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, Lightspeed, DCG and others, and rebranded to Safe.

๐ŸŒ Fintech darling Stripe has lowered its internal valuation by 28%to $74bn according to WSJ.

Challenger Banking ๐Ÿš€

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Neobank Nuri was reportedly looking for investors right at the same time it was caught up in the Celsius meltdown with its customers funds at the crypto lender being frozen.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Neobroker BUX has split its app and rebranded one to Stryk to focus on short-term trading and sticking with BUX Zero for more longer term investors.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ SME neobank Penta is being taken over by french rival Qonto.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Kid focused financial app GoHenry has acquired Pixpay to expand into Europe.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Revolut has lost its head of global affairs and only female executive Deirdre Halligan, amid its rumoured tussle with the FCA. The neobank also announced it hit 20m retail customers across the globe.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Activist investing fintech Tulipshare has surpassed 15,000 users in Q2, up 133% from Q1.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Challenger credit card Tymit has become a customer of Truelayer for its repayments and topups.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Monzo narrowed losses from ยฃ131m to ยฃ119m and reported revenue increase 92% to ยฃ154m due to increased card spend as well as a surge in premium Monzo Plus accounts to 430,000.

Digital Assets โ‚ฟ

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Banking Circle has added the stablecoin USDC to its payment rails as it moves into the crypto space.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ The French central bank, Banque de France, is accelerating its wholesale CBDC program.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Societe Generale has proposed to deposit OHF tokens as collateral to borrow $30m in DAI from Maker DAO.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Revolut is launching โ€œlearn and earnโ€ crypto courses with customers earning DOT tokens from the Polkadot network.

๐ŸŒ ย Celsius reportedly lost $350m of customers funds with a high-risk leveraged crypto trading strategy according to Arkham Intelligence. A former partner claims Celsius was a ponzi scheme and the crypto lender has now filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with its largest creditor a fund tied to SBF, and a lawsuit has begun.

๐ŸŒ Justin Sun, the founder of Tron blockchain, is ready to spend $5bn to help struggling crypto firms.

๐ŸŒ BNPL is coming to the NFT space thanks to DeFi lender Teller.

๐ŸŒ BlockFi is not accepting GBTC as collateral given its recent NAV drop.

๐ŸŒ The 3AC saga continues as its founders accuse liquidators of ignoring their attempts to help. ย They also defaulted on a $270m loan to Blockchain.com

Traditional Banking ๐Ÿฆ

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บSantander is holding an awards ceremony in the metaverse to announce the winners of its global blockchain challenge.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ ING is trialling ultra-wideband technology that will let payments be made by pointing a handset at another.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Deutsche Bank is developing a white label BNPL solution for merchants alongside fintech Credi2.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง NatWest Markets is transitioning to Google Cloud and wants to build out AI and ML capabilities.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Barclays is closing 15 additional branches by the end of the year.

๐ŸŒ Goldman Sachs is opening a new innovation office and hired Google exec Jared Cohen to co-lead it.

Fintech Infrastructure ๐Ÿšง

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ IBAN name check provider SurePay is working with Consortium of Italian Banks to allow the, to verify European account holders.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Tink has rolled out settlement accounts to enable merchants to complete the full-stack payments service.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งYapily secured expense management company Soldo as a customer, providing their A2A to allow Soldo customers to top up their accounts instantly.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง European Card-as-a-service platform Enfuce is launching in the UK.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งPayments infrastructure ClearBank has secured neobank Kroo as a customer for its payment technology.

๐ŸŒ Plaid has added accounts from crypto exchanges Binance, Kraken and Gemini to its platform that can show balances, transactions and types of assets held.

Payments ๐Ÿ’ฐ

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Payments company Qori launched to allow merchants to accept A2A and crypto payments using QR codes.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ Business platform Pelvo is to integrate with Yapily and Klarna Kosma into its all in one business platform.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บAdyen has launched Apple Tap to Pay for high street stores.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บThe EPI initiative has been given until October to show some progress by Germanโ€™s savings banks.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Sibstar, a Mastercard debit card and app for people living with dementia has launched.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง WorldRemit parent company Zepz has delayed its IPO due to accounting issues and churn in its executive team.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง UK MPs are asking Visa and Mastercard to justify their increased fees from October 2021.

๐ŸŒ Australian BNPL provider Zip has abandoned its $500m merger with US firm Sezzle. Zip is also looking to pull out of the UK.

Regulatory Corner ๐Ÿ”Ž

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง The FCA has appointed six new directors as it looks to execute on its ambitious new strategy of preventing serious harm, setting higher standards and promoting competition.


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