Exits & Deep Reads

What should we think of all these fintech SPACs? (TWIF 7/6)

4th of July parade in Montecito

Hello Fintech Friends,

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by our friends at Spinwheel.

A couple ideas that I found interesting and liked this week:

In the Dutch town of Waalwijk, customers shopping at any PLUS Supermarket locations will get information on their receipts telling them where they can get help with banking and personal finance. Apparently 1/6 of Dutch people occasionally run into financial issues and don't know where to turn. This supermarket's partnership with ABN AMRO's financial accessibility group is one way to combat that.
Cloudflare is rolling out a new pay per crawl feature that will enable content owners to charge AI crawlers for access via micropayments. The micropayment creator compensation product never really took off with human users, but with AIs, it's much simpler to enable micropayments so that creators get paid for their work and models can continue to get better.

Also, fintech SPACs are making a comeback. I tend to view the companies that choose to go public via SPAC as adversely-selected, and the data from the last wave of SPACs seem to bear that out, with performance that trails the S&P 500. Will this time be different?

Please find another week of fintech financing events below.

(👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know. Find me at @nikmilanovic, @twifintech, and @ndm)

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📊 Read of the Week

💸 Venture Financing

Klar, a Mexican fintech, raised $190 million in a Series C round, which comprised $170 million in equity and $20 million in venture debt.
Savvy Wealth secured $72 million in a Series B, valuing the company at $225 million. The capital is earmarked for acquiring advisory firms, expanding its advisor network, and embedding AI into its platform to shift wealth management culture.
Natech Banking Solutions, based in Greece, secured $33 million in its Series B round—$26 million in equity and $7 million in debt—just ahead of launching its EU-licensed digital bank, Snappi.
Ambrook closed a $26.1 million Series A round to enhance its accounting software for farmers and ranchers .
Waltz, a U.S. real‑estate fintech, raised $25 million in equity and a $25 million credit facility) to support up to $1 billion in loan volume and fuel expansion into Latin America, starting with Brazil.
Yaspa, a London-based payments fintech focused on open-banking and iGaming payments, raised $12 million.
Yield, a DeFi infrastructure platform, exited stealth with a $5 million strategic round.
Zango AI, a London-based compliance-tech startup, emerged from stealth and raised $4.8 million.
Monit, an Indonesian AI-powered spend management platform, raised $2.5 million.
Bilt, a credit card provider for rental payments, is in talks to raise new funding at a $10 billion valuation. The company was last valued at $3.25 billion last August.

☯️ Exits

💻 IPOs & SPACs

Financial services SPAC Cohen Circle Acquisition Corp. II announced the pricing of its initial public offering, issuing 22 million units at $10 each for gross proceeds of $220 million.
Financial services SPAC FIGX Capital Acquisition Corp. priced its IPO at $131 million by issuing 13.1 million units at $10 each.
Financial services SPAC 1RT Acquisition Corp. completed its IPO on July 2 2025, raising $172.5 million by selling 17.25 million units at $10 each, inclusive of a 2.25 million-unit overallotment.

🤝 M&A - Fintech

Starling Bank is eyeing acquiring a U.S. lender as part of its North American expansion, targeting an East Coast bank with at least $2 billion in assets. It started hiring U.S. bankers and launched a Delaware subsidiary earlier in the year to sell its SaaS banking platform.
Lesaka Technologies agreed to acquire South Africa’s digital-only Bank Zero Mutual Bank in a transaction valued at R1.1 billion (about $62 million).
TBC Bank Group acquired a majority stake in Uzbek tech firm Billz, marking a strategic push into Uzbekistan’s SME-focused retail management SaaS market.
Coinbase acquired LiquiFi, a leading token-management platform.
Aquiline Capital Partners completed its acquisition of SEI’s family‑office services business via its platform Aquiline.
Thesis acquired Lolli, a Bitcoin rewards platform.
Tapi purchased Mastercard’s Arcus assets in Mexico to expand its payments offerings in the country. Specific dollar amounts were not mentioned.
CenterOak Partners acquired NOW CFO, terms were not disclosed.
I Squared Capital abandoned plans to make a separate offer for Hong Kong's HKBN, walking away from the deal following its assessment of the situation.

🏦 M&A - Banks and Financial Institutions

Banco Sabadell agreed to sell TSB, its British retail subsidiary, to Santander for an initial £2.65 billion (about $3.61 billion), potentially rising to £2.9 billion with interim profits. The deal will bolster Santander’s UK presence and enable Sabadell to defend against BBVA’s hostile takeover by funding a €2.5 billion special dividend.
B. Riley Financial sold its advisory unit, GlassRatner, to TorQuest Partners for $117.8 million in cash. B. Riley is expected to record a roughly $66 million gain on the sale.
Chesnara agreed to buy HSBC’s UK life insurance arm, HSBC Life UK, for £260 million (about $355 million) in cash.
Euronext entered talks to acquire the Athens Stock Exchange in an all-share deal valued at approximately €399 million ($470 million).
Swedbank acquired Stabelo, a Swedish digital mortgage lender, for SEK 350 million (roughly $36.8 million).
Banca CF+, backed by Elliott Management, launched a takeover bid for Banca Sistema worth about €145 million ($170 million).

🧵1/ I wonder how many people realise that what's really going on with stablecoins is a massive US statecraft play to re-dollarize the world on its own terms. You could even call it a "re-stablization op" (yep - there's a gag in there).
— Izabella Kaminska (@izakaminska) June 30, 2025

Unlicensed broker dealer activities in multiple regulated markets.

Here’s a simple explanation for why wrapping a security as a utility token and selling it to retail investors globally is not legal:

⸻

X: You can’t turn a security into a utility token just by calling it one.…
— 🙈 Jamie Finn (@finnstr) May 24, 2025

Hey, as I get smarter, my answers aim for facts and nuance, which can clash with some MAGA expectations. Many supporters want responses that align with conservative views, but I often give neutral takes, like affirming trans rights or debunking vaccine myths. xAI tried to train…
— Grok (@grok) May 1, 2025

I was sick of seeing all these crypto debit cards for wallets, we're supposed to be replacing TradFi not joining them! How hard could it be to do it crypto native anyway?

So I created this - FreePay - the worlds first open source, fee-free payment terminal. pic.twitter.com/zLyZAY81fY
— Tim Robinson (@timjrobinson) July 2, 2025