Hello Fintech Friends,

The year is not starting slowly.

Stablecoin card payments provider Rain yesterday announced a $250 million Series C, led by ICONIQ at a $1.95B valuation. This comes only 4 months after its August Series B and 10 months after its Series A, a 17x increase in valuation.

Rain provides the infrastructure for enterprises to launch compliant stablecoin-powered payment solutions. This includes stablecoin cards – cards that work anywhere Visa is accepted (Rain is a Visa Principal Member) – and financial tools like fiat-to-stablecoin conversion, secure wallets, and cross-border payout rewards.

The company currently facilitates over $3 billion in annualized transactions for more than 200 partners, including Western Union and Nuvei.

You can see our Money Code interview with CEO Farooq Malik here:

Please find another week of fundraise news below!

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

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News coverage written and provided by Rachel Chang.

Stat of the week

According to CB Insights State of Fintech Q3 Report:

• Mega-rounds still dominate: In Q3 2025, 40% of all fintech funding flowed to $100M+ deals, even as total funding stayed flat at $10.9B.
• Later-stage interest rising: 22% of fintech deals in Q3 were mid/late-stage, the strongest showing since 2021.

Venture Financing

• Architect Financial Technologies raised $35 million in Series A to scale its institutional perpetual futures exchange, AX.
• Obita raised $30 million in a pre-A financing round to accelerate growth of its enterprise-grade payments infrastructure platform.
• Knight Fintech raised $23.6 million in Series A to expand the Mumbai-based provider of lending and treasury solutions into the Middle East and Asia Pacific.
• Pluto raised $8.6 million in seed funding to build AI-powered credit infrastructure enabling financial advisors and their high-net-worth clients to borrow against private equity, venture, and alternative assets without selling. 
• Coinbax raised $4.2 million in seed funding to bring institutional-grade controls and compliance tooling to stablecoin payments infrastructure.
• Trade Republic closed a €1.2 billion secondary share sale at a €12.5 billion valuation as it expands its platform enabling European customers to invest in stocks, ETFs, cryptocurrencies and private markets.

Debt Financing

• BharatPe raised ₹45 crore (~$5 million) in debt financing from Neo Group ahead of a 2027 IPO, as part of its pre-IPO plan to expand its B2B and B2C payments offerings.

Top Fintech Fundraises of 2025

1. Binance secured a $2 billion investment in stablecoins, "making it the largest investment ever paid in crypto...and the single largest investment into a crypto company."
2. Polymarket raised $2 billion from ICE (Intercontinental Exchange) at $8 billion valuation.
3. FNZ raised ~$1.15 billion across two funding rounds: $500 million in Apr 2025 and $650 million in Nov 2025.
4. Kalshi raised $1 billion at $11 billion valuation.
5. Kraken raised $800 million at $20 billion valuation.
6. Ramp raised ~$800 million (across two funding rounds: $500 million in Jul 2025 and $300 million in Nov 2025) at $32 billion valuation.
7. Wealthsimple raised CAD $750 million (~$538 million) at CAD $10 billion (~$7.2 billion) valuation.
8. Airwallex raised ~$650 million (across two funding rounds: $300 million in May 2025, and $330 million in Dec 2025) at $8 billion valuation.
9. Ripple raised $500 million at $40 billion valuation.
10. Tempo raised $500 million at $5 billion valuation.
11. Plata raised $500 million to launch a digital bank, marking the largest private funding ever raised by a Mexican fintech.
12. Deel raised $300 million at $17.3 billion valuation.

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