In the wake of FTX, new crypto exchange competition heats up (TWIF 2/3)

Rise Growth Partners, which conducts enterprise readiness assessments of RIAs, raised $250 million.

DataSnipper, a startup that automates critical tasks for accountants and auditors, raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation.

Metronome, a platform that allows software companies to provide ussage-based billing and pricing, raised a $43 million Series B.

Portal, a decentralized exchange for trading bitcoins, raised $34 million from strategic investor Coinbase.

Incognia, a startup that uses location mapping to detect financial fraud, raised a $31 million Series B.

Integral, a currency technology provider to the financial markets, raised $30 million in growth funding.

LoanStar, an embedded lending provider for for banks and credit unions to reach new customers at the point of sale, raised $28 million (the company was profitable in 2022 and breakeven last year).

Benepass, a provider of flexible benefits packages to employees, raised $20 million.

Cube.Exchange, a crypto exchange which provides off-chain order matching and on-chain settlement, raised a $12 million Series A at a $100 million valuation.

Marstone, a provider of investment and wealth management tools to community banks and credit unions, raised an $8 million Series B.

ProcurePro, an Australian contruction finance and procurement startup, raised a $6.2 million Series A to expand to the UK.

Leal, a Colombian company that enables banks and brands to offer cashback and rewards products, raised a $5 million pre-Series B.

Mesh Payments*, a provider of Plaid-for-crypto money transfer services, raised $5 million from PayPal.

Coris, a merchant risk detection network, raised a $3.7 million seed round.

Finvest, an app to allow consumers to invest in US treasury bills (below), raised $2.7 million.

Attune, formerly known as Lendsmart, a provider of engagement banking tools, raised a $2.2 million seed.

BBO Exchange, a decentralized derivates exchange, raised $2.7 million in pre-seed funding.

Bitflow Labs, a decentralized crypto exchange, raised $1.3 million in pre-seed funding.

Teamshares, a startup that buys businesess to reallocate ownership to employees, plans to raise $100 million this year followed by an IPO.

Sunbit, a US-based buy-now-pay-later provider for technology purposes, secured a $310 million debt facility led by Citigroup.

UBI improved agency and income: “Overall there is no evidence of UBI promoting ‘laziness,’ but evidence of substantial effects on occupational choice… impacts on total household income are also positive and significant.”

Cash transfers increased savings: “The effect on both household and enterprise savings are positive and mostly significant… The amount the households have in rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) also goes up significantly…”

Cash did not change hours worked, but recipients shifted to self-employment: “Treated households are not working less… there is significant reduction in hours of wage work, all of which comes from work in agriculture, and a slightly larger increase in hours of non-agricultural self-employed work, so there is no net effect on total household labor supply.”

Private equity-owned Indian home loan provider Aadhar Housing Finance is targeting a domestic $600 million IPO at a valuation of up to $3 billion.

Ramp, the venture-backed corporate card and expense management platform, acquiredVenue, which simplifies the procurement process for businesses by enabling employees to request what they need while providing finance teams with visibility into all requests.

Enterprise payments provider Blackhawk Network announced that it will acquire Tango Card, a software startup that helps companies offer digital gift cards and rewards to customers.

German software conglomerate GFT Technologies, a provider of banking, cloud, and insurance tech, acquiredSophos, a Colombian core banking specialist.

Opyn, an Italian lending-as-a-service platform, is looking for M&A opportunities to help it scale across the EU and UK.

Barclays is now talking to private equity firms about taking a majority stake in its UK merchant payments business, after its approach to strategics didn't yield a buyer.