Villa Charlotte Brontë, New York
Hello Fintech Friends,Who wants to partner with us on our first fintech happy hour in Joburg? Drop me and [email protected] a line!
I'd also be curious to hear from founders: which fintech-focused venture capital firm do you think of as having the best reputation? ie: Which is the most supportive, which is the most founder-friendly, who would you be first to turn to for advice, who actually walks the talk?
👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!
Please find another week of fintech financing events below.
If you’re an early-stage startup founder raising equity or debt, we may be able to help - come check out our fund, The Fintech Fund (including a link to pitch us). Are you a fintech angel investor? Come join our syndicate.
💸 Venture Financing
Stripe officially closed on its newest round of financing, raising $6.5 billion at a $50 billion valuation. For any other startup, this would be a monumental success, but in the case of Stripe, reflects a decline in tech market prices for the private company once valued at $95 billion.
PhonePe, the Indian mobile payments giant, raised $200 million from Walmart.
Parker, a corporate card provider for e-commerce brands, announced its $31 million Series A, $5.9 million seed round, and $70 million in debt.
Apexx Global, a payments orchestration platform, raised a $25 million Series B.
Tilia, a payments firm focused on the metaverse, raised $22 million from JP Morgan.
Wingspan, a payroll platform for managing freelance workforces, raised a $14 million Series A for its contractor payroll system.
CNHC, a Chinese yuan-denominated stablecoin issuer, raised $10 million from backers including Circle.
Broom, an Indonesian lender to used car dealers, raised a $10 million pre-Series A.
Payabli, a payments API for vertical SaaS platforms, raised $8 million.
Vexi, a Mexican neobank, raised an $8 million round of funding.
Gener8, a UK-based data control and payment platform, raised £5.1 million.
Soul Wallet, a self-custody crypto wallet, raised $3.1 million in seed funding.
Alex, a decentralized exchange built on bitcoin, raised $2.5 million.
Smooth Labs, a blockchain infrastructure provider focused on parallel transaction execution, raised $2 million in seed funding.
Tallarium, an energy market price discovery platform, raised $1.6 million.
Chipper, the African p2p payments company, is reportedly weighing a new fundraise against a sale.
Chart of the day. Via @restofworld. pic.twitter.com/VMCh0UMM8I— Mikal Khoso میکال کھوسو (@mikalkhoso) March 15, 2023
KPMG released their Pulse of Fintech report for 2022 with a few takeaways:
Surging investment in regtech as companies look to technology to help them manage their increasingly complex regulatory compliance obligations
Rapidly cooling investment in cryptocurrencies and crypto exchanges between H1’22 and H2’22, with more challenges expected on the horizon
Strengthening partnerships between fintechs and incumbent financial institutions, including banks, insurance companies and wealth management firms
Decreasing number of large deals in H2 ‘22 compared to 2021 and H1’22 as investors waited for valuations to stabilize.
💵 Debt Financing
Overheard today in SF: “the crypto to generative AI founder pipeline is alive”— Sarah Hinkfuss (@SarahHinkfuss) March 16, 2023
