This Week in Fintech (3/6)

Hello Fintech Friends,
Sharing a reminder that you can sign up for our March 26th Fintech Geo Deep-Dives here.
Please find another week of financings and transactions below (and our Q4 M&A breakdown here).
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💸 Venture Financing
- Klarna raised $1 billion and confirmed its $31 billion valuation.
- Papaya, a global payroll and workforce platform, raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation.
- Xendit, which builds payments infrastructure for Indonesia, announced its 2019 $64.6 million Series B.
- Xfers, a Singaporean business payments solution, raised a $30 million strategic round from Indonesian fintech Payfazz. The two will form a joint venture called Fazz Financial Group.
- This newsletter covers fintech and not crypto, but the boundaries of those worlds are increasingly blurring. Eco raised $26 million to build the next wave of financial products - but on crypto digital wallet rails.
- Minu, a Mexican real-time wage access startup, raised a $14 million Series A.
- Accounting practice management startup Karbon raised $10 million.
- FutureFuel, a student loan debt management platform, raised a $10 million Series A1 from UBS.
- CountingUp, a UK business checking account provider, raised a £9.1 million Series A.
- UK publicly-listed investment platform Mode raised £6 million.
- Flourish, a bank customer engagement platform, raised a $1.5 million round.
- German business financial management startup Monite raised a €1.1 pre-seed.
- Raise, a Kenyan end-to-end fundraising startup, raised a $25,000 seed investment.
- African gig economy payments startup ImaliPay raised pre-seed funding.
- Codat, a business data API, received a strategic investment from PayPal Ventures and American Express Ventures.
- 11Onze, a Catalonian digital community bank, raised a crowdfunding round.
- Stripe is raising between $1 and $5 billion at a $100 billion valuation.
☯️ Exits and M&A
💻 Fintech
- More details emerged on PayPal’s big for crypto custody firm Curv, which is valued at $500 million.
- Digital merchant-funded offer platform Cardlytics is acquiring its rival Dosh (which powers Venmo’s rewards) for $275 million in cash and stock.
- Betterment acquired Wealthsimple’s US investment business ($190 million in assets across 17,000 accounts) as the former prepares for IPO.
- Airwallex acquired Hong Kong’s UniCard, which will give it a Chinese digital payments license.
- Robinhood is expected to confidentially file for IPO as soon as this month.
- Treasury and risk management platform GTreasury acquired intercompany netting solution Coprocess.
- MoneyLion acquired Wealth Technologies, a consumer ML roboadvisor (founded by the MoneyLion founder’s spouse).
- Calypso Technology, a capital markets software, put itself up for sale.
- In an echo of GoDaddy’s $320 million acquisition of Poynt, e-commerce website platform Wix acquired restaurant payment technology provider SpeedETab.
- Australian digital payments business ThinkSmart is trading up, following its sale of Clearpay to AfterPay.
- Student loan platform Pillar is being acquired.
🏦 Bank
- Morgan Stanley’s acquisition of asset manager Eaton Vance was finally approved.
- Allied Irish Banks re-acquired Irish retail brokerage Goodbody Stockbrokers, which it formerly had to divest as part of a government bailout, for €138 million.
- Sweden’s Nordax Bank made a $2.10 billion (17.8 billion kr) bid to acquire Norwegian Finans Holding, the owner of Bank Norwegian.
💲 Investment Management
- Beacon Pointe Advisors acquired Wealth Design, a registered investment advisor with $350 million under management.
- Advisory firm Pathstone acquired investment advisor Cornerstone Capital Group.
📈 SPACs
- Beacon Street Group, a financial research and writing firm, will go public through a merger with Ascendant Digital Acquisition Corp at a $3 billion enterprise value.
- 1.12 Acquisition, a SPAC focused on both tech and finance, filed for a $350 million IPO.
- HCM Acquisition, a fintech SPAC, filed for a $250 million IPO.
- Cornerstone Investment Capital, a financial services SPAC, filed for a $250 million IPO.
- Avalon Acquisition, a financial services-focused SPAC, filed for a $200 million IPO.
🔎 Weekly Deep-Dive
Need a deeper dive?
This week on Fintech Brainfood- How 80s pop sensation Michael Bolton shows the future of trust in fintech.
- What is trust?
- Why does it matter?
- And how has it changed from what used to matter?
- Also: 4 Fintech companies you should see, a breakdown of the Coinbase IPO, and the Fedwire issues.
📚 Deeper Reads
Design principles for Third-party Initiation in Real-Time Payment Systems
Google’s Redesigned Digital Wallet Tries to Make Payments Feel More Personal
So you want to learn “fintech”
Marcus is in the midst of a massive leadership shakeup
What BaaS trends mean for financial services
Building and scaling one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile banks
An Intentional Choice: Being API First
Fintech Innovation Done Right: Be A Creator
Here’s why Nigeria could be the next fintech frontier
Why Visa and MasterCard will continue to reign supreme
Open Banking in LatAm: The State of Play
Covid-19 Shopping Makes Card Fees a Bigger Burden for Merchants
4 Tech Trends That Will Massively Transform Banking in 2021
Disrupting The $8T Payment Card Business: The Outlook On ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’
Why Buy Now, Pay Later Is Taking Off
FT Partners’ Monthly Market Update
Innovative 10-year-old creates 'stick library' for local dogs
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