This Week in Fintech (5/15)

Hello Fintech Friends,
Investment in Latin American startups is taking off ✈️
Please find another week of fintech financings and exits below.
Editor’s Note: If you’re an early-stage startup founder raising equity or debt, I may be able to help - reach out to nik@thisweekinfintech.com.
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💸 Venture Financing
- Block.one, Peter Thiel’s blockchain software firm, made a $10 billion investment into its new market-making, lending, and portfolio management subsidiary, Bullish Global.
- SaltPay raised a previously undisclosed $500 million Series C in April.
- Gojek, the Indonesian superapp and provider of GoPay, raised a $300 million round.
- CloudWalk, a Brazilian payment technology network, raised a $190 million Series B.
- Lili, a digital bank for freelancers, raised a $55 million Series B.
- Stampli, a corporate invoice management solution, raised a $50 million Series C.
- Babel Finance, a Hong Kong-based crypto service provider to financial institutions, raised a $40 million Series A.
- Omnio, a banking-as-service provider, raised a €30 million funding round.
- Transunion’s stake in Spring Labs was revealed as a $30 million investment in their Series B.
- Treasury Prime, a banking-as-a-service provider, raised a $20 million Series B.
- Collective, a self-employment back office that offers tailored financial services and accounting, tax, bookkeeping and business formation, raised a $20 million Series A.
- Expensya, a Tunisian expense management software, raised $20 million.
- Relay, a Canadian neobank for small businesses, raised $19.4 million, including a $15 million Series A.
- FinLync, a corporate finance and treasury platform, raised $16 million in funding.
- Pomelo, a Latin American payments infrastructure builder, raised $9 million.
- Ontop, a tax, onboarding and payroll manager for Latin American companies, raised a $4.5 million seed round.
- Divibank, a Brazilian “Clearbanc for Latin America,” raised a $3.6 million seed round.
- Sanlo, a financial tools and capital provider to game and app businesses, raised a $3.5 million seed round.
- Nano, a Vietnamese earned wage access payroll provider, raised $3 million in seed funding.
- Caplight, a platform for trading private equity derivatives, raised a $1.7 million seed round.
- KogoPAY, a business bank account provider for the UK, Lithuania, and Thailand, raised £1 million in pre-Series A funding.
- VitraCash, a UK smart debit card, crowdfunded a £330,000 seed.
- Visa made a strategic pre-IPO investment in Remitly.
- FundApps, a regtech provider, raised an undisclosed growth round from Scottish Equity Partners.
- Curve, the UK over-the-top card platform, is crowdfunding in-part for its next round.

US VCs on their way to LatAm fintech meetings.
☯️ Exits and M&A
💻 Fintech
- REPAY, a developer of vertically-integrated payment solutions, acquired payments provider BillingTree for $503 million.
- Snowball Finance, a Chinese online financial information portal, filed for a $300 million US IPO.
- Simplex, a provider of a Visa crypto credit card, will be acquired by Canadian payments processor Nuvei for $250 million.
- Insig AI, a machine learning tool for asset management, raised £6.1 million and listed on the AIM London Stock Exchange.
- PayPal acquired returns management startup Happy Returns.
- Stripe acquired Bouncer, a card authentication and fraud detenction startup.
- NerdWallet filed for an IPO that could value the firm at up to $5 billion.
- Marqeta filed its S1.
- Private equity firm Advent International is weighing a sale of its stake in Indian investment advisory and wealth management firm ASK Group for up to $1 billion.
- Mortgage insurance provider Enact Holdings postponed its planned $497 million IPO.
🏦 Bank
- Deutsche Bank’s asset management arm DWS is planning to sell its IKS fund platform to French private equity firm BlackFin for around €300 million.
- TPG and Liberty Financial are the front-runners to buy Australian bank Westpac’s auto lending business.
📈 SPACs
- Mortgage fintech platform Better will go public at a valuation of around $7 billion through a merger with SPAC Novator Capital.
- Former London Stock Exchange CEO Xavier Rolet will launch a $300 million fintech SPAC.
- Serendipity Capital Acquisition, a financial services SPAC, filed for a $250 million IPO.
- Fintech Ecosystem Development, a Southeast Asian fintech SPAC, filed for a $100 million IPO.
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📚 Deeper Reads
Bank fees slam low-income households, study finds
How Open Banking Could Help Latin America Build The Next Multibillion-dollar Fintech Startup
The Rise Of Banking As A Service
The Case Against The Anti-Money Laundering Rules
PayPal Wants to Be a Lot More Than an Online Checkout Button
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