Fundraises

Workplace savings platform Vestwell lands $385M at $2B valuation (TWIF 2/21)

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Fintech funding appears to be back.

After three years of declining venture investment in fintech, the global market rebounded last year, attracting $116 billion, up from $95.5 billion in 2024, according to KPMG's Pulse of Fintech H2 2025.

Elsewhere this week, we wrote our latest overview on anti-fraud fintech, a conversation with Plaid's CTO about their transaction foundation model and AI strategy, and our new report on the state of stablecoins:

Embedded finance has been a half-decade obsession in the fintech community, but it has yet to live up to the original promise. I still don't see many financial services experiences embedded in everyday products, apps, and platforms (other than payment acceptance).

But there is a difference between wrong and early. Maybe it is still early. Mr. Beast last week acquired Step, the Gen-Z focused credit and banking app with 7 million users. News broke earlier this year that the super-influencer, who has over 466 million Youtube subscribers, would be building a bank.

It will be interesting to see how the brand approaches building a more youth-friendly product offering. People were quick to express skepticism as the news broke, but it is notable that Mr. Beast's Feastables CPG offering focuses on eliminating child labor in the chocolate supply chain – there are very many consumer-adverse conditions of financial services that we take for granted. Which could we eliminate or improve, with smarter design?

Please find another week of fintech financing events 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

The Fintech Index monitors the performance of emerging, publicly traded financial technology companies. It added over $200B in market cap in 2025, with gains concentrated in Robinhood, Shopify, and Nubank, which contributed nearly 80%.

Venture Financing

Vestwell raised $385 million in Series E, as the workplace savings platform doubles its valuation to $2 billion and has $200 million in annual recurring revenue.
Bretton AI (formerly Greenlite AI) raised $75 million in Series B to expand its agentic AI platform for financial crime compliance.
Novig raised $75 million in Series B at a ~$500 million valuation to build a trader-first sports prediction market.
IDfy raised $52 million in Series F to expand its Indian identity verification and regtech platform.
mea raised a $50 million minority stake from SEP for its AI-driven insurtech platform.
ManageMy raised $45 million to accelerate growth of its insurtech platform.
Onshore (formerly SPRX) raised $31 million in Series B to expand its AI-powered corporate tax platform.
Stake raised $31 million in Series B to expand its proptech platform in Saudi Arabia and the US.
Porters raised $27 million to build its AI-powered banking operations automation for financial institutions.
Avantos raised $25 million in Series A to power the future of AI-driven client servicing in financial services.
Uptiq raised $25 million in Series B to expand its AI orchestration platform for financial institutions to build financial AI agents.
Avenia raised $17 million in Series A to expand its financial and payments infrastructure across Latin America and the US.
Tembo raised over £15 million (~$20 million) to accelerate its savings and mortgage products.
Safqah Capital raised $15.2 million in seed funding to grow its debt-financing solution designed for SME developers in Saudi Arabia.
Odynn raised $9.5 million in seed funding to enable banks and fintechs to launch personalized travel and loyalty programs.
Sphinx raised $7.1 million in seed funding to develop its browser-native AI compliance agents for AML, KYC, and KYB operations for financial institutions.
Bracket raised $7 million to expand its AI-enabled FX, treasury and cash management tools for mid-market businesses.
Tangible raised $4.3 million in seed funding to enable hardtech companies to access and manage debt financing.
Rhythmic raised $4 million in seed funding to bring stablecoin-powered cash back, rewards programs, and financial products to consumers through brand partnerships.
InvestSky raised $4 million in seed funding to expand its social trading platform to retail investors across MENA.
Birch Hill raised $2.5 million to grow its institutional digital asset infrastructure focused on onchain lending and tokenized asset markets.