The 34 FinTech rounds that raised over $3bn last week

The FinTech sector is off to a stellar start to 2022. The 34 companies to close investment rounds last week collected a combined total of $3.1bn.

Checkout.com led the way for investments last week, pulling in a colossal $1bn for its Series D funding round. The investment, which makes it one of the highest-valued FinTech companies in the world, put its valuation at $40bn.

The second biggest funding round of the week was raised by French challenger bank Qonto, which raised $552m for its Series D. Its valuation, following the close of the deal, was put at $5bn.

While the year has only just started, 2022 looks like it could be another great year for the FinTech sector.

Digital assets have been a big talking point in the space for many years, but governments still seem to be undecided on the token. The UK’s parliament looks set to become more accepting of the asset type through the launch of its new Crypto and Digital Assets Group. This new group is aimed at supporting the development and regulation of the asset type across the UK.

This move was welcomed by many industry experts, who see this as a chance to encourage more people to adopt the digital currency. Katharine Wooller, MD of crypto wealth specialist Dacxi, told FinTech Global, “The UK prides itself on being a centre of FinTech innovation, crypto has too long been the weird cousin no one talks about! Crypto is no longer a small cog in the fintech ecosystem – the market cap is currently £1.4trn.  Should the UK government not take the digital assets industry more seriously it will be missing out on a thriving and ever-growing industry creating much needed wealth and taxation revenue for the UK.

The opportunity of the digital asset space can be seen through a number of this week’s funding rounds. Zero Hash, which offers B2B digital-asset-as-a-service infrastructure, raised one of the largest deals of the week, securing an impressive $105m. The company helps businesses natively embed crypto and NFTs into their customer experience.

Here are the 34 funding rounds from last week.

Checkout.com closes colossal $1bn Series D

The title for Europe’s highest-valued FinTech company has been battled out between Klarna and Checkout.com. This fresh $1bn investment round brings Checkout’s valuation to $40bn, making it one of the highest valued FinTech companies in the world, however, it is still just shy of Klarna, which was recently valued at $46bn.

Checkout.com’s $1bn investment was backed by Altimeter, Dragoneer, Franklin Templeton, GIC, Insight Partners, the Qatar Investment Authority, Tiger Global, the Oxford Endowment Fund, as well as an unnamed large west coast mutual fund management firm.

With the capital, the FinTech giant hopes to grow in the US and further the development of its technology. It is in the midst of substantial growth, having tripled the volume of transactions processed for the third consecutive year and opened offices in six countries in 2021.

The company offers a full-stack online payment platform that simplifies payments processes for large global enterprises.

Qonto valued at $5bn

French challenger bank Qonto raised the second biggest funding round last week, picking up an impressive $552m in its Series D.

The round, which values the business at $5bn, will help the company explore acquisition opportunities to bolster its growth. Capital will also help it expand across Europe and quadruple its team to 2,000 people by 2025.

Tiger Global and TCV, which are both first-time investors into Qonto, co-led the round. Other backers include Valar, Alven, DST Global and Tencent.

Founded in 2017, Qonto serves more than 220,000 clients in four countries – France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The digital bank previously raised $115m in its Series C round in 2021, which was backed by Tencent and DST Global.

Brex extends decacorn status

US-based corporate spend management firm Brex cemented its decacorn status, after a $300m Series D-2 funding round.

The investment was led by Greenoaks Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures, and will enable Brex to expand its product portfolio.

Brex surpassed the decacorn landmark in 2021 following the close of a $300m investment that valued it at $12.3bn. The investment came just six months after it was valued at  $425m.

The FinTech company describes itself as an all-in-one financial platform for businesses. It initially offered corporate credit cards, which would track expenses, provide spend management tools and automatically pay bills. Over the years it has expanded its offering to include business banking accounts and free ACH transfers.

Since it was founded in 2017, Brex has raised $1.2bn from investors.

CAIS earn its horn

The FinTech market is filled with unicorns and CAIS is the latest to join the ranks. The company was valued at over $1bn following a $225m investment from a pair of private equity firms.

Apollo and Motive Partners led the round, with Franklin Templeton also investing funding into the company.

With the capital, CAIS is looking to bolster its customer experience, deepen its technology’s capabilities and invest into the digitalisation of product operations. Capital is also being set aside for strategic opportunities.

CAIS supports the independent wealth management community. Its open marketplace is designed so financial advisors and asset managers can engage and transact at scale. The goal is to remove barriers, such as complexity, higher minimums, and fees, need for education, and help advisors improve outcomes for their clients.

Pentera hits unicorn status

Another FinTech company to reach the $1bn valuation club was Pentera. The automated security validation raised $150m in its Series C investment wound, which was led by K1 Investment Management.

Other participants to the round include Evolution Equity Partners, Insight Partners, Awz Ventures and Blackstone. The investment capital will help the company scale its operations across all functions and regions, and increase the size of its team from 150 to 300 by the end of the year.

With its new unicorn status, Pentera claims it is the highest-valued company in its category.

Pentera’s technology empowers organisations to test the integrity of their cybersecurity layers, uncovering current security exposures. Its services are used by thousands of security professionals around the world to guide remediation and close security gaps before they are exploited, it claims.

WealthTech company Qraft Technologies receives $146m

Qraft Technologies, which aims to improve alpha delivery in asset management, has collected $146m in funding from SoftBank Group Corp.

The deal includes primary growth capital and secondary capital that will be used to fund share purchases from investors.

With the fresh equity, the company plans to expand across the US and China, as well as hire more staff across its offices. The deal will also see Qraft and SoftBank work together to develop AI-enabled public portfolio management systems for SoftBank.

Based in South Korea, Qraft develops and operates deep learning-based algorithms that provide portfolio weight signals which can be alpha-generative. Its services also include B2B AI solutions for data processing, investment strategy discovery, order execution to investment analysis, and reporting.

KoinWorks scoops up Series C for Indonesian enterprise

KoinWorks, an Indonesian FinTech company, has raised $108m in its Series C funding round.

MDI Ventures served as the lead investor, with commitments also coming from Quona Capital, Triodos Investment Management, Saison Capital, ACV and East Ventures.

The funding, which consists of $43m in equity and $65m in debt capital, will be used to scale KoinWorks’ solutions and team as the company aims to hire 400 new employees globally to meet demand. Royal Park Partners acted as exclusive strategic and financial advisor to KoinWorks.

Founded in 2016, the company provides SME owners and freelancers with tools to scale their businesses, including a banking account and card.

Zero Hash nets $105m

B2B digital-asset-as-a-service infrastructure Zero Hash raised a sizable $105m Series D round this week. The capital injection was supported by Bain Capital, NYCA, and Steve Cohen’s Point72 Ventures.

Zero Hash is designed to help businesses natively embed crypto and NFTs into their customer experience. Its tool suite includes capabilities to sell, send and receive cryptocurrency, complete P2P transfers, and more.

Its services are currently used by MoneyLion, Wirex, MoonPay, Ramp, Transak, TradeZero, TradeStation, tastyworks and more.

The investment comes months after the FinTech company raised $35m in its Series C round, which was raised to help it hire more compliance, marketing and engineering staff.

Global Processing Services extends $300m investment

Global Processing Services (GPS), an API-first payment technology platform, has raised an additional $100m to its previously announced $300m funding round.

The fresh $100m was supplied by Singapore-headquartered investment firm Temasek and US-based growth equity firm MissionOG.

With the extra capital, GPS plans to expand across Europe, APAC and MENA, as well as further its product and technology developments.

Its technology supports card programmes for FinTechs, digital challenger banks and embedded finance providers. Clients include Revolut, Curve, Zilch, Starling Bank, Paidy and more.

To date, it has issued more than 190 million physical and virtual cards and last year it processed over 1.3 billion transactions.

GPS previously raised $300m in a round co-led by Advent International and Viking Global Investors.

Novo reaches $700m valuation

Small business banking platform Novo has reached a $700m valuation following the close of its Series B round on $90m.

The round was led by Stripes, with commitments also coming from Valar Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Rainfall Ventures and BoxGroup. Capital from the Series B has been earmarked to help Novo build out its lending capabilities.

One of the new features it plans to release is Novo App Marketplace, which will allow businesses to centralise their finances, giving them instant visibility into everything from e-commerce sales, to pending invoices and cash-on-hand.

The FinTech company has experienced strong growth this past year, having recently surpassed $5bn in lifetime transactions – processing over $4bn in 2021 alone.

Fly Now Pay Later raises $75m for expansion across US

As demand for buy now, pay later services continues to rise, Fly Now Pay Later has bagged $75m to foster its growth.

The company lets consumers spread out the cost of a trip over up to 12 monthly instalments by partnering with leading travel merchants or directly to consumers through its Anywhere app.

Its fresh investment was backed by Atalaya Capital Management and will help it expand across the US.

The Chainsmokers back Indonesian retail investing app Pluang

Indonesia-based fractional investing app Pluang has closed its funding round on $55m. Among many notable angel investors were music group The Chainsmokers.

Accel served as the lead investor, with BRI Ventures, Gold House, Square Peg, Go-Ventures, UOB Venture Management, and Openspace Ventures, also contributing to the round.

Following the close of the round, Pluang hopes to expand into international markets and support more asset classes on its platform.

The company was founded in 2019 and provides users in Indonesia with the ability to make micro-savings and micro-investments into gold, indexes, mutual funds and crypto assets. In the future it is looking to add access to fractional US single stocks, a first of its kind innovation in Indonesia.

Lender DMI Finance snaps up $47m

Indian lending firm DMI Finance has reeled in $47m in equity investment from new investor Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.

The company, which was founded in 2008, offers short-term bridge financing and medium-term project financing as well as term loans and working capital loans.

It claims to have a customer base of more than six million and is expecting to grow by at least 10% month-on-month in 2022.

UK circular economy startup Twig bags Series A

Sustainability was a big topic in 2021 and Twig aims to help the fight against climate change. The company raised $35m in its Series A funding round to help scale its circular economy.

Twig, which describes itself as a ‘Bank of Things, merges payments with resale to bring value to users through instant monetisation of their items, in a sustainable manner. Its goal is to empower consumers to value, unlock and enjoy wealth they never knew they had.

Users can currently sell or trade-in their fashion clothing and electronics in exchange for instant cash.

The Series A round was led by Fasanara Capital, with contributions also coming from current and former executives from LVMH, Valentino, Balmain, Tod’s, Swarovski, L’Oréal, Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Scalapay.

With the capital, Twig hopes to expand into the EU and US, as well as release new features.

Twig claims to be the fastest growing FinTech app in the UK since it launched in July 2021, with it growing at a rate of over 100,000 monthly downloads.

Tiger Global backs Accrue Savings

Shopping experience platform Accrue Savings has raised $25m from a Series A round headed by Tiger Global.

Other contributions to the round came from Aglaé Ventures, Maple VC and executives such as UPS CEO Carol Tomé and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin. Existing Accrue investors also joined the round, including Red sea Ventures, Box Group, Twelve Below, Ground Up Ventures, Capital Ventures, Silas Capital and Good Friends.

Accrue was founded in 2021 and empowers consumers to save for a purchase while earning cash incentive rewards from the brand along the way. It claims brands experience impact on top-of-funnel marketing efforts, while retailers can better engage with customers.

The fresh investment capital will help Accrue expand its retail partnerships and hire more staff across all of its departments.

Austrian FinTech MOSTLY AI collects $25m

MOSTLY AI, which aims to revolutionise how companies work with data, has closed its Series B funding round on $25m.

The capital infusion was led by Molten Ventures, with commitments also coming from Earlybird, 42CAP and new investor Citi Ventures. Equity will be used to deepen its presence in the banking and insurance markets, as well as foster growth across Europe and the US.

Founded in 2017 by data scientists Michael Platzer, Klaudius Kalcher and Roland Boubela, the company leverages AI to create synthetic data sets. These sets look as real as a company’s original customer data and reflect behaviours and patterns with up to 99% accuracy. This helps uncover insights from the data without avoiding the original data points.

Azibo secures Series A for rental property market

Azibo, the free, one-stop-shop financial services platform for the rental property market, has secured $19m in Series A funding.

Proceeds from this round will help Azibo hire new talent, accelerate product innovation and scale go-to-market efforts. It will also help the company to continue the development of its services, which empower landlords to easily interact with renters, property managers and vendors.

Its platform offers a variety of tools to support rent collection, bill payments and expense management, as well as full-service commercial banking, insurance and lending for mortgages and short-term loans.

The round was led by SVB Capital, with participation from new investors RET Ventures, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Victory Park Capital, and Gaingels, as well as existing investors Canaan, Khosla Ventures, QED Investors, Camber Creek, Assurant Ventures, and Context Ventures.

Shield ends bootstrapping with Series A

Communication monitoring platform Shield has pulled in $15m for its Series A, which ends its bootstrapping. The company was launched in 2018.

Macquarie Capital and OurCrowd led the round, which also included a commitment from Mindset Ventures.

With the equity, Shield plans to expand its presence in the US with a New York City office, as well as bolstering its position in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. Capital will also be used to accelerate the development of its end-to-end communications compliance platform.

The RegTech company helps financial institutions detect market abuse, access behavioural analytics, mitigate toxic workplace culture and automate surveillance over all employee communication channels.

 The Helper Bees bags Series B

The Helper Bees, an InsurTech company aimed at helping elderly people avoid care homes, has raised $12.8m in its Series B funding round.

Trust Ventures served as the lead investor, with contributions also coming from Silverton Partners, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, Impact Engine, and Congress Avenue Ventures.

With the fresh funds, the InsurTech company plans to expand its technology so it can support more people.

This investment comes after a strong year of growth, which culminated in it tripling its revenue and increasing its team by eight-times.

The Helper Bees platform aims to help older adults that want to age independently at home with the support of insurance carriers. It does this via advanced data analytics and tech-enabled services to streamline the insurance claims process and experience.

Zluri lands Series A for SaaS management

SaaS management platform Zluri has raised $10m in Series A. MassMutual Ventures acted as the lead investor, with participation also coming from Endiya Partners and Kalaari Capital.

This additional capital will help Zluri strengthen its capabilities and double down in its core markets of Asia and North America.

Founded in 2020, the platform helps companies manage and optimise their SaaS applications from a single dashboard.

Neobank Kaleidofin bags $10m Series B

India-based neobank Kaleidofin has raked in $10m from a Series B. The round was supported by Flourish Ventures, Oiko Credit, Omidyar Network, Blume Ventures and Bharat Fund.

Founded in 2017, Kaleidofin aims to help underbanked customers meet their financial goals by providing tailored financial solutions. Customers using Kaleidofin can access goal-based savings accounts and payment services. The platform also boasts machine learning-powered credit checks for consumer loans.

Tintra bags $10m investment

Tintra has closed the first tranche of its $10m funding round with a $3m investment.

The FinTech company is building banking infrastructure that will empower institutions, multi-nationals, large corporations and governments in emerging markets to get better access to the global banking system.

With the funds, the company plans to enhance its ‘game changing artificial intelligence’ through the development of its RegTech business unit.

The FinTech company hopes to close the remaining tranches of funding in the coming months.

Eureka emerges from stealth with $8m seed

Israel-based cloud data security startup Eureka has arisen from stealth with $8m in seed funding and a cloud data security posture management platform.

YL Ventures served as the lead investor, with contributions also coming from cyber executives and entrepreneurs such as Edna Conway of Microsoft, former CSO of Akamai Andy Ellis and Google Cloud product security assurance director David Hannigan.

The company aims to address data security challenges when migrating to the cloud. Its technology also offers real-time visibility into data stores and better define security policies.

Barclays backs fashion finance outfit Responsible in seed round

Responsible, an embedded finance company designed to make the fashion industry more circular, has secured $6.6m from a seed round held by Barclays.

The company, which was founded in 2021, has created the Buy Back platform. This service lets shoppers and brands with an overview of the value of returned clothes. Its technology is integrated at the point-of-purchase and helps inform buyers of residual value of an item they wish to buy.

The capital injection will help the company expand across Europe and establish more partnerships.

Seashell launches from stealth after seed close

Seashell, which hopes to create a consumer-first modern banking and investment platform, has launched from stealth after the closed of its seed round.

The round, which closed on $6m, was co-led by Khosla Ventures and Kindred Ventures. Other participants to the round include Robinhood’s co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev, Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban, unicorn investor Elad Gil, former CFTC Chairman and “CryptoDad” J. Christopher Giancarlo and Coinbase Ventures.

Seashell offers a digital investing platform and boasts up to 10% interest to users. The platform, which is available for download on iOS and Android, lets users connect their bank accounts and instantly start investing.

Nigerian SME champion ThankUCash closes seed round

Multi-merchant rewards platform ThankUCash has raised $5.3m in its seed funding round.

500 Global and Unicorn Growth Capital served as the co-leaders to the round. Other backers include US-based accelerator Expert Dojo, Predictive VC, SaaS Growth Ventures, Betatron Venture Group and Accelerex Holdings. A number of angel investors also supported the round.

With the capital injection, the company plans to expand within Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. It also hopes to enhance its products.

The company helps merchants grow revenue by connecting them to customers within and outside of their locations, while retaining acquired customers using a data analytics-powered reward system in which customers earn cash rewards for every transaction made both offline and online.

Saudi Arabia-based FinTech Dawul nets seed round

Dawul has scored $5m in a seed funding round, which was led by RAED Ventures. Other backers to the round include Impact46, Seedra Ventures, Derayah Venture and Sukna Ventures.

The Saudi Arabia-based FinTech claims this is one of the largest seed funding rounds raised by a FinTech company in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

It plans to use the capital to expand its offering to include new social trading-related products, as well as expanding its network in the Middle East and North Africa. The platform aims to target the American and British market with its services.

Dawul was founded in 2020, launched in 2021 and provides investors with an automated way to execute trades. Users can also follow professional traders and their portfolios and investment strategies.

Truffle Capital bites into FinTech Cake

Belgian FinTech startup Cake has secured €4.6m in a seed funding rounded led by Truffle Capital.

The investment was also supported by Seeder Fund, Freshment and Sambrinvest.

Cake provides European banks plug-and-play solutions to integrate their cashback module into their own banking apps within a few weeks. This allows banks to provide an extra service for their customers and generate a new revenue stream on top of their existing business model by taking a commission on each cashback.

Cyber InsurTech Stoïk bags €3.8m

French firm Stoïk has raised €3.8m in an investment round to help it develop its platform to make it the most comprehensive in the market.

The round was backed by Alven, Anthemis Group and Kima Ventures, as well as several angel investors.

The company combines security software to deal with risk levels and an insurance offering to transfer residual risk to a third-party.

KYND lands funding in cyber risk management mission

KYND, provider of pioneering cyber risk management solutions for the insurance industry, has today announced a £3.25m investment from BGF.

With the fresh funds, the company hopes to accelerate its rapid growth and global expansion plans, capitalising on the increasing demand for cyber insurance. Funds will also help the company to develop transformative cyber risk technology.

Founded in 2018 by Andy Thomas and Melanie Hayes, KYND has developed a cyber risk technology platform that gathers and processes data to assess cyber risk for companies. Information is assessed, and presented in ‘plain English’, providing instant insight of cyber risk exposure.

The InsurTech company has experienced an impressive 1000% growth on annual recurring revenue since June 2020 and has established partnerships with companies including Beazley, Howden, Paragon and Alliant.

Koia snares $1.4m pre-seed funding

Alternative investment app Koia has raised $1.4m from a pre-seed funding round led by Seedcamp.

The round was also backed by RTP and Portfolio Ventures.  Koia was founded in 2021 with the mission to make alternative assets accessible through fractionable ownership. Its goal is to help individuals easily invest into all types of assets.

B2B payments app Denario scores funding

Denario, who is building a new integrated business-to-business payments for SMEs and startups, has netted €1.3m in funding.

The investment was led by 468 Capital, with participation also coming from Presight Capital and MPGI.

Denario’s goal is to consumarise the payments experience by giving the flexibility and speed people are used to from their customer payments experience. Clients access a dashboard that can automate their business payments, centralise invoices, connect financial tools and more.

DigiDoe closes funding round early

London-based DigiDoe, which aims to revolutionise the world’s outdated payments infrastructure, has collected £850,000 from new investors.

DigiDoe closed its funding round early due to high levels of customer interest. Joint Journey served as the lead investor, with commitments also coming from several individual investors.

The FinTech company claims to be the first in the UK to offer biometrics-based payments to merchants without the presence of a card or phone. It also claims to be the world’s fastest and most secure payment infrastructure.

InsurePay bags funding to support fellow InsurTech acquisition

InsurePay, a billing and payments platform for property and casualty, has closed its Series B funding round on an undisclosed amount.

Aquiline Technology Growth served as the lead investor, with commitments also coming from FINTOP and other unnamed strategic investors.

This capital injection will help the company acquire Split Limit Studios and its TRUPAY solution.

InsurePay is a billing and payments provider that enables insurance providers to offer pay-as-you-go billing and payment solutions to the P&C insurance market, including workers’ compensation insurance carriers. Its technology can calculate compensation premiums based on actual payroll data rather than estimated payroll amounts.

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