The PayTech sector represented five of the top ten deals that took this past week in the FinTech sector.
This week was a relatively strong week for FinTech deals, with some high-value deals taking place.
Taking the top spot this past week was soon-to-be launched InsurTech Oona. Global growth investor Warburg Pincus invested $350m to set up the Southeast Asian digital insurance platform, that is also known and Aseana Insurance.
The company will be based in Singapore but will operate across Southeast Asia.
Recent research from FinTech Global revealed that there were 20 FinTech seed deals raised by Singaporean companies in the third quarter of 2022, a 54% increase from Q2 2022.
As such, FinTech seed deal activity in Singapore is now expected to reach 68 deals for the whole of 2022 based on deal activity from Q1 – Q3 2022.
Taking a look at the top ten deals, the PayTech sector represented five of the top ten spots. Among those five were US-based Connex Pay. The PayTech company, which took third place with $110m raised, integrates payments acceptance and issuance inside a single platform.
Also among the high-performing PayTech deals were Israel-based Trigo, a computer vision company building the infrastructure for autonomous retail stores and retail analytics, which raised $100m; and UK-based CloudPay which raised $50m.
Here are the 24 deals you need to know about this week.
Warburg Pincus invests $350m to launch InsurTech Oona
Global growth investor Warburg Pincus has committed $350m to set up Southeast Asian digital insurance platform Oona.
The firm is partnering with seasoned executive Abhishek Bhatia to set up the business. The $350m investment represents the largest funding round of its type in the region.
Oona will comprise two of Warburg Pincus’ existing insurance assets, PT Asuransi Bina Dana Arta Tbk in Indonesia and Mapfre Insular Insurance Corporation in the Philippines.
According to Warburg, both of these assets have a long-standing track record and reputation in their respective markets for providing quality products and superior customer service.
They will also bring Oona an initial product portfolio, strong distribution relationships, a robust infrastructure, and an immediate foothold in the region upon which to build its business. The companies will be rebranded as Oona in due course.
Oona plans to deploy a unique value creation strategy to scale up into Southeast Asia’s leading digital general insurance platform with operations across multiple major markets in the region.
Bilt Rewards lands $150m
Bilt Rewards, a consumer brand for renters, has raised $150m to expand its loyalty programme and credit card product.
The round was led by Left Lane Capital with investment from Smash Capital, Wells Fargo, Greystar, Invitation Homes, Camber Creek, Fifth Wall, and Prosus Ventures.
The capital sees Bilt Rewards valued at $1.5bn.
Launched in 2021 by Kairos, Bilt Rewards operates both a loyalty programme and a co-brand credit card.
Bilt Mastercard enables consumers to earn points on their rent payments with no transaction fees, while also building a path to homeownership.
The Bilt Rewards loyalty programme was developed in partnership with an alliance of the nation’s largest real estate owners, while the Bilt Mastercard was developed with and issued by Wells Fargo.
As rental prices continue to climb, Bilt also launched its Bilt Homes service. The product takes a member’s monthly rent payment and instantly shows them homes they can own for an equal monthly mortgage payment. The feature factors in real-time interest rates, taxes, incomes, credit profile and other personal data to determine mortgage qualification.
FTV Capital backs PayTech ConnexPay
ConnexPay, a payments technology company that integrates payments acceptance and issuance inside a single platform, has raised $110m.
The investment was led by FTV Capital, a sector-focused growth equity investor.
Previous investors also participated in the round. ConnexPay has raised a total of $145m to to date.
Founded in 2017, ConnexPay was initially developed to service the travel industry, today supporting many of the largest travel agencies, tour operators and air and hotel consolidators.
The company said it continues to focus on travel whilst also serving related verticals that serve as payment intermediaries, such as online marketplaces, delivery services, ticket brokers, emerging FinTechs and insurance and warranty providers.
ConnexPay said that while some providers offer both card issuing and payment acquiring services, those offering are in separate systems with disjointed reporting and reconciliation.
Whereas ConnexPay said its technology seamlessly connects both sides of the payment ecosystem, accepting and making payments, inside a single platform with instant access to incoming funds and just one reconciliation. By serving as both acquirer and issuer, ConnexPay said it can easily connect payments coming in to payments going out and bring real value to both the consumer and merchant.
ConnexPay said the funding will help it to drive international expansion in Europe and beyond, as well as continually enhance its payments platform.
Trigo nets $100m
Trigo, an Israel-based computer vision company building the infrastructure for autonomous retail stores and retail analytics, has raised $100m in an equity financing round.
The investment was led by Singapore investment firm Temasek and 83North.
New strategic investors included SAP SE, who will also help commercialise Trigo’s solution.
Existing investors also joined the round, including Hetz Ventures, Red Dot Capital Partners, Vertex Ventures, Viola, and supermarket giant REWE Group, one of the world’s leading retailers.
Trigo aims to transform existing supermarkets into fully autonomous digital stores where feeds from ceiling-mounted cameras and shelf sensors are analysed to generate a “digital twin” of the store.
Computer vision algorithms, similar to the ones on driverless cars, log interactions between humans and merchandise.
The result, according to Trigo, is a fundamental transformation in the way physical stores are being managed and experienced by both shoppers and operators.
Shoppers can walk into stores, select their items off the shelves, and leave without having to queue at checkout or scan any goods. Payments and receipts are settled digitally.
Vesttoo joins unicorn club with $80m raise
Vesttoo, a technology-driven global insurance risk transfer platform, has raised $80m in Series C funding.
The round was co-led by Mouro Capital and a private equity fund. A US-based bulge-bracket investment bank, Gramercy Ventures, Black River Ventures and Hanaco Ventures also participated in the round.
The raise also sees Vesttoo valued at $1bn.
Vesttoo connects the insurance industry and the capital markets by combining AI-powered technology with expertise in data science, insurance and finance so that insurers have the capital they need and investors have opportunities to diversify with uncorrelated low-volatitility insurance-linked assets.
The company partners will well-established global insurers, financial institutions and large multinational brokers.
The Series C comes less than a year after Mouro Capital led its Series B round with participation from MS&AD Holdings. The Series B came just three months after the company’s Series A round.
Since then, Vesttoo said it has developed its AI-based marketplace, the company’s data-driven platform that facilitates the investment od new sources of capital in the insurance market.
Vesttoo added that it has also expanded its global operations in the past year, hiring acorss London, Hong Kong, Seoul, Dubai and Tokyio, and grown its bases in New York and Tel Aviv.
The company said it will use the capital to further expand this global presence, enhance its marketplace platform and widen its offering to insurers and investors.
Merge lands $55m from Accel-backed Series B
Merge, a unified API for B2B integrations, has closed a Series B funding round led by Accel that raised $55m.
Also participating in the round were investors NEA and Addition. Following this raise, Merge has raised a total of $75m since inception.
Merge provides the tools to companies to transform how they realise customer-facing integrations.
According to the firm, startups often struggle in building these integrations due to development costs, long-term maintenance needs, and lack of experience working with each API platform.
In response to this challenge, Merge has announced an expansion of its free Unified API for early-stage startups that are building their first integrations.
The expanded free plan allows companies to offer integrations to their first five customers, and then transitions to a flat monthly cost for the next fifteen. This plan, Merge claims, will create new opportunities for startups to more quickly achieve product-market fit and to rapidly expand their addressable market.
CloudPay bags $50m
CloudPay, global payment solution provider, has raised $50m in funding and reports strong demand for cloud-based integrated global payroll and payment services.
The round was led by Runway Growth Capital and The Olayan Group.
According to CloudPay, employee pay processes have broad business consequences, requiring modern solutions and trusted experts across the globe.
CloudPay connects all employee pay processes, including payroll, payments, and on-demand pay,through a unified platform.
The company’s platform is available across over 130 countries, and 168 currencies. CloudPay’s mission is to help global companies implement best practices, navigate change, optimise operations, and improve employee experiences, guiding them with vision and care toward the comprehensive pay experience employees deserve.
CloudPay said the new capital will support its continued innovation of its end-to-end enterprise global pay offering, meeting the need for integrated payroll and payments services as well as employee solutions that fit the modern world of work.
Reap lands $40m
Reap, a FinTech powering global financial transactions through the industry’s first Reap Visa Corporate Card (“Reap Card”) platform, has raised $40m in Series A funding.
The investment round was led by Acorn Pacific Ventures, Arcadia Funds and HashKey Capital through a combination of equity and debt financing.
Hustle Fund, Fresco Capital, Abacus Ventures also invested as returning investors, joined by Payment Asia as a co-investor.
Reap is a financial platform that enables access and financial connectivity through innovation for companies of all sizes.
The FinTech combines spend management software with a range of innovative payment products, including the flagship Reap Visa Corporate Credit Card. Reap said it is committed to helping businesses orchestrate success by providing the best financial tools that evolve with its customers and the market.
Since Reap’s inception in 2018, it has focused on creating novel financial technologies to enable access to payables management, international payments and collections through a centralised software platform.
Reap currently has a team of over 40 spread across Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.
MaxAB bags $40m
MaxAB, a food and grocery B2B e-commerce and distribution platform based in Egypt, has raised $40m in pre-Series B equity funding to fuel its expansion.
According to a report from Disrupt Africa, the funding came from several new investors, including Silver Lake, British International Investment (BII), and DisruptAD, AD’s venture platform. The round also includes participation from existing investors Beco Capital, 4DX Ventures, Flourish Ventures and Africa Platform Capital.
Founded in 2018 by Egyptian and Libyan entrepreneurs Belal El-Megharbel and Mohamed Ben Halim, MaxAB is a B2B e-commerce platform that connects food and grocery retailers to suppliers in Egypt’s most under-served geographies.
The company serves a network of traditional retailers across Egypt, using “empowering technologies” and innovative supply chains to help put the correct amount of food and groceries at the right place at the right time.
MaxAB has so far has served approximately 150,000 unique traditional retailers, delivering 2.5 million orders.
The capital will be deployed to help the company further its geographic expansion to see full geographical coverage of Morocco by the end of 2023 and an entry into Saudi Arabia.
MaxAB said it will also use the capital to further its growth in the e-commerce arm of its business, expand its technology and product teams, and further scale its FinTech arm by offering a wider range of embedded finance solutions.
Finexio bags $35m from oversubscribed Series B
Finexio, a B2B accounts payables payments-as-a-service firm, has raised $35m from a Series B funding round.
The round was led by Mendon Venture Partners and National Bank Holdings Corporation. Also participating in the round was J.P Morgan, Discover Financial Services, Valley Bank, Trogg Hawley Capital and Patriot Financial Partners.
Finexio claims an increasing number of financial institutions are partnering with the company to bring improved spend management and electronic spend conversion capabilities to their medium and large-sized corporate clients and wholesale bank customers.
Finexio CEO and founder Ernest Rolfson said, “We are thrilled to announce an oversubscribed round by leading fintech venture capital investors and leading innovative financial institutions, particularly in a volatile market environment.
Valence Security pulls in $25m to scale its SaaS solution
Cybersecurity company Valence Security has raised $25m in Series A funding to scale the delivery of its SaaS Security Remediation Solutions to customers.
The round was led by Microsoft’s M12 venture fund.
There was also participation from seed investor YL Ventures and additional investors including Porsche Ventures, Akamai Technologies, Alumni Ventures and Michael Fey, CEO of Island and former president of Symantec.
This new investment round brings Valence’s total funding to $32m.
Valence claims to be the first business application mesh security company and is focused on managing the risks from third-party integrations and securing app-to-app connectivity in the modern business environment.
The company’s platform applies zero trust principles to the business application mesh to deliver comprehensive visibility into the risk surface, reducing unauthorised access and preventing critical data loss.
Center secures additional $15m
Center, a software company helping businesses gain visibility into and manage employee spending, has raised an additional $15m in Series B funding.
On the heels of funding, Center also appointed travel industry innovator and CLEAR Co-founder and president, Ken Cornick, to its Board of Directors. Cornick joins FinTech luminary and former Concur founder and CEO Steve Singh, who currently serves as executive chairman and co-founder of Center.
Center is on a mission to help businesses gain visibility into and manage employee spending.
The company’s core offering, Center Expense, is an integrated corporate card and expense solution used by small and medium-sized enterprises.
The company said the solution saves time, improves operations and compliance, and delivers real-time insights to finance teams for better decision making. Center is a privately held company headquartered in Bellevue, WA with team members nationwide.
Center said that fiscal discipline and intentional growth have enabled it to garner and uphold positive business momentum, weathering the headwinds of economic uncertainty and a turbulent fundraising landscape.
The funding brings the total capital raised by the company to more than $110m.
Center said the investment will be used to scale the business, expand its product offerings and bolster innovation in other areas of spend management.
French InsurTech Neat pulls in €10m
French insurance startup Neat, which says it is reinventing the protection of goods and services, has reportedly raised €10m in funding.
According to a report from Coverager, the capital came from Octopus Ventures, New Alpha, Mundi Ventures, Founders Future, and several angel investors.
Founded in 2022 by former employees of Lovys and Seyna, Neat offers a range of products that merchants can offer customers at the point of sale. Aside from extended warranties, Neat lists travel and mobility insurance as available products.
The company provides retailers with what it describes as “next generation embedded insuranceâ€, so that they can then offer this to their customers.
The company said, “We combine state-of-the-art technology and human integrations so clients are efficiently covered and merchants can focus on what they do best: selling!”
The startup works with several insurance companies such as Mutuaide, Hannover Re, Acheel, and Vyv International Assistance, to offer the different products.
Neat’s underlying mission is to promote more sustainable consumption. By protecting products, the company said, this extends their lifespan and therefore reduced their environment and social impact in a sustainable way.
Its protection policies aims to promote repair and reconditioning rather than the purchase of new items.
Spyderbat nets $10m
Spyderbat, a cloud native runtime security company, has raised $10m in Series A funding.
The round was led by NTTVC with participation from LiveOak Venture Partners, Benhamou Global Ventures and John McHale.
Spyderbat delivers cloud native runtime security to customers, with what it describes as “unprecedented precision in intrusion prevention and mitigationâ€.
Founded in 2019 on the recognition that the manual processes of traditional security operations are ineffective in rapidly changing cloud environments, Spyderbat aims to make threat prevention and security operation automation available with a platform for early, accurate, and thorough recognition of attacks.
In addition to the platform’s core capabilities, Spyderbat Labs produces continuous actionable intelligence updates to the Spyderbat platform by performing threat research for cloud native environments. Spyderbat Labs creates Shields to stop attacks against known vulnerabilities, packaged baseline policies to built-in Linux and Kubernetes services, and Attack Detections mapped to MITRE ATT&CK techniques.
Corsa Security lands new $10m investment
Corsa Security, a leader in scaling network security, has secured a further $10m in funding from investor Roadmap Capital.
Corsa offers a turnkey network security virtualisation platform, “the Corsa Security Orchestrator”, that the firm claims simplify how large enterprises and service providers expand traffic inspection, increase threat protection and automates firewall virtualisation.
Through the tight integration of virtualisation with intelligent orchestration, the company claims it streamlines deployment, management and migration of virtualised next generation firewalls for zero-touch network security operations.
The firm said, “By integrating virtualisation with intelligent orchestration, organisations can realise up to 9x lower TCO and speed their time to deployment by a factor of 24.”
The funds will be used to propel product development of the Corsa Security Orchestrator with industry-leading features and to engage in key customer trials in multiple geographies.
Qantev bags €10m
Qantev, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) InsurTech for health insurers based in Paris, has raised €10m in its Series A funding round.
Omnes and RAISE Ventures led the round, with continued support from Elaia with the PSL (Paris Sciences & Lettres) Innovation Fund.
Co-founded by Tarik Dadi (CEO) and Hadrien De March (CTO) in 2019, Qantev has built an AI-based data analytics solution designed to improve health insurers’ operations. This includes health data management, automation triage and resolution of simple claims, as well as overall enablement of better and more informed decision making.
In the last 12 months, Qantev has deployed its solution across a number of markets in Europe, Asia and North America.
According to Qantev, the funds will be used to fuel the company’s continued global market expansion and grow its AI & Engineering team to enhance its health claims platform for insurers.
Onward raises $9.7m to support co-parents
Onward, a platform that helps co-parents track and manage shares expenses for their children, has raised $9.7m.
According to TechCrunch, the round was led by Atlanta-based TTV Capital to advance its mission. Lerer Hippeau, Citi Ventures, Correlation Ventures and Gingerbread Capital also participated in the financing.
The Los Angeles-based startup previously raised $3m in seed funding in March of 2021.
The daughter of divorced parents, Jacklyn Rome founded Onward in 2020 with the aim of helping divorced and separated parents more easily manage their shared expenses.
Rome, who previously led new product launches at Uber and Blue Apron, said she built the app with the intent of not only alleviating headaches for the parents but also helping reduce family tension overall.
Many parents have informal child support agreements, and these often don’t cover expenses beyond the basics. Onward believes this leads to tensions surrounding finances, even in amicable cases.
Since its last funding round, Onward has launched a number of new features, including the ability to pay your co-parent through the platform, partial payments and the ability to track other expenses not related to children, such as shared mortgages or telephone bills.
Mason bags $7.5m for an Amazon alternative platform
Mason, a retail technology platform provider offering an alternative platform to Amazon, has raised $7.5m in seed funding.
According to a report from TechCrunch, the funding round was  led by Accel and Ideaspring Capital, with participation from Lightspeed India Partners as well as Mana VC, Gaingels, Core91 and VH Capital.
Co-founded by Kausambi Manjita, and Barada Sahu, head of Revenue & Growth, Mason is a no-code automation engine for commerce.
The company’s platform works by connecting data, designs and channels to allow users to run product launches, sales and discounts, inventory updates, customer reviews, as well as in-app help.
Mason has over 1,000 customers from a range of sectors and powers over 8,000 brands worldwide.
While North America has been one of the strongest markets for the startup, it also serves clients in Singapore, Southeast Asia, Japan and India.
Masons’ offering is aimed at small and medium businesses that already sell products online but are looking to upgrade their stores. Although Amazon can help in such cases, Sahu and Manjita said the commission charged by the e-commerce giant restricts entrepreneur’s earnings.
Mason charges 1% of its customers’ total sales to offer its platform. But it is significantly less than the 30% charge Amazon puts on every sale through its platform, Sahu said.
French InsurTech Evy bags €6.6m
Evy, a France-based InsurTech claiming to offer the “best product protection experience”, has raised €6.6m in funding.
According to a report from Tech Funding News, the investment came from Sequoia (which backed WATI and Statsig), La Famiglia VC, and Global Founders Capital.
The round also saw participation from renowned angel investors, including Adrien Nussenbaum (Mirakl), Michael Benabou (Veepee), Rapha Vullierme (Luko), and Xavier Niel. Motier VC, the family office from the family owners of the Galeries Lafayette Group, is also betting on the insurance provider.
Launched in 2022 by Simon Kemoun, Shana Azria and Tanguy Le Stradic in Paris, Evy describes itself as an eco-responsible insurance broker, poised to disrupt the world of product protection for retailers operating in Europe.
The company plans to reinvent product protection by offering an innovative customer experience.
Perygee lands $4.75m in seed financing raise
Perygee, a company providing a lightweight and complete security platform for IoT and OT, has raised $4.75m from a seed investment round.
The round was led by Ballistic Ventures and saw participation from BRG Ventures, Ray Rothrock, Ohad Finkelstein, John Donovan, Corey Thomas and Bryson Bort. To date, Perygee has raised $6.35m in funding.
Internet of Things (IoT) and Operational Technology (OT) devices are critical aspects of the supply chain, from manufacturing plants to utilities to hospitals – and 10 million new devices are connecting to networks daily.
Any operational downtime or an attack on this infrastructure can have costly, damaging ripple effects on populations. However, mid-market enterprises within these supply chains often struggle with implementing optimal security for these devices, when existing tools are expensive and require additional resources to maintain. Perygee is aiming to solve this gap, serving the market in a holistic and more affordable way.
Perygee claims it is the only lightweight, comprehensive platform that can bring together existing and unlock new IoT/OT data to automate the right security actions in the fastest time on the market for all organisations.
Crypto app Ottr scores $3.1m pre-seed
Ottr, a new Web3 mobile app that makes holding crypto simplier and more secure, has raised $3.1m in pre-seed funding.
The round was led by Race Capital and saw participation from Kamal Ravikant, Slow Ventures and Circle Ventures.
Through the Ottr platform, millions of users globally can instantly send USDC for free without going through the complicated steps of setting up their self-custody wallet and storing seed phrases.
Ottr said it will use the proceeds from the round to expand to over 100 countries globally with the mission of making crypto more seamless and less intimidating for users worldwide.
UK wealth management startup Sidekick secures £3.3m
Sidekick, a UK-based wealth management startup, has raised £3.3m in pre-seed funding ahead of its launch next year.
According to a report from Finextra, the funding round was led by Octopus Ventures.
The round also saw participation from Seedcamp and Semantic, is being used to build out the app-based product, expand the in-house asset management team, and secure the required regulatory permissions and registrations.
The company was co-founded by serial entrepreneur Matthew Ford (CEO) and Peter Townsend (CTO).
Ford previously founded the mobile banking platform Pariti, where Townsend was CTO, which was sold to Tandem Bank in 2018. They’re joined at Sidekick by a wider founding team from traditional asset management, consumer credit and FinTech backgrounds.
Sidekick is on a mission to close the generational wealth gap by offering products and services typically reserved for only high-net-worth individuals.
This includes access to alternative investments, such as crypto, and the ability to borrow against these investment portfolios.
Klink Finance lands $500k in pre-seed raise
Klink Finance, a gamified digital asset platform, has raised $500,000 in a pre-seed funding round.
The funding round was headed by Blockchain Founders Fund (BFF) and saw participation from UOB Venture Management, Signum Capital, TechMeetsTrader, and StartupGym.
With a beta launch set for late 2022, Klink’s go-to-market prize-linked deposit account will reward users with the chance to win up to $1m in USDC every week, for holding funds as little as $25 USD. The solution provides alternative mechanisms to reward distribution across user populations and will expand further services with social features and digital asset ownership in a way that is safe, exciting and rewarding.
The team behind Klink Finance took their inspiration from the UK Government bond scheme known as Premium Prize Bonds, which has over 21 million participants and $130 billion USD held in assets under management (AUM) across the country. The introduction of Klink Finance’s platform into the market could have a massive positive impact.
J.P. Morgan backs gaming industry PayTech Sightline Payments
Sightline Payments, a FinTech focused on payments technology for the gaming industry, has completed a strategic investment from J.P. Morgan Payments.
As part of the deal Sightline will work with J.P. Morgan Payments to create an integrated omni-channel solution for resort and online gaming companies, serving the resort, entertainment, and lodging ecosystem.
The size of the investment was not revealed.
Its flagship solution is Play+, which allows consumers to safely access gaming and entertainment in nearly every regulated digital gaming company in the United States.
Last year, the company expanded the solution to support cashless gaming at casinos and launched this service at Boyd Gaming and Resorts World Las Vegas. This service allows players to place their funds in a secure account, giving them access to their funds anywhere, anytime while earning loyalty for their spending.
It claims it also enables consumers to use their funds with more than 80 partners in 40+ states across the sports betting, lottery, horse racing, and online and brick-and-mortar casino markets.
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