Of the 37 FinTech funding rounds recording this week, CyberTech companies led the pack with eye-watering investment levels.
Bringing in the most investment this week was security business ADT, who managed to secure a massive $1.2bn equity investment from State Farm Insurance.
Also securing considerable investment this week was teen banking app Step, who managed to rake in $300m in debt funding. The company is backed by investors such as The Chainsmokers, Will Smith and Justin Timberlake.
On the topic of CyberTech, research from FinTech Global this week found that the UK is leading the way for CyberTech investments in Europe for Q3.
The UK was the most active CyberTech country in Q3 2022 with five deals, a 23% share of total deals in Europe this quarter. Switzerland and Germany were the joint second most active countries, accounting for 18% each.
Elsewhere, it was found by FinTech Global this week that African FinTech deal activity slowed down in Q3, with only 28 deals announced.
African FinTech companies raised $94m in Q3 which is the lowest quarter so far this year. Deal activity has also dropped, pushing Africa’s expected total deals for 2022 to 228 which is 23pp lower than previous quarter predictions.
Here are this week’s funding rounds.
State Farm backs ADT in $1.2bn investment
Home and business security company ADT has closed a $1.2bn equity investment from State Farm Insurance, a US-based group of mutual insurance companies.
In addition to the equity investment, State Farm committed up to $300m to fund product and technology innovation, customer growth and marketing activities in connection with the partnership.
State Farm has funded the first $100m and the two companies will collaborate to approve initiatives utilising the funds.
As part of the equity investment, State Farm obtained a seat on ADT’s Board of Directors. State Farm has designated Paul Smith, executive vice president and chief operating officer, as its representative. Smith has joined the ADT Board of Directors as a Class II director with a term expiring at the 2025 annual meeting.
Security operations platform Arctic Wolf secures $401m
Security operations platform Arctic Wolf has raised $401m through a convertible note offering.
Over the past 12 months, the CyberTech company has doubled its headcount. This has been driven by expansion into new global markets, including South Africa, Benelux and the Nordics. It plans to launch in the APAC region soon.
The company recently opened its EMEA headquarters in Newcastle, England and established its first European security operations centre (SOC) in Frankfurt, Germany.
The Security operations platform currently serves over 3,000 customers, ranging from large enterprises to small and mid-sized businesses. It also works with over 1,100 channel partners around the world.
Will Smith-backed teen banking app Step lands $300m
Step, an all-in-one financial solution, has secured up to $300m in debt funding led by Triplepoint Capital and Evolve Bank & Trust.
Founded in 2018, California-based Step is a FinTech focused on building the best banking experience to help teens and young adults achieve financial independence and knowledge at an earlier age.
Step is the first platform to allow people under the age of 18 to build a positive credit history with their own secure Step Visa Card. This, the firm claims, opens doors to better terms and more comprehensive financial products earlier in adulthood.
With the new funding, Step plans to accelerate investments in product infrastructure and continue to bring financial products to the next generation.
TripActions lands $300m Series G
TripActions, an all-in-one travel, corporate card and expense management company, has raised $300m in Series G funding.
TripActions leverages real-time data to help companies travel travelling employees safe, reduce spend, and drive productivity.
TripActions said the funding will be used to accelerate its global expansion. In the past year this includes the acquisitions of travel management companies Reed & Mackay, Comtravo, and Resia, as well as the launch of TripActions Liquid in Europe and office openings in Portugal, Germany, France, and the UK.
As of the end of July 2022, TripActions currently has more than 2,500 employees across nearly 60 global offices.
Decentralised crypto protocol Uniswap raises $165m
Uniswap, which has built a decentralised crypto trading protocol, has $165m in its Series B funding round.
The capital injection was led by Polychain Capital, with participation also coming from a16z crypto, Paradigm, SV Angel, and Variant.
The decentralised crypto protocol company its ecosystem offers a financial marketplace where developers, traders and liquidity providers can participate together.
Airwallex extends Series E and rakes in $100m
Global FinTech platform Airwallex has extended its Series E to bring in a further $100m, which has lifted the company’s valuation to $5.5bn.
Airwallex claims it has one of the world’s most powerful payments and banking infrastructures. The firm said its technology empowers businesses of all sizes to accept payments, move money globally, and simplify their financial operations, all in one single platform.
The company accelerated its international expansion last year and successfully extended its reach across Europe, Asia Pacific and North America to serve China, the US and the UK.
Airwallex has continued to see its business grow and reach new heights, with its customer base more than doubling and revenue increasing by 184% year-on-year, with multiple new products and services are also being planned in its 2022-23 roadmap.
MinePlex raises $100m for its new mobile bank
MinePlex, which claims to be a new-generation mobile bank, has raised $100m in funding.
This capital injection will be used to advance the global penetration of the MinePlex exosystem and develop new banking technologies.
It claims that soon millions of users will be able to make fast and safe digital transactions through bank cards, mobile applications and cryptocurrencies.
In conjunction with the funding round, MinePlex will list its native PLEX token on new exchanges. It will also boost marketing efforts, increase the development of B2B and B2G opportunities and promote partnerships with financial institutions.
FinTech NorthOne lands $67m in Series B raise
New York-based FinTech NorthOne has raised $67m in a Series B funding round to expand its platform across new verticals.
NorthOne lets users make fast, easy payments from wherever they do business. The company offers tools to help users budget and plan for upcoming expenses and also provides the ability to load and withdraw cash at locations across the country.
NorthOne was founded in 2016 to serve traditional businesses on main streets across the US. The new funding will enable NorthOne to continue raising the standard of products and services these owners should expect from their banking partners.
With this new investment, NorthOne will build new working capital and credit products, as well as faster and more convenient payment solutions for busy entrepreneurs. It will also continue to expand on the dozens of integrations already offered.
Immersive Labs nabs $66m
Immersive Labs, which specialises in people-centric cyber resilience, has raised $66m in fresh funding as it looks to bolster its Cyber Workforce Resilience platform.
This capital will support the development of its Cyber Workforce Resilience category and deliver solutions that give enterprise customers innovative ways to prove their cyber capabilities.
The people-centric cyber resilience platform provides realistic simulations and hands-on cybersecurity labs to improve teams’ cyber prowess.
Its platform enables organisations to continuously assess, build and prove their cyber workforce resilience for teams across the entire organisation. Staff have realistic simulations and labs to evaluate their skills and decision-making against threats.
GoHenry lands $55m to aid global expansion
GoHenry, a prepaid spending card for children, has scored $55m from a recent financing round to push forward plans for global expansion.
The round was financially backed by investors Revaia and Edison Partners as well as payments firm Nexi.
Established in 2012, GoHenry is a FinTech firm with mission of making every child smart with their money. The GoHenry prepaid debit card and financial learning app is designed for kids aged 6 to 18.
The company offers parent and child apps to provide tools to help children learn more about money, all with parental oversight. Money Missions – an in-app service – provides a gamified, integrated financial education experience for children.
DataGrail closes oversubscribed $45m Series C
Data privacy platform DataGrail has raised $45m in its oversubscribed Series C funding round, which was led by Third Point Ventures.
DataGrail aims to help solve the issues with the rising risks and threats associated with data privacy. It claims that the global data privacy software market was worth $1.6bn in 2021 and is expected to be worth $25.8bn by 2029.
The company offers a privacy platform that enables companies to automate data subject requests, perform unified preference management and ensure accurate data discovery. Its Privacy Control Center is a hub that allows legal, security and executive teams to run impactful privacy programs and understand their real-time risk.
Its clients include Salesforce, New Balance, Instacart, Skillshare and MyFitnessPal.
CyberTech Stairwell lands $45m in Series B
Stairwell, a CyberTech firm that is focused on empowering security teams, has raised $45m in a Series B funding round.
Founded in 2019, Stairwell helps organisations take back the cybersecurity ‘high ground’ with solutions that attackers can’t evade. The company claims its flagship product, the Inception platform, empowers security teams to outsmart any attacker.
Stairwell said its Series B will enable the company to meet increased demand for new Inception features as malware attacks continue to climb.
Through the scaling of the platform, Stairwell said this will create a more intuitive and integrated experience for increased customer success in securing their organisations against any emerging malware threats.
In addition, this recent influx of capital will play a key role in the expansion of the Stairwell team. The company has increased its headcount by 100% since the closing of the Series B, with plans to continue to add a lot more. These hires will include specialised engineers to bring more functionality to Inception as a whole.
Cyber defence solution TEHTRIS nets €44m
France-based cyber defence solution TEHTRIS has raised €44m in financing, which includes €36m in growth equity.
This fresh capital will help TEHTRIS accelerate its development, with plans to create 300 new jobs. It is also looking to boost innovation and bolster its sales efforts.
Founded in 2010, TEHTRIS’s flagship solution is an extended detection and response cyber defence solution. It can detect and neutralise known and unknown cyber threats in real-time, without human interaction. Its team currently has 260 people.
TEHTRIS claims the cyber defence solution is interoperable for augmented and hyper automated remediation. The company’s mission is to help companies around the world fight against cyber-aggressions such as data hacking or ransomware.
MarketFinance nets $30m credit facility
MarketFinance, a UK credit and payments company, has secured a £30m credit facility from Israeli tech investment group Viola.
According to MarketFinance, the facility will enable more online firms to offer flexible payment terms of up to 90 days to buyers.
The agreement will enable MarketFinance to provide credit worth up to £240m per year on rolling 45-to-90-day terms to UK-based firms.
Since its inception, MarketFinance has made over £45m available to more than 2,000 buyers via embedded finance. The company claims that UK-based suppliers are better able to serve buyers in Europe and North America, supporting their international growth.
IriusRisk scores $29m in Paladin-led Series B
IriusRisk, a threat modelling company, has landed $29m in a Series B funding round headed by Paladin Capital Group.
IriusRisk is an open threat modelling platform that automates and supports creating threat models at design time.
The threat model includes recommendations on how to address the risk. IriusRisk then enables the user to manage security risks throughout the rest of the software development lifecycle with architectural diagramming and full customisation to enable every stakeholder to collaborate.
The firm said it more than quadrupled its partner base across 2021 and grew its users of its free community edition version of the platform by 120%, with over 4,000 projects running through the platform over the last year.
IriusRisk said the new funding would be used to support R&D, grow its community platform, and support continued hiring.
Clearspeed closes $27m Series C
Clearspeed, a provider of voice analytics technology to assess security and fraud risk, has raised $27m in Series C funding.
The round, which brings the company’s total funds raised to $50m, will be used to support the company’s commercial expansion and delivery of its customer service and its technology to serve the security and financial services markets.
Founded in 2016, Clearspeed describes itself as a leading provider of voice analytics technology to assess risk that quickly yielded exceptionally high levels of assessment precision and accuracy. The company said it also pioneered a new method of delivering risk identification and straight-through processing at scale.
Financial wellness platform Northstar scores $24.4m
Northstar, a financial wellness benefit platform, has secured $24.4m in a funding round led by GGV Capital.
Northstar works with leading firms to provide one-on-one financial advisors and personal finance tools as an employee benefit.
The firm’s financial wellness program helps employees make the most of their total compensation and helps businesses support their teams at scale through onboarding, equity events, open enrolment and more.
North Star said the new funding will be used to expand operations from 18 countries to more than 30 by the end of next year.
Egyptian money management app Telda raises $20m
Egypt-based money management app Telda has reportedly raised $20m for its seed funding round, as it looks to revolutionise finance in MENAP.
This capital will help Telda to continue its goal of helping Egyptians digitise their savings and spending.
Telda was co-founded by Uber engineer Youssef Sholqamy and Swvl co-founder Ahmed Sabbah in 2021. The company offers consumers a simple way to send, spend and save money.
Users can send and request money by sending a text message and receive instant payment notifications. It comes with a debit card that can be used anywhere, online, in-store or at ATMs.
Oort collects $15m for its identity-centric security
Oort, an identity-centric enterprise security platform, has raised a total of $15m through its seed and Series A rounds.
This capital will enable Oort to accelerate its go-to-market strategy.
Boston-based early-stage venture capital firm .406 Ventures co-led the investment with Energy Impact Partners, a strategic investment firm. Cisco Investments also joined the round, along with existing backers 645 Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures and First Star Ventures.
Oort supplies security teams with full visibility and control over their identity attack surface. Its platform is deployable within minutes and gives CISOs insights needed to understand and secure their population of employees and contractors against social engineering and insider threats.
CrowdSec lands $14m from Series A raise
CrowdSec, a French cybersecurity startup, has scored €14m from a Series A financing round headed by Supernova Invest.
CrowdSec is an open-source and collaborative IPS to analyse visitor behaviour by parsing logs and provide an adapted response to all kinds of attacks.
The solution also enables users to protect each other – each time an IP is blocked, all community members are informed so they can also block it.
CrowdSec says its software has been installed more than 100,000 times, including by governments, financial institutions, ecommerce companies, and media organizations across 175 countries.
Ayoconnect extends Series B with $13m
Ayoconnect, an Indonesia-based open finance platform, has raised $13m in an extension of its Series B funding round.
Ayoconnect’s stack is divided into two main areas. On the embedded finance side, Ayoconnect helps companies of any size launch financial products using APIs such as phone top-up, utilities payments, embedded insurance, and auto-billing. Banking-as-a-service APIs provide account opening, disbursement, credit, investment, savings, and other capabilities.
On the data side, Ayoconnect said it enables companies to make better decisions by pulling banking data, such as account validation, account balance, transactions, and liabilities. Ayoconnect also provides data on unbanked and underbanked people through bill payments, e-wallet, location, phone, ecommerce, payroll and other alternative data. New use-case APIs are added regularly.
According to Ayoconnect, the new funding will enable it to continue building out an exceptional leadership team and to invest in product and technology development.
The round will also facilitate the execution of Ayoconnect’s roadmap through both organic and external growth, which includes new solutions around payments, data and banking, and with new APIs planned for account opening and card issuing.
AXA Venture Partners backs ARTA in $11m Series A round
ARTA, a provider of fulfilment technology for high value goods and collectibles, has raised $11m in a Series A funding round led by AXA Venture Partners.
ARTA helps businesses accelerate ecommerce for high-value goods like priceless paintings, vintage furniture, and rare baseball cards, seamlessly automating every step of the fulfillment process. Well-known auction houses including Sotheby’s and Bonhams, marketplaces like Artsy, high-end home decor companies like The Expert and Outer, and Joopiter, a digital-first auction house founded by Pharrell Williams, all partner with ARTA to drive sales and improve customer satisfaction.
ARTA said the funding will help the company continue to reduce friction in fulfilment processes by expanding its technology platform, international coverage, compliance and insurance products, and integrations for businesses of any size.
FinTech Tugende nets $10m in equity and debt
Ugandan FinTech lending business Tugende has scored $10m in pre-Series B equity and debt funding.
The funding was provided by Partech and Women’s World Banking, as well as another unnamed investor.
The company is a lender that specialises in asset finance and credit scoring. The company has supported more than 55,000 clients in Uganda and Kenya to own income-generating assets and build credit profiles to unlock new opportunities as they grow their businesses.
The new capital will help strengthen Tugende’s balance sheet and allow it to increase portfolio growth as well as address a significant credit demand amongst MSMEs.
Instant payments firm Astra nets $10m
Astra, a provider of instant card-to-card funding-as-a-service, has raised $10m in a Series A funding round led by FPV Ventures.
Through a lightweight API integration, Astra offers a platform that allows developers to add faster settlement and financial automation to their existing products.
According to Astra, the Series A will support the expansion of its team, with a particular focus on engineering and compliance resources in order to further enable faster payments from any source to any destination.
The company also aims to extend its payment solutions to sizeable enterprises as it grows its customer base in investing, lending and B2B industry verticals and expand their embedded payment capabilities with other FinTech infrastructure providers.
Axelor snares €10m in Series A haul
Axelor, a business application suite that provides an alternative to traditional ERP and CRM, has raised €10m in a Series A funding round.
Axelor claims it is at the forefront of the fast-growing ERP and low-code software markets and has a goal of accelerating its development and leading the market. The round was backed by Inter Invest Capital.
The company has developed an open-source design that intrinsically integrates a range of functional modules covering a large variety of business processes.
Axelor claims this round of financing is part of its development strategy, a modular and intelligent business process management platform, which is focused on four key areas. These are strengthening their R&D, optimising sales and brand awareness, international expansion and developing their partner network.
Net Purpose raises £10m to make impact investing accessible
Net Purpose has raised £10m for its Series A round, as it continues its mission to make impact investing available to everyone.
The company’s mission is to make impact investment effortless for all investors by 2025. It stated that every investor in the world needs access to sustainability data by 2025 so they can put their capital in the most innovative and impactful businesses.
Net Purpose aims to pioneer this access to data. It initially focused on the most sophisticated impact and sustainable investors. These clients have enormous amounts of capital and are measuring their social and environmental performance while maintaining financial return.
Its platform provides quantitative facts on the social and environmental performance of companies and investment portfolios.
New York-based OatFi bags $8m for B2B solutions
OatFi, a New York-based company that provides working capital infrastructure for B2B payment platforms, has raised $8m in a seed funding round.
The round was led by QED Investors with participation from existing investors Portage Ventures, Picus Capital and Cambrian Ventures, and the addition of new investors Fin VC, Dash Fund and Lorimer Ventures.
This brings the total funding to $11.25m, following a $3.25m pre-seed round co-led by Portage Ventures and Picus Capital earlier this year.
Fintor raises $6.2m
Fintor, which powers investing into real estate, has launched its mobile-first platform on iOS and Android devices, alongside the close of a $6.2m investment.
This capital will enable Fintor to grow its user base and expand the number of investment properties it has. In the first half of 2023, Fintor plans to expand across the US into over 20 markets. This expansion will introduce $5m+ worth of investment opportunity for its user base.
Fintor helps anyone diversify their investment portfolio to include real estate, without needing to own property. It achieves this by purchasing rental properties, securitising the asset and issuing shares of an LLC that owns a property.
The PropTech company is qualified under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation A status. This enables it to support non-accredited investors, who have traditionally been unable to access real estate investment platforms.
Payable raises $6.1m to transform payments
Payable, which has developed one platform for payment operations, has raised $6.1m in funding to help companies move away from EBICs, bank files and spreadsheets.
The company was founded by Daniel Yubi and Razvan Musca. A year ago, they spoke with the treasury and payment operations team at Checkout.com to see what was needed to launch a new marketplace solution.
The duo found that companies are dependent on clunky systems and outdated bank files to reconcile and make bank transfers. When these companies scale, they move into the payments value chain and become FinTech companies.
Yubi explained that this creates problems for finance and operations teams that need to manage new payment flows created by product teams using manual processes.
xalts raises $6m for its digital asset ecosystem platform
xalts, an investment management platform supporting the digital asset ecosystem, has raised $6m in funding.
The company plans to release multiple fund products linked to digital assets. These include mutual funds and ETFs listed on several global exchanges.
Additionally, xalts is leveraging its technology platform to partner with several asset management firms and staking infrastructure providers to jointly launch and manage mutual funds and ETFs.
xalts is also developing several other products in collaboration with other players in the ecosystem. Among these are a structured product and repackaging platform which will allow institutions to issue structured notes with embedded crypto options.
Headquartered in Hong Kong, xalts is a global investment management and technology company. Its platform aims to open access to the digital asset ecosystem in a secure and compliant manner.
Australian PropTech company PropHero bags $5m
Australian PropTech platform PropHero has closed its oversubscribed seed round on AUD 8m ($5m).
The capital was raised to support its growth in Australia and internationally. Capital will also enable PropHero to improve its data models and digital customer experiences and hire staff for key roles. It also plans to grow partner referral channels in mortgage broking, accounting and financial advisory.
PropHero offers a digital property investment platform that offers a full end-to-end solution, including strategy consultation and support from a personal property coach. Its aim is to transform how the Australian and European property investors find, buy and manage their investment properties.
Its platform combines data-driven and AI-led insights with personalised digital user experiences supported by human expertise.
FlapKap pockets $3.6m in seed funding round
FlapKap, a tech-enabled revenue-based financing platform aiming to revolutionise ecommerce growth, has bagged $3.6m in a seed round.
FlapKap supports e-commerce businesses to scale and grow by targeting businesses that have traditionally had limited access to bank or venture capital financing.
The firm offers insights and analytics to e-commerce businesses to help them accelerate growth and swift access to working capital financing for deployment on inventory and digital marketing spend.
FlapKap will use the new funding to increase its capacity in helping more e-commerce businesses in the MENA region scale and maximise their growth potential, as well as consolidate its position as the region’s foremost and leading revenue-based financing player.
Crypto lender Moon Mortgage lands $3.5m
Moon Mortgage, a cryptocurrency lending platform, has raised $3.5m in a seed financing round headed by CoinFund and Cadenza Ventures.
According to FinTech Finance, Moon Mortgage’s CryptoMortgage product will enable digital asset investors to materialise their crypto holdings in real estate.
The company said the product does this by taking the investor’s digital assets as collateral and then providing 100% of the financing for owner-occupied and investment properties.
CryptoMortgage will be launching soon and will be open to investors in most States across the US for investment properties.
Blackbullion snares £2.5m
Financial wellbeing platform Blackbullion scores £2.5m in investment round as it aims to accelerate financial wellbeing for students.
Blackbullion’s platform is currently deployed in over 50 universities, colleges and higher education organisations across the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland.
According to Blackbullion, the investment will be used to scale product development, funds-specific features as well as its hiring plan.
The funding will also support the integration of its Scholarship Hub further into the Blackbullion platform following its acquisition earlier this year.
Climate investment platform Raise Green nets $1.2m
Climate investment platform Raise Green has closed its seed round on $1.2m, as it looks to accelerate project finance and deployment.
As part of its Raise Green Impact Partners program, the FinTech climate investment platform also partnered with an undisclosed asset manager to expand financing and deployment of solar, energy efficiency, and climate tech ventures.
The Raise Green Impact Partners program aims to identify climate and clean energy leaders, influencers and youth ambassadors to spread the word about opportunities to invest in, raise capital for and own a piece of the clean energy infrastructure.
Raise Green’s FinTech software and services help connect climate entrepreneurs with incentives to and community financing to reduce the soft-costs associated with project financing and early-stage venture capital.
Private capital market tech developer Chronograph closes its ‘Series X’
Chronograph, which offers modern technology for private capital markets, has closed a ‘Series X’ funding round, as it expands its product suite.
With the capital, the company plans to accelerate its global growth and deepen its portfolio of portfolio monitoring, reporting and analytics solutions.
Headquartered in Brooklyn, Chronograph was created to bring next-generation technology to private capital markets participants.
Through its suite of cloud-based analytics and data management solutions, the FinTech company helps investors understand, value and manage their private investments.
MoneyGram backs financial super-app Jingle Pay
UAE-based financial super-app Jingle Pay has received a minority investment from P2P payment platform MoneyGram International, alongside a new partnership.
Together, the companies plan to enable convenient and fast global money transfers through the Jingle Pay app.
Following the deal, consumers in the UAE can use the Jingle Pay app to send money to over 200 countries and territories around the world. This is powered by MoneyGram’s global payment rails and near real-time capabilities.
Munich Re Ventures back digital life insurer Amplify
Amplify Life Insurance, a digital-first life insurance platform, has closed an investment round led by Munich Re Ventures (MRV).
Amplify’s digital platform offers customers the ability to invest in public markets with their life insurance premiums, accessing tax-efficient returns throughout their lifetime via a product that has been historically available primarily to affluent and more mature demographics.
The company’s digital interface provides customers with a customised policy based on their financial goals, risk tolerance, and underwriting risk profile. Customers can also choose how much of their premiums are invested in tax-efficient, high-growth investments and how much goes towards their life insurance coverage.
With built-in capabilities for expedited underwriting and policy delivery, Amplify said most its customers are able to get a life insurance investment policy within days and without a medical exam.
Last week, FinTech Global reported on a diverse range of deals, with lending companies faring particularly well in the highest-value deals.
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