Sector Updates

Financial news and data site Benzinga has picked up $3m in a new funding round from WorldQuant Ventures.

Payday loans startup LendUp is being made to pay $3.6m by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for widespread violation of payday and instalment laws.

Treasury management software firm Kyriba has raised $23m in a Series D round of funding led by Bpifrance’s growth fund Large Ventures.

FinTech accelerator Octopus Labs has announced the first five startups that will join its first programme this summer.

Mexican bitcoin exchange Bitso has raised $2.5m in funding to expand around Latin America. The investment comes in part from Mexican forging exchange Monex Group.

Singapore-based tech-driven real estate agency Greyloft is taking on $1.1m in round of seed funding.

Scalable blockchain database BigchainDB has raised €3m in a Series A investment. The round comes from Earlybird Venture Capital, Anthemis Group, Digital Currency Group and innogy SE.

Chinese group deals and online-to-offline (O2O) platform Meituan-Dianping has acquired payments startup Qiandai.

Artificial intelligence-driven due diligence processor Luminance has raised $3m in a new round of funding from Invoke Capital Partners.

Australian peer-to-peer lending platform SocietyOne is partnering with Beyond Bank Australia.