FinTech Europe | 2023 #28
Weekly news up to Tuesday, 11th of July 2023
REPORT
4 deals in France, 3 in Switzerland, 2 in the UK and Spain, and 1 in Belgium, Romania, and Czech Republic:
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
The partnership with Bitpanda will provide NayaOne users access to Bitpanda’s exchange services, an in-built wallet for securely storing digital assets, a trading platform with advanced charting tools, and a professional-grade API for developers.
The platform provides additional services such as Bitpanda Savings and Bitpanda Staking, which allow users to earn interest on their digital assets.
👨💻 BLOG
Banks like Starling, Westpac and BBVA have slowed down or stopped their BaaS sales. BaaS providers like Solaris, Varengold and Cross River have got into hot water with regulators. Railsr went into administration. And valuations of former embedded finance darlings like Stripe and Klarna have been hit massively. A blog by Ben Robinson.
💡INSIGHTS
European AI FinTech deal activity remains strong in Q2 2023 despite pressure from regulators.
Key European AI investment stats in Q2 2023:
‣ European AI FinTech deal activity increased 6% to 38 deals in Q2 2023 from the previous quarter
‣ European AI FinTech companies raised a combined $183m in Q2 2023, no change from Q1 2023
‣ The UK was the most active European AI FinTech country with a 34% share of deals in Q2 2023
UK FinTech funding has dipped in the first half of 2023, as total cash raised by UK fintech firms reached $2.9 billion in the first six months, showing a 37 per cent decrease compared to the later half of last year, according to new figures from industry body Innovate Finance.
🧐 ANALYSIS
Kristo Käärmann took home an overall pay packet of £209,000 in the year ending March 2023 compared to the £336,000 taken home by Wise CFO Matthew Briers.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🌎 FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Bolt has appointed Revolut’s ex-CFO Mikko Salovaara as its new finance chief.
⭐️ Papara becomes latest unicorn following acquisition of Spain’s Rebellion.
⭐️ Divido unveils embedded retail finance platform.
⭐️ UK EMI The Payment Firm set to launch this summer.
PAYMENTS
Lisbon Metro turns on open loop contactless ticketing. Public transportation users in Lisbon can now pay for the journeys they make on the city’s metro system with a standard contactless bank card, NFC mobile phone or smartwatch.
Flix partners with Congrify to enhance their payments data management. The partnership means Flix payment teams can leverage the Congrify platform to unify fragmented payment data across multiple payment channels.
CBDCs to have “transformative” impact on payments. UK Finance, which represents more than 300 banking firms and a raft of fintechs, has issued its recommendations to the Bank of England regarding a proposed CBDC.
SumUp has selected Form3 to provide direct access into the UK Faster Payments Scheme (FPS) and Bacs Scheme to further enhance its business account offering for UK customers.
Total Processing integrates A2A payments with Token. Token.io’s A2A payment infrastructure will enable Total Processing to swiftly launch its own A2A payment capabilities to its merchants across various industries through its gateway.
CAB Payments has raised more than £300mn in one of London’s few IPOs this year.
Mastercard, Virta and Worldpay team on card payments for EV charging stations. The new solution brings seamless card-based payments to existing and new charging stations in Europe.
OPEN BANKING
Kindgeek and Salt Edge form open banking partnership. This collaboration evolves into a one-stop shop with limitless opportunities in open banking technologies.
Bank of England has enlisted Nuggets to work on a privacy and identity layer for any future digital pound.
DONE DEAL
Curvo announced the successful completion of its seed round, raising €500,000 for European expansion and to further enhance its offering for its customers.
UBS leads €10 million seed round in Numarics. The capital injection will be used to support Numarics growth through further M&A, expansion in the DACH region and further product development to offer a broader range of services.
Lemonero has raised an extended seed round and growth capital for the acceleration of its development process in Europe.
Qover just raised a $30 million Series C round with this 18-slide pitch deck.
GREEN FINANCE
Keewe secures €3m funding to enhance international green payments. Keewe intends to use the newly acquired funds to accelerate its business operations and further develop its unique offering, Green Payments.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
SumUp appoints Anna Kuriakose as CPO. Anna will focus on strengthening the product team, drive clarity and implementation of SumUp’s product strategy and lead cross-team initiatives.
N26 promotes Andrea Isola to VP of European Markets and Business Operations. Isola will be responsible for the bank’s growth across its core European markets, leading a team that includes the General Managers in the region.
GoCardless picks former SAP EMEA president, Franck Cohen, as first chair. He will help GoCardless accelerate its path to profitability.
FINTECH MAPS
If you are a fintech startup and have over 100 questions send me an email, maybe I can answer a few.