Funding deals, Founders and Investors, & Movers and Shakers #32
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FUNDING
🇬🇧 TrueLayer, which provides technology for developers to enable a range of open-banking-based services has raised $130 million in a funding round that values the London-based startup at over $1 billion. Link here.
🇦🇺 Airwallex announced it has raised US$200 million in an oversubscribed Series E financing round, increasing the company’s valuation to US$4 billion. Link here.
🇺🇸 MaxRewards is announcing a $3 million seed round co-led by Dundee Venture Capital and Calano Ventures. Also backing the company are Techstars, Fintech Ventures Fund, Service Provider Capital, and Fleetcor president, Nick Izquierdo. Link here.
🇬🇧 dopay, the B2B2C payments platform serving 1.7bn unbanked workers in emerging markets, has closed a US$ 18 million Series A funding round. Link here.
🇬🇧 FORM3, the platform payment technology provider, has today announced its Series C investment funding of $160 million. Link here.
🇨🇴 Addi, a leading Latin American BNPL/payment firm, this week announced a new $75 million fundraising round, valuing the company at “nearly triple” what it was ostensibly worth all of 90 days ago. Link here.
🇳🇱 Sendcloud announced $177 million in funding, a major investment that speaks not just to Sendcloud’s recent growth. Link here.
🇳🇱 Sprinque announced that it has raised €1.7M in a fresh round of funding. Link here.
🇫🇷 Sorare, a blockchain-based fantasy football game, has raised a $680m Series B round led by SoftBank, which values the three-year-old French company at $4.3bn. It is the biggest Series B round in Europe to date. Link here.
🇬🇧 PassFort has closed a Series A funding round, raising $16.2 million. The fundraising was led by US growth equity fund Level Equity, with participation from existing investors OpenOcean, Episode 1 Ventures, and Entrepreneur First. Link here.
🇱🇹 Kernolab, the Lithuanian fintech startup that provides agile and highly flexible Banking-as-a-Service, has closed a $1 million pre-seed round led by Lighthouse Ventures. Link here.
🇺🇸 Omaze, the leading social impact fundraising platform that offers the chance to win once-in-a-lifetime prizes to support charities around the world, announced that it has secured $85 million in new capital. Link here.
🇮🇳 Pine Labs raised an additional $100 million, just weeks after securing $600 million in a financing round. Link here.
FOUNDERS & INVESTORS
I highly recommend this excellent opinion piece on the experience behind the Y Combinator accelerator program. Founder Anh-Tho Chuong Degroote gives tips on how to get the most out of the world's most famous accelerator. Link here.
In Nigeria, the number of funding rounds above $1 million has almost doubled from 25 to 47 between 2019 and the first nine months of 2021, according to data from Africa: The Big Deal. Read more here.
As he transitions from founder to investor, Tom Blomfield has laid out some advice for firms looking to raise money, including a warning about meetings with a certain foot-picking, cigarette-smoking executive at the giant Softbank Vision Fund. Link here.
VC financings within the Greater China region have drastically increased since 2015. Disruptive startups are taking advantage of building businesses in a region served by both the most populous country and second-largest economy in the world. Relative to pandemic- mired 2020, the pace of deals in H1 2021 has been robust. Link here.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS:
🇺🇸 eToro Group Ltd, a multi-asset investment platform that empowers people to grow their knowledge and wealth as part of a global community of successful investors, announced the appointment of Michael Ptasznik to its Board of Directors. Link here.
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Let me know if there are any questions or news/insights worth mentioning in next week's article. Until the next!
Regards,
Marcel van Oost
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