Funding deals, Founders and Investors, & Movers and Shakers #37

FUNDING

Asian payments infrastructure builder XanPool has raised US$27 million in a Series A funding round led by 🇺🇸 Valar Ventures LLC and joined by 🇬🇧 Wise founder Taavet Hinrikus. Link here.

🇧🇷 Hash, a payment infrastructure fintech, announced that it has raised $40 million in a Series C funding round co-led by QED Investors and 🇧🇷 KASZEK. Link here. 

🇺🇸 Button Finance, Inc., a fintech mortgage lender focused on home equity, announced that it has closed a $2 million seed raise. Link here. 

🇺🇸 Brex has raised $300 million in funding that propels it to decacorn status, just six months after it was valued at $7.4 billion. Link here. 

🇮🇳 CRED has raised $251 million in a Series E funding round, almost doubling its valuation to $4 billion in six months. Link here. 

🇱🇹 kevin. secured $10 million of new capital in a seed funding round co-led by OTB Ventures and Speedinvest. Link here. 

🇧🇷 Pismo raised $108 million in Series B funding from Amazon, SoftBank Group Corp., and Accel. Link here. 

🇦🇷 Pomelo announced that it is raising $35 million in Series A financing led by Tiger Global Management. Link here. 

🇺🇸 Wells Fargo is the latest Wall Street giant to back Volante Technologies, investing $10 million in the cloud payments and financial messaging firm. Link here. 

🇬🇧 Updraft, the financial app announced its largest investment round to date, raising £72 million in equity and debt, to fuel its expansion and help more UK consumers on a bespoke path to financial freedom. Link here. 

🇬🇧 Primer has closed a Series B funding round that values the payments infrastructure startup at $425 million only 20 months after being founded. Link here. 

🇩🇪 Unstoppable Finance announced its $5.2m Seed round with its mission to bring Decentralized Finance to mainstream investors around the world. Link here. 

🇧🇷 Hash, a payment infrastructure fintech, announced that it has raised $40 million in a Series C funding round co-led by QED Investors and KASZEK. Link here. 

FOUNDERS & INVESTORS

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak will announce £150m of funding for a regional UK angel investor programme in his annual budget on Wednesday. Link here. 

Investment theses aren’t just for VCs. Angels need them too. Having a focus can help you stay efficient and become a better angel investor. Link here. Also,  Angel investing is on the rise in Europe. This has been accompanied by another trend: angel investors are clubbing together to form syndicates so they can share deal flow, combine their skills and ultimately plug more cash into the startups they back. Link here. 

🇺🇸 Envestnet, Inc, one of the largest ecosystems transforming the way financial advice and wellness are delivered, and 🇺🇸 YieldX, a FinTech company reimagining fixed income, announced they are entering into a strategic relationship. Link here. 

🇬🇧 Volt.io announced a new partnership with 🇳🇱 Worldline Financial Services, that will give over 600 enterprise-level merchants globally access to Volt’s open payments infrastructure, driving significant levels of transaction volumes. Link here. 

Startup 🇩🇪 Bling Services GmbH has joined forces with SocGen-owned BaaS player 🇫🇷Treezor to develop a prepaid pocket money card and financial education app for kids in Germany. Link here. 

🇺🇸 Alloy, the recently named unicorn, has expanded its identity decisioning platform to include credit underwriting, with the intention of building comprehensive views of customers in line with their onboarding and transaction monitoring products. Link here. 

🇺🇸 Stripe has announced the acquisition of Bengaluru-based enterprise financial software firm, Recko Inc. at an undisclosed amount, marking its first India acquisition. Link here. 

 🇳🇱 Worldline Financial Services and 🇺🇸 Chargebee announced their collaboration to provide an end-to-end payment, subscription, and revenue operations solution for merchants operating in a subscription model. Link here.

🇺🇸 Fiserv, a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, announced a strategic relationship with Bakkt, a trusted digital asset platform that enables consumers to buy, sell, send and spend a range of digital assets. Link here. 

MOVERS & SHAKERS:

🇺🇸 QED Investors, a leading global venture capital firm focused on investing in disruptive financial services companies, announced it has hired Alexandra Piedrahita ('Ale'). Link here. 

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