Funding deals, Founders and Investors, & Movers and Shakers #31
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FUNDING
Dutch digital investment platform 🇳🇱 Peaks has received €5 million in growth capital from Haerlem Capital & Rithmeester, who has snapped up a stake previously owned by Rabobank Frontier Ventures. Link here.
🇺🇸 Coinbase is planning to raise $1.5 billion in a bond sale, the proceeds of which will be used for product development and potential acquisitions. Link here.
Parallel Finance, a Polkadot-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol that offers lending and staking services, has raised $22 million in a Series A funding round. Link here.
Fintech infrastructure platform 🇬🇧 Integrated Finance has raised £2 million in a seed funding round led by Octopus Ventures. Link here.
🇦🇺 Fundsquire, a source of capital for startups and scale-ups globally, announced they have received a strategic $75 million AUD (£40 million) debt and equity investment from Fasanara Capital. Link here.
Cairo-based B2B e-commerce startup 🇪🇬 Capiter raised a $33 million Series A round. The investment was co-led by Quona Capital and MSA Capital. Other participating investors include Savola, Shorooq Partners, Foundation Ventures, Accion Venture Lab, and Derayah Ventures. Link here.
🇺🇸 Zebedee has raised $11.5 million to continue development for its Bitcoin-based payment systems for games. Link here.
Financial automation platform 🇬🇧 Aurelia has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Blossom Capital. Link here.
🇱🇻 Jeff App, the Latvian fintech startup providing a data-enabled loan brokerage platform for unbanked and underbanked customers in Asia, has closed a $1.5 million seed extension round led by J12 Ventures, bringing the total amount raised by Jeff App to $2.5M. Link here.
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) startup 🇮🇪 ScalaPay has announced it’s raised a $155m Series A led by Tiger Global. Link here.
🇨🇦Nuula, a Toronto-based fintech building a mobile financial services platform for SMEs, has raised US$20 million in equity funding and secured another US$100 million in the form of a credit facility. Link here.
🇬🇧 DivideBuy, a Stoke-On-Trent, England, UK-based buy now pay later (BNPL) provider, received a £300m lending facility. Link here.
🇸🇬 Vouch, a provider of business insurance to startups and high-growth companies, announced it has raised $90 million in new funding. Link here.
UK consumer lender 🇬🇧 Koyo has raised $50m (£36.1m) in debt and equity funding to support its growth plans, as it eyes the near-prime consumer credit market. Link here.
🇳🇬 Prospa was one of the 10 African startups participating in Y Combinator’s winter batch. A few months past graduation, the startup, combining both worlds of banking and business management tools for micro and small businesses, has closed a $3.8 million pre-seed round. Link here.
🇺🇸 Wisetack is a startup that brings buy now, pay later to in-person services. And it just raised $45 million in a Series B funding round led by Insight Partners. Link here.
🇺🇸 Jetty, a fintech company that aims to give renters flexibility when paying rent, has raised $23 million in a funding round co-led by Citi and Flourish Ventures. Link here.
FOUNDERS & INVESTORS
Mastercard has partnered with African fintech and Start Path company Paycode to provide both company’s offerings on one biometric smart card that will help increase access to critical services and advance economic inclusion for Africans living in remote communities. Link here.
US-based cloud-native payments company 🇺🇸 Gr4vy has announced two new partnerships with real-time payments network 🇬🇧 Banked and UK-based fintech 🇬🇧 GoCardless, focused on A2A payments. Link here.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS:
Curve chief technology officer, Matt Collinge, is set to leave the payments fintech after almost four years. Collinge first joined Curve in December 2017, arriving from comparethemarket.com, where he had been a technology and architecture director. The CTO writes on social media: “Some of the highlights during my time at Curve that will stay with me include completing two successful funding rounds [and] scaling the team in the technology and product functions from fifteen to over 200.” Link here.
Just weeks after rebranding from 🇬🇧 B-North and securing a banking license from the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), 🇬🇧 Bank North has appointed two new directors. Madis Toomsalu, Estonia’s LHV Banking Services group CEO, is joining Bank North as an independent non-executive director. Link here.
Women Returners and Innovate Finance have partnered to launch a cross-company returner program, encouraging individuals to re-enter the fintech sector following extended career breaks. Starling Bank, Klarna, and PrimaryBid are participating in the program and will offer 6-month returnship placements in Cardiff, London and Southampton from January 2022 for successful applicants who have been away from the sector for at least 18 months. Link here.
If there is anything else you think I’m missing, please don’t hesitate to reach out by email at bonjour@marcelvanoost.nl.
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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