Funding deals, Founders and Investors, & Movers and Shakers #30
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FUNDING
🇬🇧 Sikoia has raised $2.3 million in a pre-seed round. Surveying the increasingly fragmented and often confusing fintech service provider landscape, Sikoia’s mission is to help companies make better use of the data already available to them. Link here.
Software billing startup 🇺🇸 Octane announced it raised $2 million on a post-money valuation of $10 million to advance its pay-as-you-go billing software. Link here.
🇫🇷 Mooncard - mooncard.co raises €20 million from two new high-profile investors: BlackFin Capital Partners and Partech, alongside its existing investors AGLAÉ VENTURES and RAISEVentures. Link here.
🇬🇧 SurePay a Rabobank spin-off providing Confirmation of Payee (CoP) in the UK and Benelux, has raised a €12.2 million round led by Connected Capital with Iris Capital, joining Rabo Frontier Ventures to boost the company’s international expansion. Link here.
🇺🇸 Remitly has released an encouraging set of results ahead of its forthcoming IPO, doubling revenues to $257 million and halving its net losses to $32.5 million in 2020. Link here.
🇺🇸 Insurify, a startup that wants to help make it easier for people to get better rates on home, auto, and life insurance, announced that it has closed $100 million in an “oversubscribed” Series B funding round led by Motive Partners. Link here.
🇬🇧 BankiFi, a fintech business specializing in payment processing and financial administration services for SMEs, has secured a £2.2m investment in a funding round led by Praetura Ventures, with participation from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). Link here.
🇬🇧 moneyHop (Hop Financial Solutions), a UK-based company with an Indian subsidiary that provides seamless and cost-effective payments and remittance solutions, has raised $1.25 million in a seed round. Link here.
Sky News has learned that 🇬🇧 Thought Machine, which was set up in 2014, is close to concluding a deal that will more double the amount of capital injected into the business since its formation. Link here.
🇳🇱 venture builder Prosus Group is to buy 🇮🇳 digital payments provider BillDesk for $4.7 billion and merge it with payments processing subsidiary PayU. Link here.
🇩🇪 software-as-a-service (SaaS) and payments provider elopageGmbH has raised $38 million in a Series A funding round led by Target Global, with participation from Partech Ventures and Avid Ventures. Link here.
🇳🇱 e-bike brand VanMoof has just closed a $128m Series C, making it the most well-funded e-bike company on the planet, as the pandemic and concerns about the environmental impact of transportation have led to soaring demand across the world. Link here.
🇺🇸 Tuna is on a mission to “fine-tune” the payments space in Latin America and has raised two seed rounds totaling $3 million, led by Canary and by Atlantico. Link here.
🇺🇸 Jeeves, an all-in-one expense management platform for global startups, announced that it has raised a $57M Series B at a $500M valuation. Link here.
🇺🇸 Point Card has raised a $46.5 million Series B funding round. The company offers an account associated with a debit card. Link here.
FOUNDERS & INVESTORS
It has been a year of wins so far for MENA-based fintechs, with a handful of top-funded fintechs in the Middle East securing deals as well. Middle Eastern fintech startups having already raised record levels of VC funding in H1 this year. Link here.
“This world revolves around money,” says Silva, 18, an incoming first-year student at Northeastern University in Boston and the first in her family to attend college in the United States. “I want to make sure that I have all of the basics set.” That’s a need the startup 🇺🇸 Mos.com is hoping to fill when it launches a banking app for students on Sept. 1. Link here.
The European fintech landscape is thriving and, we’re happy to say, outperforming traditional finance when it comes to workplace happiness. Link here.
🇺🇸 Astra, a technology company that offers advanced bank-to-bank transfer solutions, announced a formal partnership with 🇺🇸 Plaid, a data network powering the digital financial ecosystem, to offer an integrated solution for developers to easily enable programmatic money movement for their customers. Link here.
Y Combinator’s summer batch of 2021 features 377 startups from 47 countries. Link here.
🇮🇳 Karbon Card, a fintech company offering corporate cards, has raised growth capital from accelerator Y Combinator, which counts Airbnb, DoorDash, and Stripe as its portfolio companies. Link here.
🇺🇸 Square’s popular free invoicing software is becoming the company’s next big subscription service. Link here.
Latam is still on fire! August has seen a sustained level of activity with some mega fintech rounds! We track everything closely using PitchBook Data. Link here.
🇧🇭 Aion Digital, and industry-leading digital experience platform creator 🇺🇸 Kasisto, Inc., have just announced a strategic partnership to redefine the way consumers engage with banks in the Middle East. Link here.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS:
Rachel Mooney has become the new chief people officer at digital bank 🇬🇧 Monzo Bank, which employs 1,500 staff, as of 1 September (Wednesday). Link here.
🇬🇧 TrueLayer, Europe’s leading open banking platform, announced that Mariko Beising has joined the firm as its new Head of Payment Partnerships, bringing a decade of experience, most recently at 🇸🇪 Klarna where she led partnerships with Payments Services Providers (PSPs). Link here.
🇺🇸 Step, the new modern-day financial services company built for teens and families, today announced the additions of two key executive hires. Link here. Link here.
🇳🇱 Adyen, the payments platform of choice for the world’s leading companies, today announced the appointment of Colin Neil to Managing Director of its UK operations. Link here.
🇬🇧 neToro Group Ltd (“eToro”), 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 Lule Demmissie to the role of US CEO. Link here.
🇺🇸 Provenir, a global leader in data analytics software and risk decisioning, has appointed Jose Luis Vargas Favero as its new executive vice president and general manager for Latin America. 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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