Hello Fintech Friends,
We were pleasantly surprised to see we crossed 50,000 readers this week.
I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for being here. As rewarding as it is to compile this newsletter every week, it would be nothing without the great readership and community thatโs grown around it.
Iโm excited to continue growing together in the next year - and if you ever have any feedback, I hope youโll share it with us at [email protected].
To celebrate, here are a few of my favorite 50,000 currency notes from around the world:
On that note, please find another week of fintech financing events below.
If youโre an early-stage startup founder raising equity or debt, we may be able to help - come check out our fund, The Fintech Fund (including a link to pitch us) and see our primer on how we make introductions to friendly VCs and debt providers.
Are you a fintech angel investor? Come join our syndicate.
JP Morgan published their Investing Outlook 2023, which begins: โUnusually, both stocks and bonds suffered big losses in 2022 โ one of the worst years ever for a balanced portfolio. But hereโs the good news. Precisely because markets are so battered, lower equity valuations and higher bond yields, in our view, offer investors the most attractive entry point for a traditional portfolio in over a decade.โ
Also, late-stage fintech valuations have been slashed from 40-80% over the last year.
๐ธ Venture Financing
Younited, a French credit and payment platform, raised โฌ60 million from backers including Goldman Sachs.
Vic.ai, an automated accounting platform, raised a $52 million Series C.
DataVisor, a fraud detection and risk management provider for financial services, raised million.
Plooto, a Canadian end-to-end payables and accounts receivables platform, raised a C$27 million ($20 million) Series B.
Bondaval, a bank guarantee alternative provider, raised a $15 million Series A.
Paper.id, an Indonesian invoicing tech provider, raised a $12 million Series B.
Opensee, a French platform for providing business users with real-time financial data insights, raised an โฌ11 million Series A.
Nilus, a plug-and-play treasury management and financial operations platform, raised an $8.6 million seed round.
Pathzero, a carbon reporting and analysis tool for financial institutions, raised an A$8.6 million Series A+.
Poolit, an LP access tool for accredited investors, raised a $5.3 million seed round.
Bling Europe, a financial education app and card for children in Europe, raised โฌ3.5 million in seed funding.
AltScore, a Mexican B2B lending infrastructure provider, raised a $3.5 million seed round.
Pocketnest, a female-founded financial wellness platform, raised $2.6 million.
Ocho, a retirement account and 401k provider for businesses, raised $2.5 million.
NF3, a Singaporean NFT lending marketplace, raised a $1.65 million seed round.
Finterest, a crypto lending protocol built to support native bitcoin lending, raised a $1.5 million seed round.
OneBanx, a shared bank branch operator, crowdfunded ยฃ1.27 million.
Fintel Connect, a performance marketing provider for financial services institutions, raised a seed round.
Etrading Software, a UK-based capital markets data software, raised strategic funding from Lloyds Bank.
Selfbook, a hotel payment software provider, raised a strategic investment from American Express.
Akulaku, an Indonesian lender backed by Ant Group, is in talks to raise $200 million from MUFG.
SBM Bankโs Indian arm, which has worked with many fintechs in the country, is raising between $50 and $75 million at a $200 million valuation.
Checkout, the European payments giant, cut its internal valuation from $40 billion to $11 billion.
๐ต Debt Financing
If I created a guide on how VCs can be "value add" I'd plaster "no operating advice!" all over it.
If you haven't operated and feel this is necessary, intro to someone who has operated before.
If you lack this context you're just putting your founder in an awkward positionโ Matt H (โ,โ) ๐บ๐ฆ (@mdharrisnyc) December 13, 2022
