This Week in Fintech (8/7)

BharatPe, the Indian merchant financial services and payments platform, raised a $370 million Series E at a $2.85 billion valuation.

Rapyd, a UK embedded fintech provider, raised $300 million on an $8.75 billion valuation.

Human Interest, a 401k plan provider for SMBs, raised $200 million at a a $1 billion valuation.

Sentilink, an ID verification technology company, raised a $70 million Series B.

Nedbank, a South African infrastructure bank for clean energy, raised $63 million (R190 million).

Kuda, a Nigerian neobank, raised $55 million at a $500 million valuation.

Octane, a lender for large recreational and vehicle purchases, raised $52 million at a $900 million valuation.

Tabby, a UAE buy-now-pay-later firm, raised $50 million at a $300 million valuation.

Jupiter, an Indian consumer neobank, raised $45 million at a $300 million valuation, from investors including Brazilian neobank Nubank.

Zeni, a provider of real-time financial data to SMBs, raised $34 million.

Reserve Trust, a Federal Reserve master account B2B payments company, raised $30.5 million.

Yaydoo, a Mexican B2B payments company, raised $20 million.

Snoop, a UK money management app, raised £15 million at a £47 million valuation.

Kasisto, a financial chatbot developer, raised a $15.5 million Series C.

Wildfire Systems, a rewards and loyalty provider, raised a $15 Million Series A.

FintechOS, a low-code financial inclusion provider, raised $10 million.

Banyan, a rich receipt data provider for banks and fintechs, raised $10 million.

Aspen Digital, a platform for traditional and crypto investing, raised $8.8 million in “pre-A” funding.

Trading.tv, a livestream platform for financial content creators, raised $6.1 million.

Aplazo, a Mexican omnichannel buy-now-pay-later provider, raised a $5.25 million seed.

MotoRefi, a US-based auto lender, raised $5 million.

Comma, a UK bulk payments startup, raised £4.34 million.

Baraka, a Dubai-based retail investment app for US stocks, raised a $4 million seed.

FlowAccount, a Thai online invoicing platform, raised a $4 million Series A.

Nymbus, a banking tech provider, raised $3 million from OFG Bancorp.

Tembo, a mortgage broker, raised £2.5 million.

Wapi Pay, an Asia-Africa remittances provider based in Singapore and Kenya, raised a $2.2 million pre-seed.

CoreChain, a payments network built on a blockchain back-end, raised a $1.25 million pre-seed.

Akiba Digital, a South African small business lending startup, raised a $1.1 million pre-seed.

CreditFins, an Egyptian credit card management and financial wellness platform, raised a pre-seed.

Raise, a startup building ‘Carta for Africa,’ got backing from 500 Startups.

Banking Circle,  a Luxembourg-based cross-border B2B payments startup, is looking to raise $500 million at a €5 billion valuation.

VNLife, a Vietnamese neobank, raised strategic funding from PayPal.

Abrigo, a compliance and risk software provider, raised undisclosed funding from Carlyle.

Capital on Tap, a UK small business credit card provider, raised a $100 million credit facility as it expands to the US.

Element Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on B2B fintech and founded by ex-bankers, raised a $130 million fund.

HSBC launched a venture capital arm to invest into B2B fintech.

Orange County Bancorp (a bank based in New York?) raised $34 million in its IPO at a $150 million valuation.

Alabama bank Southern States Bank set terms for its IPO, and will seek to raise $40 million at a $174 million valuation.

FinAccel, the parent company of Indonesian buy-now-pay-later lender Kredivo, agreed to go public through a merger with Victory Park’s VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings II SPAC at a $2.5 billion valuation.

Pico, a financial markets data provider, is planning to go public through a merger with FTAC Athena Acquisition Corp at a $1.4 billion valuation.

In the biggest fintech acquisition story of the week (of the quarter?) Square announced that it will acquire Australian buy-now-pay-later lender Afterpay, in an all-stock deal valued at $29 billion - a 30% premium to Afterpay’s current market cap. You can see the investor presentation here. There are many reads to this acquisition. It could enable Square to begin hopping borders into geos like Australia. It could further link the consumer Cash App experience to the Square merchant experience, creating “superapps” on both sides. And it could signal that buy-now-pay-later is here to stay as a legitimate alternative payment method to credit cards.

Credit rating agency Moody’s will acquireRMS, a provider of climate and natural disaster risk modeling and analytics, for $2.0 billion.

Financial data aggregator News Corp will acquireS&P Global’s oil price information business for $1.15 billion.

Western Union is selling its Business Solutions division to Goldfinch Partners and The Baupost Group for $910 million.

NCR, one of the largest ATM operators in the US, will acquireLibertyX, a cryptocurrency software provider, to enable crypto withdrawals.

Blockchain mortgage provider Figure announced that it will merge with Homebridge Financial Services, a $25 billion+ mortgage originator with 150,000 customers.

Brazilian neobank Nubank will acquireJuntos Global, a customer communications platform, to bolster its customer service.

PicPay, a Brazilian financial marketplace, will acquireGuiabolso, a Brazilian financial management and open banking platform.

Coinbase is acquiring ‘Plaid for crypto’ provider Zabo.

Financial crime-fighting platform Feedzai acquired behavioural biometric platform Revelock to enable better transaction fraud protection.

Secure payment solutions provider Paysafe signed an agreement to acquire Peruvian payments platform PagoEfectivo.

Broadridge Financial Solutions, a corporate finance solutions provider, acquiredAlpha Omega, a post-trade solutions provider for the investment management industry.

Payroll provider Deel acquired automated payroll software Zeitgold.

Italian payments provider Nexi signed an MoU to acquire a 51% stake in Greek bank holding company Alpha Bank's merchant acquiring business for €157 million.

Newtek Business Services, a business development company, will acquireNational Bank of New York City for $20 million in cash.

Cresset Asset Management acquired boutique Asset Management Advisors.