How many 100 million-user neobanks will there be? (TWIF 11/23)

Hello Fintech Friends,

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📈 At Slush this week in Helsinki, Revolut founder Nik Storonsky announced his audacious goal to hit 100 million customers (Nubank passed the mark this year). This comes as the neobank considers a US bank license. (Nik, if you're reading this, come on the podcast!)

👋 You can now find us on BlueSky at @twif.bsky.social. Come say hi!

💸 I was excited to see a couple of our portfolio companies announce fundraises this week – Solvento, a Mexican fintech provider to the trucking industry, and Rise, who are building stablecoin-based payroll to pay contractors and employees more quickly in 100+ countries.

🎤 I also loved talking with the Bain fintech team at Money20/20 about "the great fintech rebound" and renewed optimism pervading the space. 2025 promises to be an exciting year for fintech. Thank you to Jeff Tijssen and the team for having me on.

Please find another week of fintech financing events below.

(PS: Have feedback for us? 👍👎 Let us know!)

📺

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📊 Stat of the Week

The FDIC just published their annual household survey – always a treasure trove of good financial data – which shows that 96% (!) of households were banked in 2023. Only 4% (5.6 million) were unbanked.

66.2% of unbanked households relied entirely on cash, while 33.8% of unbanked households relied upon a combination of prepaid cards or nonbank online payment services such as PayPal, Venmo or Cash App to conduct transactions.

The survey found that 14.2% of households (19 million) were underbanked, meaning these households had a bank or credit union account yet primarily used nonbank products and services to meet their financial needs.

💸 Venture Financing

TailorMed raised $40 million to address medical cost debt.
OneChronos, a dark pool trading platform, secured $32 million in additional funding.
Minus, a Mexican employee benefits platform (shown in the screenshot below), secured a $30 million Series B.
QPLIX obtained €25 million from Partech for global expansion in wealthtech.
Kody raised $20 million in Series A financing.
Wyden, a digital asset trading technology firm, secured $16.9 million in Series B funding to advance their infrastructure.
Noble, a stablecoin company, secured $15 million in Series A funding from Paradigm.
Cardo, which offers advanced portfolio modeling and collateral data management for private credit, raised a $15 million Series A.
Banco Contactar, a Colombian rural microfinance bank, received $15 million from Accion Digital Transformation Fund.
Solvento*, a financial services provider for the trucking and nearshoring industries in Mexico, raised $12 million in Series A funding.
Just secured €8 million to improve e-commerce checkout processes.
Kalder, a payment rewards startup, raised a $7 million seed round.
South Korean digital identity solution Hopae secured $6.5 million in funding.
Rise*, a stablecoin payroll startup enabled in 100+ countries, raised a $6.3 million Series A.
Kintsugi, a sales tax automation startup, doubled its valuation to $80 million with a new $4 million Series A.
EdfaPay, a Saudi soft-PoS and payment gateway provider, raised $5 million in pre-Series A funding.
Socium, a Senegalese HR and payroll provider, secured $5 million in seed funding led by Breega.
Tangible, a software to streamline the financing process for climate hardware companies, raised $4 million.
Folks Finance, a cross-chain decentralized finance platform, raised $3.2 million in a Series A at a $75 million valuation.
TaxCalc, a UK provider of tax and accounts compliance and practice management software, received investment from STG Allegro (amount undisclosed).
OpenYield, a bond marketplace delivering an equity-like trading experience, raised an undisclosed amount of funding.
Payments giant Stripe is managing another employee tender offer at a $70 billion valuation ($27.51 per share).