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Funding 💸

Highlights below of deals since the last post in the fintech space across the UK & Europe.

🇪🇺 Wealthtech firm InvestSuite raised a €6m Series A.

🇪🇺 Migrant focused neobank Majority raised a $30m Series B led by Valar Ventures.

🇪🇺 Invoicing fintech CANDIS raised a €15.9m Series C led by Viola FinTech.

🇪🇺 Private markets infrastructure provider Ownera raised a $20m Series from JPMorgan and others.

🇪🇺Neobank for medical professionals CURE raised a €15m Series A from Breega and J12 Ventures.

🇪🇺HR fintech Rosaly raised a €10m Seed round from FJ Labs, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Fin Capital and others.

🇬🇧  Government incentive claims fintech Claimer raised a $4.2m seed round led by Project A.

🇬🇧 SaaS management fintech Cledara raised a $20m Series A led by CommerzVentures and included Notion Capital and others.

🇬🇧 Investment platform Hedgehog raised a £1.2m seed round on Seedrs.

🌍 Sustainable investment platform Ethic raised a $50m Series C from Kapor Capital, Nyca, UBS and others.

₿ Smart contract auditing fintech Sherlock raised a $4m seed round from Achetype.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Revolut has reached 1m downloads in Germany.

🇪🇺 Personal finance management app Woolsocks has launched in Germany.

🇬🇧 Spend management platform Payhawk is expanding to the US.

🌍 Walmart is to start testing out a digital checking account in the coming weeks according to Bloomberg.

Digital Assets ₿

🇬🇧 Sweatcoin’s SWEAT token launched this past week with users able to buy SWEAT tokens at the Token Generation Event. Sweatcoin has more than 110m users across 60 countries.

🌍  SEC Chairman Gensler has continued to consistently say that most digital assets as securities and should be regulated like securities.

🌍 The Ethereum blockchain successfully merged this past week and went live with its PoS mechanism.

🌍 Starbucks has unveiled its web3 loyalty program, Starbucks Odyssey, which will reward users with NFT stamps for completing digital experiences, will deepen the connection with customers.

🌍 US residents can apply to the Treasury Department for a licence to withdraw their crypto that is trapped on Tornado Cash.

🌍 South Korea has issued an arrest warrant for Do Kwon, the co-Founder of the Terra blockchain system.

🌍 EDX Markets, a crypto exchange backed by Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Paradigm, Sequoia, Citadel and Virtu Financial will start trading in November.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇬🇧 Research from Censuswide has found a “systematic problem” of greenwashing at UK banks with only 59% measuring their environmental impact despite 100% saying sustainability is integral to their strategy.

🌍 Citi has won an appeal against a prior decision to let creditors keep $500m that they were sent by Citi in error.

🌍 Goldman Sachs is partnering with Modern Treasury to improve its embedded payments for its corporate customer.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 The planned November merge of the three Target2 banking systems is causing concern for the German bank industry who fear chaos.

🇪🇺 Plaid is building a presence in Germany and has hired Michael Possible as its DACH chief.

🇪🇺 ING has overhauled its innovation initiatives and split into individual business units.

🇪🇺 Solarisbank is to introduce real-time transfers as it has been placed on the Instant Sepa participant list.

🇬🇧 Yapily signed Pleo as a customer to improve the payments experience for users for account top ups and businesses can better manage their cash flows.

🇬🇧 Wise announced its enterprise platform will allow its institutional clients to use its  SWIFT International Receive service.

🌍 Wio Bank has launched an embedded finance and BaaS platform in the UAE.

Payments 💰

🇬🇧 Commerce platform VTEX partnered with Adyen to create a unified ecommerce destination for retailers with an omnichannel approach.

🇬🇧 BNPL provider Clearpay has partnered with travel booking platform Alternative Airlines to launch “Pay in 4” for flights.

🌍 JPMorgan is acquiring payments startup Renovite to power its merchant acquiring platform.

🌍 Global card networks Visa, Mastercard and American Express are adding a merchant category for firearm retailers in a push to help gun control.

🌍 Bolt has pulled out of its deal to acquire Wyre for $1.5bn. No reason was given but the macro environment has mean-fully shifted since April with Bolt laying off a third of its workforce.

🌍 Credit card loss rates appear to be rising with Goldman reporting its loss rate was nearly 3% and Synchrony reporting 3.1%.  It was not clear if Goldman’s loss rate was just for its Apple Card alone or for the combined portfolio with the GM Card.

🌍 The Merchant Payments Coalition sent a letter urging Congress to vote for a bill to boost credit card network competition and was signed by 1,600 merchants including Walmart and Target.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🌍 The CFPB is aiming to bring into line BNPL regulation with similar protections that exist for credit cards.

Longer reads 📜

• Embedded Finance: What It Takes to Prosper in the New Value Chain - Bain Capital
• Apple’s Homeland Security Deal Yields Checkpoint, KYC, Voter ID Patents - Jason Mikula
• Circle & USDC: Building a Stable Platform - Packy McCormick

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