Hello Fintech Friends,

A prominent crypto investor tweeted this week that fintech is “effectively dead, consolidating” and... really just couldn’t have picked a worse week to tweet.

Also this week:

• Stripe insiders sold almost $700M in shares at a $65B valuation (up 30%) and is trading above $80B in some secondary markets – weeks after announcing that it passed $1 trillion in 2023 payments volume,
• Schroders marked its Revolut stake at a $26B valuation (up 45%),
• Rippling is in talks to raise $870M at a $13B valuation (up 20%),
• Ramp raised $150M at a little under an $8B valuation (up 32%),
• Mercury* launched personal banking and passed 100,000 startup customers,
• Sweden's Klarna launched its credit card in the US, as it gears up for a potential $20B IPO, and
• Brazil's Nubank announced plans to offer its own mobile phone provider.
• Hong Kong financial services firm Agba and social media app Triller announced plans to merge and create a $4 billion fintech and social platform.

This is not to pick on one tweet: it reminds me of the Blockchain Capital post on the 'lackluster pace of innovation in fintech.' If these are lackluster outcomes, I'd love to see the alternatives!

With that said, I’m still a big believer in DeFi and the future of permissionless finance. I agree that there are many fintech products that feel like a ‘faster horse’ and not a car. That's why we cover many DeFi fundraises in this newsletter as well. But it’s always been a head-scratcher to me that some crypto investors need fintech to fail in order to fit their narratives about crypto as the future of finance.

The founders and investors that I’m the most impressed by are those who find elegant solutions that marry the best aspects of fintech (great UI) with the best of DeFi (programmable money rails)... but those ‘mullet’ solutions have dropped off in popularity over the course of latest bear market.

In theory, this shouldn’t happen if there is real value being created that’s not tied to crypto price speculation. ie: Efficiency, programmability, permissionlessness, etc. should all be attractive enough features that TVL and MAUs don't both drop when prices go down, but so far, those have moved together.

And meanwhile:

If this is 'lackluster' and 'effectively dead,' sign me up for both.

Please find another week of fintech financing events below. (PS: Have feedback for us? 👍👎 Let us know!)

📊 Stat of the Week

Fintech was the UK’s most-funded startup sector in Q1, according to new analysis from HSBC Innovation Banking, with with $1.4 billion raised across 73 rounds. (Source)

💸 Venture Financing

• Stripe, the global payment processing platform, raised $694 million through a secondary share sale at a $65 billion valuation.
• Ramp, the corporate spend and automated accounting provider, raised a $150 million Series D extension at a post-money valuation of $7.65 billion.
• Flatpay, a Danish builder of payment solutions for small and medium physical merchants, raised a €45 million Series B.
• Finmid, a German company building embedded fintech solutions targeting marketplaces that want to provide their own payment and financing options, raised a €23 million Series A at a €100 million post-money.
• Bridgewise, builder of an AI-based analysis platform for global securities, raised a $21 million Series A.
• Fortis, which provides streamlined order management, personalized loyalty programs, and business operations tools in the UAE, raised a $20 million Series A.
• Pliant, a B2B credit card platform that allows businesses to optimize their payment processes, raised an €18 million Series A extension led by strategic PayPal.
• Xfactor.io, an AI-powered revenue platform, raised a $16 million Series A.
• Centrifuge, a platform dedicated to turning real world assets into loans, raised a $15 million Series A.
• Toku, a Chilean recurring payments platform, raised $9.3 million.
• Usual Labs, builder of a permissionless stablecoin backed by real-world assets that will pay holders a yield, raised $7 million from investors led by strategic Kraken.
• Crypto Valley Exchange, a decentralized exchange that aims to offer transparent and inexpensive futures and options-focused trading, raised $7 million.
• Sumday, a Tasmanian carbon accounting startup, raised an A$5.3 million seed round.
• Cherub, a matchmaking platform for angels and founders, raised $1.25 million in angel funding.
• Algbra, a UK-based sharia-compliant digital banking solution, raised strategic capital from Standard Chartered.
• Revolut, the global neobank, had its valuation raised 45% by investor Schroders to $25.7 billion.
• Rippling, the global HR and payroll provider, is in talks to raise up to $870 million at a $13.4 billion valuation.
• Atomiq DeFi, an atomic-swap powered decentralized exchange on Bitcoin, is in the process of raising its $3 million seed round.

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