Hello Fintech Friends,

The 2020 to early 2022 fintech fundraise market was characterized by fast rounds at large sizes at rich valuations.

The fastest to rise is the fastest to fall, and so when venture markets contracted in the latter half of 2022, investors soured fastest on fintech. The mid-22 to late-24 fintech market was dominated by early-stage fundraise announcements, concentrated around pre-seed and seed, and interspersed with occasional $100M+ mega-rounds to companies like Stripe, Revolut, and Monzo.

The question many asked was: what will happen to the mid-stage market? Will Series As and Bs recover, or will there be a bottleneck as an uncharacteristically high percentage of seed-stage companies try and fail to raise follow-on rounds?

It's encouraging to see this week's fundraise news: 17 rounds, of which 10 are over $20 million and and only 4 are under $10 million. This is just 1/52 of the annual sample, but hopefully the trend persists.

I was particularly excited about Mesh's* $82 million Series B (disclaimer: am a small shareholder). The company began its life as Front, a roboadvisor aggregator, before pivoting into an embedded roboadvisor and finding a specific niche in money-movement on behalf of its digital asset clients, using stablecoins. Today, the platform facilitates payments in assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana, and settlements in stablecoins such as PYUSD, UST, or USDC, for ~400 million end-users.

What I appreciated about the Series B was that most of the investments were settled using PYUSD stablecoins. You can see Mesh founder Bam Azizi join us on-stage, alongside companies like Fireblocks, Zero Hash, and BVNK, at Stablecon on May 29th:

Agenda — Stablecon

Stablecon

Please find another week of fintech financing events below.

(👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know. Find me at @nikmilanovic, @twifintech, and @ndm)

With 100+ years of banking experience and over 20 years of working with venture capital and private equity-backed tech companies, Wolf & Company is the advisor of choice for growth-focused fintechs. As your trusted business partner, we’ll work to address challenges and achieve success – together.

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📊 Stat of the Week

Americans reported losing over $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024, a 25% increase over the previous year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. (Source)

💸 Venture Financing

• Binance received a $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi's MGX, marking MGX's first institutional investment in the cryptocurrency exchange.
• Plata, a Mexico-based credit card issuer founded by the former Tinkoff team, raised $160 million in a Series A funding round at a valuation of $1.5 billion.
• Digits, an AI-powered accounting platform designed to compete with QuickBooks and Xero (above), raised $100 million.
• Mesh secured $82 million in a Series B funding round to build the first global crypto payments network. Notably, most of the investments were settled using PayPal USD (PYUSD) stablecoins.
• Zolve, a neobank catering to immigrants moving to the U.S., raised $51 million in its Series B funding round.
• Curve, a UK based over-the-top card consolidation platform, secured £37 million in funding.
• RedotPay, a leading crypto payment platform, closed a $40 million Series A funding round to enhance its payment ecosystem.
• Lynx, a fintech platform specializing in simplifying healthcare payments and administration, closed a $27 million Series A funding round.
• Trust & Will, a digital estate planning platform, raised a $25 million+ Series C. 
• Tomo Mortgage, a platform that uses AI to offer cheaper mortgages, closed a $20 million Series B.
• Worth, a company focused on helping fintechs, banks, and enterprises underwrite small and medium-sized businesses more easily, raised a $20 million seed round.
• Town.com, a tax platform for small businesses, raised $18 million in a seed funding round.
• Synctera, a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) startup, raised $15 million in a Series A extension.
• Mimo, a paytech startup specializing in payments, cash flow, and financial management solutions, secured $8.5 million.
• Alta, an AI revenue workforce solutions provider based in Tel Aviv, raised $7 million in seed funding.
• SaySo secured $4 million to address retail's costly clearance problem by partnering with retailers to create co-branded, interactive shopping experiences.
• FINNY, an AI-powered prospecting and marketing tool for financial advisors, received a strategic investment from a group of wealth managers.

With 100+ years of banking experience and over 20 years of working with venture capital and private equity-backed tech companies, Wolf & Company is the advisor of choice for growth-focused fintechs. As your trusted business partner, we’ll work to address challenges and achieve success – together.

Want to sponsor a newsletter? See our sponsorship information here.