Markets are still peachy for Africa's Peach Payments (TWIF 4/8)

Hiroshi Nagai: Japan’s Sun-drenched Americana

Hello Fintech Friends,

This week, our Premium Content Editor Sophie Vo covered the last quarter in fintech in Signals.

A few insights?

Banks are leading the pack as the biggest acquirers of other banks and fintech companies.

Over $350 million was still raised by fintech venture funds.

Digital business banks, banking infrastructure, and business financial management tools are all the rage, launching the most products in Q1.

The hottest product in Q1? Carbon credits: of the $12 billion in funding that went to fintechs, 2% went to carbon credit platforms like Xpansiv, Carbonplace, Senken, Renew West, Alcove, Carbonable, Agreena, and HeavyFinance.

Check out the full report here.

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Please find another week of fintech financing events below.

💡

AWS Corner, from our Partners at Amazon

How machine learning helps Fraud.net to build a modern app on AWS to combat financial fraud.

Startups know firsthand how better technology can improve the quality of life: From AI/ML allowing scientists to better predict patient health outcomes, to cloud computing driving life-saving innovation, and modern apps enhancing accessibility.

With better technology also comes the opportunity for criminals to commit more advanced levels of crime. Fraud, especially, is occurring with greater technical sophistication as society transitions into a digital-first world. Fraud and cybercrime are also growing at significant rates, and now cost businesses around the world over $6 trillion per year or an average of 5% of their revenues.

To outpace and outsmart the technology criminals use to commit fraud, former bankers Whitney Anderson and Cathy Ross founded Fraud.net, a modern fraud and compliance platform, in 2016. Fraud.net offers customers in the banking and fintech industries across the globe a serverless modern application that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to rapidly identify fraud, leading to more efficient operations and higher customer satisfaction.

If you’re an early-stage startup founder raising equity or debt, we may be able to help - come check out our fund, The Fintech Fund (including a link to pitch us). Are you a fintech angel investor? Come join our syndicate.

As covered in Signals Q1 (and as corroborated by Axios), Stripe singlehandedly caused fintech funding to rebound in Q1:

Check out the full writeup at TWIF.

💸 Venture Financing

DMI Finance, an Indian non-banking financial corporation, raised $400 million in an equity round led by MUFG Bank of Japan.
Quantexa, a financial crime-fighting platform, raised a $129 million Series E at a $1.8 billion valuation from banks including HSBC, BNY Mellon and ABN Amro.
Fourthline, a Dutch AI-based ID verification provider, raised €50 million.
P97, a gas station payments and mobile commerce provider, raised $40 million.
Soft Space, a Malaysian softPOS provider, raised a $31.5 million Series B1.
Peach Payments, a digital payments service provider for online payments in Africa, raised €29 million.
M^Zero Labs, a German decentralized infrastructure layer for digital asset value transfer, raised a $22.5 million seed round.
Oscilar, a machine learning fraud-fighting platform for financial institutions, self-funded with $20 million.
Li.Fi, a DeFi cross-chain bridge and decentralized exchange aggregator, raised a $17.5 million Series A.
Finanzguru, a German personal financial management “multibanking” app, raised €13 million from PayPal Ventures.
Zamp Finance, née a crypto platform but recently pivoted into US T-Bill management for businesses, announced a $21.7 million seed round.
Splendflo, a platform for managing SaaS costs and spend, raised $11 million.
Bitget, a DeFi spot and derivatives exchange, raised $10 million.
Hype, which was formerly known as Pico - a marketing and payments platform for creators, raised a $10 million Series A.
Acre, a UK homebuying platform that provides blockchain mortgages, raised £6.5 million.
Kashet, a Swiss and British private banking startup, raised £5.4 million.
Finst, a Dutch crypto exchange, raised a $4.4 million seed round.
Ecosapiens, a carbon-backed NFT marketplace (are we back?), raised $3.5 million in seed funding.
TipHaus, streamlined pooled tipping platform for businesses, raised $3.5 million.
Portrait Analytics, which provides generative AI for investment analysts, raised $3 million.
Franklin, a cash and crypto hybrid payroll platform, raised a $2.9 million seed round.
TerraPay, a UK-based global payments firm, raised $100 million in combined debt and equity to expand into LatAm and the MENA.
Boostry, a Japanese decentralized bank consortium finance provider, raised funding from Japan Exchange Group.
du-it, a Malaysian Islamic finance provider, launched a crowdfunding campaign with Ethis Malaysia, a Sharia-compliant equity crowdfunding service.