Hello Fintech Friends,

I believe this was the busiest fintech fundraise announcement week since mid-2022, when the venture market for fintech slowed down.

It has been a slow couple years –

But this week, 33 confirmed fundraises were announced, for proceeds of over $900 million.

Will the next few years look like this?

Please find another week of fintech financing events below.

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

Introducing the first ever ALL IN ON AI: Financial Services Adoption Index by Acrew Capital and Money20/20. We launched the index to understand what industry leading financial institutions and fintechs are actually doing with AI. We scoured the internet for all publicly announced AI initiatives from 220+ financial services companies since the public launch of ChatGPT and generated a number of insights. For an industry that was supposed to be slow to adopt AI, the data tells quite the opposite story. And for the data nerds, you can visit Acrew's database.

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📊 Stat of the Week

Total Stablecoin Value Tops Terra-Era Peak to Near $200 Billion

The value of the stablecoin market has risen to new heights after regaining ground lost in the aftermath of TerraUSD’s infamous collapse in 2022.

BloombergSidhartha Shukla

💸 Venture Financing

• Lumin Digital, a cloud-native digital banking provider, secured $160 million in growth funding.
• Cresset, a high net-worth registered investment advisor with $60 billion AUM, sold a <10% stake to Constellation for $150 million.
• Public, a retail investing platform, raised $100 million in a Series D funding round on its 5th birthday, alongside $30 million of debt.
• Vastu Housing Finance, a player in India's affordable housing finance sector, secured $100 million.
• Zopa, the UK neobank that provides loans, credit cards and savings accounts to some 1.3 million customers, raised €82 million at a $1 billion valuation, avoiding an IPO.
• Mintifi, a B2B supply chain financing firm, received $80 million in funding.
• KPay, (below) a a one-stop financial management platform for merchants and SMBs, serving 45,000 merchants in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan, raised $55 million in Series A funding.
• 9fin, a AI-powered analytics platform for debt capital markets, raised a $50 million Series B.
• DPL Financial Partners, a commission-free annuity distribution platform provider attracted $23 million from insurance industry investors.
• Singaporean cross-border payments firm Partior added $20 million to its $60 million Series B from Deutsche Bank.
• BRM, a startup that saves companies money by using AI to manage vendors, secured a $15 million Series A.
• Tembo, a UK savings app and mortgage provider, raised £14 million to support first-time homebuyers.
• Maybern, a provider of software that automates calculations for private fund managers, raised $14 million in Series A funding.
• Deblock, which combines traditional current accounts with a non-custodial crypto wallet, secured £13.3 million in seed funding.
• Predium, a German ESG platform for the real estate and finance industries, landed a €13 million Series A for its proptech.
• Brighty, a UK a personal finance app that combines traditional digital banking experience with stablecoins and DeFi, raised $10 million.
• R2, a a Latin American startup building lending tools for tech companies in the region, raised $9 million in A Series A extension and $50 million in debt for lending services.
• Hub2, an African payments provider that works with 55 neobanks, payment companies, remittance companies and cryptocurrency providers, gathered $8.5 million for fintech in Francophone Africa.
• MakersHub, a provider of automated outgoing payments for companies, secured $7 million in seed funding.
• GAIB, a a platform creating financial infrastructure for AI computing, raised $5 million in pre-seed funding.
• Cat Labs raised $5.4 million in seed funding for anti-tech crime solutions.
• Avant Protocol secured $6.5 million in seed funding for blockchain financial products.
• Briefcase raised $3 million for AI accounting tools.
• SightGlass secured $3 million for investor relations solutions.
• Stay, which partners with small and medium-sized businesses to offer customized retirement plans, raised $2.6 million.
• Bleap, a self-custodial stablecoin app with an accompanying debit card, raised a $2.3 million pre-seed.
• OpenPad AI raised $2 million for AI data-driven investment strategies.
• Synthera secured €1.7 million to develop financial risk management with generative AI.
• Sandbox Wealth, a turnkey banking solution for non-bank financial institutions, raised $1.25 million in pre-seed funding.
• Margarita Finance gained $1 million in pre-seed funding to bring structured finance on-chain.
• Arok VC, an internet-based AI agent-run venture capital fund, raised $1 million.
• ThreatFabric received an extension to its €11.3 million seed round from Rabobank for its cybersecurity solutions.
• OpenBrick, a digital platform for the issuance, management, trading and settlement of tokenized securities linked to real estate projects, secured funding from Swiss exchange SIX.
• Sequoia is in advanced talks to back Vance, a Bengaluru-based cross-border payments startup, which would be its first Asia deal following its split with Sequoia China and Sequoia India and Southeast Asia.

Introducing the first ever ALL IN ON AI: Financial Services Adoption Index by Acrew Capital and Money20/20. We launched the index to understand what industry leading financial institutions and fintechs are actually doing with AI. We scoured the internet for all publicly announced AI initiatives from 220+ financial services companies since the public launch of ChatGPT and generated a number of insights. For an industry that was supposed to be slow to adopt AI, the data tells quite the opposite story. And for the data nerds, you can visit Acrew's database.

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

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