QI Tech becomes the next Brazilian unicorn; Rippling hits $13.5B (TWIF 4/27)

Hello Fintech Friends,

I enjoyed the Financial Times' coverage of the resurgence in fintech valuations and financial performance this year:

I still believe that many of the world's next unicorns are being built in this space, and that fintech is far from 'effectively dead.'

Over the last quarter for The Fintech Fund, I reviewed ~250 pitch decks, met with 149 companies, and made 1 new investment – finally caving and joining the AI bandwagon with our support of Cascading AI.*

As a quick reminder: Our editorial and news coverage is entirely independent of investments, and all TWIF writers are required to disclose any investments or relationships with a * next to company names.

What I loved about the Casca product is that it is focused on scalable loan processing, customer onboarding, and account applications for banks. American Banker recently covered their pilot with Bankwell Bank in Connecticut: with Bankwell, Casca replaced the entire Loan Origination System – from application to CRM – using conversational AI (a topic that we covered in our recent whitepaper with Visa). The team is building out a full-featured customer management and insight system for banks that is able to perform net-new actions that were previously too labor-intensive for banks to undertake without the benefit of AI.

The company is led by CEO Lukas Haffer, a Stanford MBA who formerly led European growth at fintech Avaloq, CTO Isaiah Williams, a neural network ML engineer with a Stanford AI degree, and CMO Justin Norwood, the former Global AI lead at nCino.

Cascading AI is currently in conversations with a number of banks about implementing their conversational AI, but if you work at a small or regional bank – or a fintech lender – and would like to test the product, let me know and I'll make the intro.

And now, please find another week of 27 fintech fundraises below. (PS: Have feedback for us? 👍👎 Let us know!)

📊 Stat of the Week

Adyen reported that the global retail sector lost $429 billion to payments fraud in 2023. (Source)

Monzo's buy-now-pay-later product has grown to take a full 20% share of the UK market. (Source)

💸 Venture Financing

Rippling, the global payroll, HR, and benefits platform, raised $200 million in Series F funding at a $13.5 billion valuation and tendered an offer to repurchase up to $590 million of equity from shareholders.
QI Tech, the Brazilian banking-as-a-service platform, extended its previously announced Series B from $200 million to $210 million, announcing a $1 billion valuation.
Givebutter, a one nonprofit fundraising platform, raised a $50 million strategic growth investment.
Midas, a Turkish consumer investing platform, crossed 2 million users and raised a $45 million Series A.
Addi, a Colombian buy-now-pay-later provider with over 2 million customers, raised $36 million in equity and $50 million in new lending capital.
Pomelo, a LatAm startup that combines international money transfer with credit, raised a $35 million Series A and announced a $75 million extension of its credit facility.
FinQuery, an AI-powered solutions provider built to manage companies’ largest areas of spend, raised $25 million.
Payflows, a SaaS command center for finance teams, raised a €25 million Series A.
Wagestream, a financial wellbeing app that works with 3 million customers across 1,000 employers in the UK, Spain and US, raised £17.5 million.
Turnkey, a company that builds wallet infrastructure for blockchain developers, raised a $15 million Series A.
401go, a company that helps financial advisors set up retirement programs, raised a $12 million Series A.
RevenueCat, a smart subscription management and payments provider, raised a $12 million Series C.
Dripos, a payments provider built specifically for coffee shops, raised an $11 million Series A.
Superlogic, an interoperability protocol aiming to create liquidity in consumer rewards and points, raised $7.6 million.
Fintoc, a Chilean instant payments provider expanding into Mexico, raised a $7 million Series A.
Vixtra, a Brazilian firm specializing in credit for importers and financial management for international trade, raised a $6 million seed extension and $30 million in additional debt.
Bokra, an Egyptian wealth management platform, raised a $4.6 million pre-seed.
Nebra, a shared settlement layer that uses zero-knowledge proofs to lower blockchain transaction costs, raised $4.5 million across its pre-seed and seed.
Kamina, an AI-driven financial wellness platform selling to Ecuadorian financial institutions, raised $3.2 million.
UserHub, an usage-based smart billing platform for SaaS products, raised a $3.2 million pre-seed.
Bump, a financial management platform for creators, raised a $3m seed round.
FilmChain, a UK platform to manage payments for films & TV stakeholders, raised £2.8 million.
RockFi, a French consumer wealth management platform, raised €3 million.
Fundpath, a UK company that offers a way for wealth managers to share information with the asset management industry, raised £2 million.
OnePay, a Colombian payments provider that processes 15 million monthly transactions, raised a $1.3 million pre-seed.
Amplifi, a cardholder engagement with an end-to-end loyalty and engagement platform, was transferred by investor Lightyear Capital into its one-company continuity fund.
TaxBit, a provider of tax and accounting compliance solutions, secured a strategic investment from In-Q-Tel at a $1 billion valuation.

💵 Debt Financing

Merama, a Chilean platform that provides non-dilutive working capital to online brands, secured an $80 million line of credit from JP Morgan.
Mattilda, a Mexican collections management and financing platform for private schools, secured an additional $14 million credit facility.
Emprex, a Brazilian middle-class credit provider, secured R$40 million in lending capital.