Can someone crack the IPO window? (TWIF 4/21)

Hello Fintech Friends,

The IPO window may just be slowly reopening in financial services.

💰Ibotta went public this week, raising over $500 million, while the UK's Marex Group and Zopa and Russia's MTS Bank all shared plans for their own IPOs.

📝 Last week, we published our joint whitepaper with Visa, Opportunities for Gen AI in Financial Services. We look into eight main use cases in which fintechs are beginning to leverage Gen AI to build better products:

Please find another week of fintech exits and deep reads below. (👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!)

📺

Sponsored Content

Earn a target 11-16% return without investing in the stock market. Heron Finance allows US accredited investors to invest in a diversified portfolio of loans to small and medium-sized businesses, opportunities typically reserved for the ultra-wealthy. Get unparalleled access to the nearly $2 trillion private credit market with the first robo-advisor exclusively focused on private credit. Get started today!

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

📖 Read of the Week

This week in Signals, Sophie Vo dives into how things are going in the world of carbon credits (not great):

☯️ Exits

💻 IPOs & SPACs

Ibotta, a platform for digital spending-based rewards backed by Walmart, went public today at a valuation of $2.67 billion, raising $577 million. Ibotta was founded in 2011 and previously raised $93 million through its Series D.
Marex Group, a UK financial technology provider to banks, hedge funds, asset managers, and broking houses, plans to raise $323 million in a US IPO that could value it at $1.5 billion.
UK neobank Zopa announced its first full-year profit of £15.8 million in 2023 and plans to go public soon.
Russia’s MTS Bank is planning an IPO this spring that could raise up to $160 million.
European private equity firm CVC Capital Partners looks to raise over €1.25 billion in an IPO on the Amsterdam stock exchange at a valuation between between €13 and €15 billion.

🤝 M&A - Fintech

TikTok competitor Triller is merging with Agba, a publicly-listed Hong Kong financial services company, to create a $4 billion company focused on social video, content generation, wealth management, and fintech.
Bain Capital will sell UK payroll software provider Zellis Group to private equity firm Apax Partners in a deal that values the firm at £1.25 billion.
Stock-trading company Public agreed to acquire over 15,000 brokerage accounts from Stocktwits, marking Stocktwits' exit from the stock-brokerage business. The acquisition price was not disclosed, but was reported as "sub $10 million."
TabaPay, a provider of instant bank account payment disbursal, acquired the assets and affiliates of banking-as-a-service provider Synapse Financial.
Canadian interbank network Interac Corp will acquire the exclusive Canadian rights of Toronto-based Vouchr, an engagement platform which enables users to send and receive personalized multi-media notifications along with their money transfers.
Karma Wallet, a sustainable consumer spending app, will acquire DoneGood, a marketplace for sustainable shopping.
Cloud tokenisation provider TokenEx will merge with payments orchestration platform Ixopay.
Envestnet, a publicly traded financial data and infrastructure provider with a market value of about $3.5 billion, is working with Morgan Stanley to explore options that could include a potential sale after receiving takeover interest from a group of private equity firms including Bain Capital.
Fintech digital media and events business Fintech Nexus, one of the originals in the space and the former organizer of Lendit, is pursuing a sale of its assets.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

Private equity firm State Street is exploring a potential acquisition of French bank Société Générale's custody arm for a price around €1 billion.
Gen II Fund Services, a private capital fund administrator, today announced its acquisition of Crestbridge, a European provider of private capital fund administration services.

It’s only an acquisition if it’s from the TabaPay region of France. Otherwise it’s a sparkling chapter 11.
— Matt Janiga 💥♻️ (@regulatorynerd) April 20, 2024

The share of US credit-card borrowers who were delinquent rose to 3.2% in the 4th quarter, the highest since 2011. pic.twitter.com/Q3mjHVsxpg
— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) April 16, 2024

In spite of low late-stage venture funding, fintech has more unicorns than almost any sector. pic.twitter.com/X7uFRJGgaZ
— The Fintech Fund (@thefintechfund) April 17, 2024

PayPal $PYPL monthly active accounts. Does it really look like Apple Pay is "eating PayPal's lunch"? That's three years of data, where is the damage? pic.twitter.com/BeliHuMOG7
— Jevgenijs Kazanins (@jevgenijs) April 18, 2024