Hello Fintech Friends,

With 30 new fintech and defi fundraises this week, the market feels very alive!

Maybe the most interesting fundraise was not for a 'fintech' at all, per say, but for the The Texas Stock Exchange, a new securities exchange backed by BlackRock and Citadel meant to give corporates an alternate option to the 'perceived non-financial ESG agenda' of the New York-based Nasdaq and NYSE. These businesses are dictated by network effects – marketplaces with more buyers and sellers tend to benefit both sides when they participate – so it remains to be seen whether a de novo exchange works, or whether it goes the way of the IEX or LTSE.

In other investment news, if you didn't see our profile this week of Dynasty's Alessandro Chesser, read on to learn why he believes that every American should have their own trust:

Signals Fintech Founders: Dynasty’s Alessandro Chesser

On building “Morgan Stanley 2.0”, why the average American should have a trust, and what democratizing access to trusts means for the US tax system.

This Week in FintechDez

And in interesting secondary fundraise news, equity management platform Carta is reportedly working on a secondary sale for employees that would value the company at $2 billion, a retrace down from its former $6.5 billion valuation.

Please find another week of fintech financing events below. (PS: Have feedback for us? 👍👎 Let us know!)

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📊 Stat of the Week

According to digital identity and fraud prevention solutions provider Signicat, over a third of fraud attempts targeting financial institutions now use AI. (Source)

💸 Venture Financing

• The Texas Stock Exchange, a new stock exchange backed by BlackRock and Citadel to take on the NYSE and Nasdaq, raised $120 million.
• Fibe, an Indian digital lending platform formerly known as EarlySalary, raised a $90 million Series E.
• Nium, a global real-time cross-border payments provider, raised a $50 million Series E.
• M^0, a decentralized stablecoin minting protocol, raised a $35 million Series A
• Doconomy, a company that provides financial services players with tools to help their customers measure the carbon footprint, raised a €34 million Series B.
• Kanastra, which provides a tech-driven back office for private credit funds and securitizations in Brazil, raised a $21 million Series A.
• Novel, a non-dilutive debt capital provider to founders, raised a $15 million pre-Series A.
• Sipay, a Turkish company offering offline and online payment services and a wallet, raised a $15 million Series A.
• Re:cap, a German revenue-based financing startup, raised a $14.6 million Series A.
• Fizz, a credit-building debit card aimed at Gen Z college students, raised $14.4 million in seed funding.
• Aperture Finance, a platform that uses AI-driven intents to help DeFi users simplify complex transactions, raised a $12 million Series A.
• Torpago, a commercial credit card and spend management provider, raised a $10 million Series B.
• Sifi, a Saudi Arabian corporate spend management platform, raised a $10 million seed round.
• Fortunafi, a real-world asset tokenization platform, raised $9.51 million across a seed and strategic round, at a $48 million valuation.
• Sibill, an Italian payments platform for digital-only invoicing, raised €6.2 million.
• Vegapay, a digital lending and card management platform, raised a $5.5 million seed round.
• iPiD, a European confirmation-of-payee provider, raised $5.3 million.
• Mint Blockchain, an Ethereum L2 network for NFT industry, raised a $5 million seed round.
• Dasseti, an automated data exchange platform for asset managers and allocators, raised a $4.3 million Series A extension.
• Prósperos, a Latin American remittances app, raised a $3 million seed round.
• Slip, a UK-based provider of automatic receipt categorization, raised a £2.5 million seed round.
• Blueberry Protocol, a DeFi prime brokerage, raised a $2.5 million Series A.
• WealthOS, a cloud-native and API-driven core wealthtech startup, added another £2 million to its seed round from Barclays.
• Slingshot, which offers a corporate card and management app for creators (shown below), raised a $2.2 million pre-seed.
• Plural, a platform to connect solar and wind energy developers with investors, raised a $2.3 million pre-seed.
• 11th Estate, a startup focused on legal claim payouts, raised a $2 million seed round.
• Light Frame, a startup focused on operations of private banks and wealth management firms, raised a $1.7 million pre-seed.
• Atlas, a rent payments startup, raised a $1.6 million pre-seed.
• Old Well Labs, a provider of a software platform for finding and monitoring investment managers and allocators, raised an undisclosed amount for its Series A.

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