Hello Fintech Friends,

The UK fintech scene doesn't seem to be slowing down, with three new fundraises announced this week - the largest a combined £500 million in debt and equity to British open banking / consumer lending startup Abound.

With rumored IPOs for Monzo and Starling around the corner this year, will British bank fintech see a renaissance?

For those who missed it, Silicon Valley Bank yesterday entered FDIC receivership. Insured deposits will be remitted on Monday, March 13th, while assets are sold down to pay back uninsured deposits. We're discussing this further in our #svb-next-steps channel.

And in other news, we're still set for our Seattle Fintech Meetup on March 30th!

Changint topics - investors frequently give founders the advice that the most high-leverage activity they can undertake is sending frequent investor updates. To be honest, I used to think of this as a self-serving request, but as a founder, you do have a group of people who are (1) incentive-aligned with you, (2) available to help, and (3) curious how things are going.

I make a point of The Fintech Fund ‘punching above its weight’ when it comes to being an incredibly active supporter of our microfund portfolio. To that end, I’d much rather know what the big challenges are and how I can help, vs. hearing that everything is working out perfectly. Having done the early-stage startup journey twice myself - it never goes perfectly. I shared some thoughts on what (in my opinion) makes for a strong investor update:

Palumni VC founder Luba Lesiva breaks these out in more detail here.

👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!

Please find another week of fintech financing events below.

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.

Singapore’s fintech sector saw a record number of new deals in 2022 – with 232 in total – but saw funding decline by 29% to $2.4 billion, with average deal size falling 39% to $10.3 million.

💸 Venture Financing

1. Republic First Bancorp, a Philadelphia based retail bank, raised $125 million in new equity.
2. Rankmi, a Chilean HR platform, merged with Mexican payroll operations provider Osmos and raised a $48 million Series A.
3. Till Payments, an Australian payments infrastructure builder, raised an A$70 million ($46 million) Series D, after laying off 40% of its workforce.
4. Masttro, a wealth tech builder for family offices, raised $43 million in growth equity.
5. Banyan, a platform for analyzing the financing options of construction projects, raised a $25 million Series B.
6. Kresus, a web3 digital wallet and ‘crypto superapp,’ raised a $25 million Series A.
7. N2F, a French expense management software provider, raised €24 million, crossing 1 million expense reports per month for 10,000 businesses in 86 countries.
8. Droit, a capital markets decisionmaking auditability platform, raised $23 million in Series B funding.
9. Vantage, a financial operations startup for analyzing cloud spend and savings, raised a $21 million Series A.
10. Candidly, a student debt relief platform, raised a $20.5 million Series B.
11. Mauve, a new crypto exchange, raised $15 million from Coinbase.
12. Synctera, a banking-as-a-service provider, raised $15 million to expand into Canada.
13. Violet, a compliance and identity infrastructure for DeFi, raised $15 million.
14. Fynn, a US student loan platform, raised an $11 million seed round and $25 million debt facility.
15. NX Technologies, a French payment management platform for the automotive industry, raised an €11 million Series A.
16. Yoti, a ditigal identity provider, raised £10 million from Lloyds Bank.
17. Growfin, a finance CRM for B2B companies to optimize working capital, raised a $7.5 million Series A.
18. Monnai, a provider of consumer data insights for fintechs, raised a $6.5 million Series A.
19. FilmHedge, a short-term lender to the film industry, raised a $5 million Series A and $100 million credit facility.
20. Gyroscope, a new stablecoin provider, raised $4.5 million.
21. Ramp, (no, not that Ramp… also not that Ramp), a UK based builder of CFO forecasting tools, raised a £4 million seed round.
22. Tweed, an embedded crypto wallet API, raised a $4 million seed round.
23. RenewWest, a reforestation finance platform, raised $3.2 million.
24. SteadyPay, a UK lender for people with unstable incomes, raised a $3 million seed round.
25. Barte, a Brazilian B2B payments platform, raised a $3 million seed round.
26. Elyn, a French try-before-you-pay retail clothing payments provider, raised a €2.5 million pre-seed.
27. Abound, a British open banking-based consumer lending startup (formerly known as Fintern.AI), raised £500 million in combined equity and debt.
28. Ocula Technologies, an AI decisionmaking startup, raised funding from Lloyds Bank.

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💵 Debt Financing

• Aria, a French provider of an embedded instant payment option for B2B customers, raised €50 million in debt funding.

Pssst - if you like early-stage fintech investing, come join our angel syndicate