This Week in Fintech (10/10)

Hello Fintech Friends,

As mentioned, we’ll break out the week’s open roles, financing events, and transactions into a separate email. Thoughts on the new format? Please let me know.

October 10th marks the 10-year mark of my tilting at the windmills of mobile and digital wallets. I opined that they would replace physical ones and… they still have not. Credit cards and cash are intransigent holdovers when it comes payment in the US, which tells me that we have yet to find the killer consumer feature(s) to catalyze migration. But mobile wallets are making renewed progress in 2020; let’s see what the next 10 years bring.

Open role spotlight

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) is a non-profit organization that supports the development and growth of Stellar, an open-source network that connects the world’s financial infrastructure. They are hiring a Sr. Director of Business Development.

Financings

Tipalti, a business accounting platform, raised $150 million at a $2 billion valuation.
Indian mortgage lender Home First raised $95 million.
Chargebee, a billing, subscriptions, and revenue platform, raised a $55 million Series F.
Payrix, an embedded-fintech infrastructure builder, raised a $50 million Series A extension.
Financial data standardization software AccessFintech completed a $20 million Series B from investors includingDeutsche Bank, JPMorgan, Citi, and Goldman Sachs.
Uni, building a “modern age consumer credit card” in India, raised an $18.5 million seed.
Bloom Credit raised $13 million for a credit bureau API platform.
Monument, a UK neobank for the mass affluent, raised around £10 million.
Joko, a French cashback app, raised €10 million in funding.
Atom Finance, an investment research platform, raised $6 million.
Greenwood raised $3 million to build a neobank for black and latinx people and business owners.
ACH risk detection company Nivelo raised a $2.5 million seed.
UK personal financial management app Pynk raised $2 million to launch an investor wallet.
German investment advisory service QUIN raised €1 million in seed funding.
Financial low code platform Genesis Global Technology received an investment from Citi.
Buy-now-pay-later giant Klarna received an undisclosed investment from Macy’s.
Bond issuance platform Origin received an undisclosed investment from the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.
Alternative payments platform AeroPay announced an undisclosed seed round.

Exits and M&A

Italian payments giants Nexi and SIA announced they will merge, in an all-stock deal that values the combined enterprise at about €19.6 billion.
The London Stock Exchange agreed to sell Borsa Italiana to Euronext for $5 billion.
Japanese information technology conglomerate NEC Corpwill acquire Swiss financial software builder Avaloq Group for $2.2 billion.
Sales tax automation platform AvalaraacquiredTransaction Tax Resources for $377 million in cash.
Accounting automation software provider BlackLine acquired receivable automation platform Rimilia for $150 million in cash.
UK equity crowdfunding platforms Seedrs and Crowdcube announced that they will merge, for a combined enterprise value of $140 million. Crowdcube shareholders will own 60% of the combined enterprise; Seedrs investors 40%.
American PFM and neobank Douugh placed an IPO on the Australian Stock Exchange.
P27 Nordic Payments Platform announced its acquisition of Bankkgirot, a Swedish clearinghouse for high payment volumes.
Featheringill Capital acquired a majority interest in bank compliance solution provider InvestEdge.
Canadian private equity group Novacap acquired an interest in employee financial benefit platform AGA Financial Group.
YCharts, an investment analytics platform, completed a recap.
Savings platform Ascensus is preparing for an IPO that could value the company at around $3 billion.
Lending mortgage servicer AmeriHome filed for a $300 million IPO.
Chinese lender and wealth management fintech Lufax filed for a US IPO, bucking the trend to list in Hong Kong. It plans to raise $100 million.
Affirm confidentially filed a Draft Registration statement for its IPO.
Global Payments is exploring a sale of its Netspend prepaid debit card business, hoping to secure a purchase price of $2 billion.
Investment advisor Mercer Global Advisors acquired rival Personal Financial Advisors.

SPACs

Lefteris Acquisition, formed by executives from Vestigo Ventures and E*Trade, filed for a $225 million IPO.
Cascade Acquisition, led by OneMain Financial executives, filed for a $200 million IPO.