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The Front Page of Global Fintech

The the largest fintech community in the world. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest in news opinions, and all things financial technology.

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This Week in Fintech (10/31)

This Week in Fintech (10/31)

Hello Fintech Friends,

Please find another exciting week of fintech financing events, mergers, acquisitions, and - you guessed it - SPACs all below.

Open role spotlight

Ziina is building the killer peer-to-peer and peer-to-merchant payments app for the MENA, and is looking for a Senior Backend Software Engineer.

Financings

  • Conductor, a Brazilian payments processor, raised $150 million in new funding ahead of an anticipated US IPO.
  • White-labeled trading platform provider Drivewealth raised a $56.7 million Series C.
  • PrimaryBid, a UK startup that aggregates stock orders from small investors, raised $50m in new funding from backers including the London Stock Exchange.
  • Nordic challenger bank Lunar raised $40 million in new funding.
  • Tomo Networks, a digital mortgage startup, raised a $40 million seed round.
  • Jiko, a neobank that registered a charter and bought Mid-Central National Bank, topped up its funding to $40 million.
  • Finova Capital, an Indian lender to the unbanked, raised $35 million in new equity.
  • Bluefin, a payment encryption technology provider, raised $25 million in growth funding.
  • Fabric, which creates financial planning tools for families, raised an  $18 million Series B.
  • Clarity AI raised $15 million for its impact investing evaluation platform.
  • Wise, which enables companies to provide bank accounts to their own customers, raised a $12 million Series A.
  • Wayflyer, a revenue-based financing platform for e-commerce companies, secured a $10.2 million seed round.
  • StreetShares, which enables small business loans from financial institutions, raised $10 million in funding.
  • Transcend, which provides business optimization software for financial institutions, raised a $10 million Series A.
  • Tiliter, building a cashierless checkout technology using computer vision for barcodes, raised a $7.5 million Series A.
  • RealBlocks, an alternative investment access platform, raised a $7 million Series A.
  • Gig Wage, which is building banking and financial tools for gig economy workers, raised a $7.5 million Series A from legacy financial services provider Green Dot.
  • GetVantage, an Indian revenue-based financing platform, raised a $5 million seed round.
  • Spend management platform Teampay raised a $5 million Series A-1.
  • Finmark, a financial modeling software platform for startups, raised $5 million in seed funding.
  • Secureframe, a compliance platform for SOC and ISO audits, raised $4.5 million.
  • Funding U, a student loan startup for students from underrepresented groups, raised $4 million in new equity.
  • SUMA Wealth, a financial education platform for the Latinx community, raised $1 million in pre-seed funding.
  • UK payments tech provider Icon Solutions received an undisclosed investment from JP Morgan.

Exits and M&A

  • Ant Financial raised $34 billion in the world’s largest IPO.
  • Driven by lower net interest margins as rates compress, paired with its 2018 Fed consent order not to grow assets, Wells Fargo is looking to sell off its $10 billion student loan book.
  • Private equity firm Ares Management is in talks to buy Australian wealth manager AMP, which would value the embattled firm at $5 billion - a 70% drop since its 2018 highs.
  • Payment technology provider Worldline is recruiting banks to sell its $3.5 billion payment terminals unit.
  • Chinese wealth management fintech Lufax opened below its IPO price in the US, but still raised $2.4 billion.
  • Nordic Capital is exploring a sale of its Itiviti electronic trading platform, which could be valued at up to $1 billion.
  • Loyalty program provider Alliance Data will acquire buy-now-pay-later platform Bread for $450 million
  • Australian bank Westpac sold its stake in buy-now-pay-later firm Zip for $337 million, days after entering into a strategic relationship with its rival Afterpay.
  • Private equity firm AnaCap took a 60% stake in Market Pay, the fintech arm of French grocer Carrefour, for €300 million.
  • Financial technology holding company Repay Holdings will acquireCPS Payment Services, a business payments and accounts payable automation platform, for up to $93 million.
  • UK lottery solutions provider NeoGames plans to IPO in the US, raising up to $90m.
  • Brazilian state-owned bank Caixa Economica Federal is considering a US IPO of its digital bank.
  • Visa will acquire Latin American payments service provider YellowPepper, after leading its $12.5 million Series D in 2018.
  • Consumer financial products marketplace Nerdwallet acquired small business lending referral platform Fundera.
  • Credit Karma is in talks to divest its tax-preparation business - possibly selling it to Square - in order to head off antitrust action against its new parent, Intuit. Intuit has aggressively lobbied to prevent Americans from accessing free tax-prep solutions, which would threaten its profitable TurboTax product; concerns arose when Intuit’s acquisition of Credit Karma was announced that it would shut down the latter’s free tax prep product.
  • Financial services institution American International Group plans to spin off its life and retirement planning units.
  • Bank of Montreal is exploring a sale of its asset management operations.
  • Scandinavian payments processor Nets Group acquired CCV Schweiz, a Swiss point-of-sale terminal market.
  • Celero Commerce, an e-commerce solutions provider acquiredTransNational Payments, an electronic payments technology platform.
  • Private equity investor The Carlyle Group will take a majority stake in Calastone, the world’s largest funds network.
  • Risk and compliance solutions provider NAVEX Global bought market ESG data provider CSRware.
  • Caliber Home Loans and Amerihome, two mortgage providers, both delayed their IPOs due to increasing market volatility.

SPACs

  • FinTech Acquisition V is the sixth SPAC targeting a fintech acquisition opened up by The Bancorp.
  • Concord Acquisition is raising $250 million to target a financial services or fintech company.
  • Kingswood Acquisition lowered its $125 million IPO target deal size by 17%.

Pressure on Wells Fargo’s net interest margin income. (Source)