Hello Fintech Friends,

✈️ We’re excited to announce our Nairobi Fintech Meetup on February 23rd! I’ll be heading to Kenya to join the international fintech community at the Africa Tech Summit. If you’ll be there, please join us at Nairobi Street Kitchen.

Following that, we’ll be heading to Cape Town for our first 2022 Fintech Trek. We’ll share more details shortly with attendees who sign up here.

📚 Speaking of international fintech, have you checked out our fantastic UK and Europe newsletter edition, written by Michael Jenkins?

This week I partnered with the great team at 11:FS to discuss why a social media platform will win the digital wallet war.

📉 If we are truly in a correction (which I do not believe), nobody seems to have told the private markets - this week saw 34 financing rounds, 15 fintech M&A deals, and 6 bank M&A deals either completed or contemplated.

So much happened this week that we had to split our Saturday newsletter into two parts just to fit inboxes….

Please find another week of fintech financings and exits below.

Editor’s Note: If you’re an early-stage startup founder raising equity or debt, we may be able to help - please see our primer for more details and reach out to nik@thisweekinfintech.com.

PItch Deck of the Week: Alchemy is fundraising $25 million to build an embedded lending infrastructure platform.

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💼 Open Role Spotlight

Come find your place on the team at the most inspiring fintech startups! Browse open roles on This Week in Fintech’s job board.

CB Insights published their State Of Venture 2021 Report.

European fintech investment shook off COVID-19 blip to set new records in 2021

💸 Venture Financing

• Fireblocks, which provides crypto infrastructure to financial institutions, raised a $550 million Series E at an $8 billion valuation.
• Creditas, a Brazilian lending platform, raised a $260 million Series F at a $4.8 billion valuation.
• Hometap, a home equity lender, raised $245 million.
• CoinTracker, a tax filing platform for crypto investors, raised a $100 million Series A at a $1.3 billion valuation.
• Esusu, a rent payment and credit-building startup for minority populations, raised a $130 million Series B at a $1 billion valuation.
• BasicBlock, a freight payments and factoring company, raised $78 million.
• Moneyfarm, a UK digital wealth manager, raised £44.1 million through a private placement.
• SavvyMoney, a consumer credit-scoring startup, raised $45 million.
• Polly, a mortgage SaaS provider, raised a $37 million Series B.
• Domain Money *, which is building the Robinhood of crypto, raised $33 million.
• Pretto, a French real estate investing platform, raised a €30 million seed round.
• Vesta, a mortgage infrastructure platform, raised a $30 million Series A.
• Ascend, a buy-now-pay-later provider for insurance, raised a $30 million Series A and $250 million in lending capital.
• Compound, a wealth management platform for tech workers, raised a $25 million Series B.
• April, a tax-filing startup that partners with fintechs, raised a $10 million seed round.
• Eaglebrook, a digital asset separately managed account platform, raised a $20 million Series A.
• PQShield, a cybersecurity company for financial account protection, raised a $20 million Series A.
• Tuum, a core banking provider, raised €15 million.
• LEX Markets, a real estate securities marketplace, raised a $15 million Series A.
• Stonks, a micro-investing app for startups, raised $15 million.
• NALA, a Tanzanian firm building “Revolut for Africa,” raised a $10 million seed.
• FarmRaise, a grant platform for farms, raised $7.2 million in seed funding.
• Finmark, a financial modeling startup, raised a $6.5 million seed, including AmEx.
• Flint, an Indian defi-fintech bridge, raised a $5.1 million seed round.
• Onramper, a Dutch aggregator of fiat-to-digital-currency ramps, raised $6 million in seed funding.
• Vest, a LatAm mobile-first no commission brokerage app, raised a $6 million seed round.
• Pluto, a corporate card for the MENA, raised $6 million in seed funding.
• Tribevest, a collaborative investing startup, raised $3 million in seed funding.
• Pillow, a decentralized finance crypto yield startup, raised $3 million in seed funding.
• OZÉ, a Ghanaian provider of digital bookkeeping tools, raised a $3 million pre-Series A.
• Everything, a social investing premium bond service, raised €2 million.
• Flint, a one-stop-shop for crypto assets, raised a $1.5 million seed round.
• KILDE, a Singaporean alternative investment app, raised a S$1.12 million seed round.
• Sagewell, a retirement investing app, raised a $5 million seed round.

Have a news item for us? Reach out to news@thisweekinfintech.com.