Hello Fintech Friends,

Another night, another great Fintech Women’s Networking and Fintech Happy Hour event in Mexico City, thanks to our LatAm EiC Christine Chang! Please find photos from last night’s meetup here.

So many of our events are only possible thanks to our great Events team, Cristina and Analisa, and our gracious City Hosts, including Wiza, Gabby, Peggy, and Albert. If you’d be interested in helping us host a fintech event in a new city, please reach out!

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.

Sponsored Content

It’s your last chance to get your Fintech Meetup ticket! There’s less than a week left to register for 30,000+ double opt-in meetings–the easiest way to meet the hottest Fintechs, the major Banks, the most active Investors, all the Networks, Tech Companies, Payments Companies, 175+ Credit Unions, 100+ Regional & Community Banks…everyone you need to meet! Virtual, March 22-24. Friday is the last day to register– Get Ticket Now

💼 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.

Crypto investments 10x’ed in Latin America in 2021

Is it time to worry about fintech valuations?

After a long hiatus driven by a government crackdown, Chinese fintechs are starting to raise again!

💸 Venture Financing

• Scalapay, an Italian buy-now-pay-later provider, raised a $213 million Series B and $284 million of lending capital.
• PrimaryBid, a platform for retail investment into public companies raising capital, raised a $190 million Series C.
• Fenbeitong, a Chinese corporate spend management platform, raised a $140 million Series C+.
• Niyo, an Indian consumer neobank, lender, and insurance provider, raised $100 million.
• Clickatell, a mobile messaging and payments app, raised a $91 million Series C.
• Pollination, a climate change investment and advisory group, raised $50 million from ANZ bank.
• MarketForce, a pan-African super app for merchant services (including financial services), raised a $40 million Series A.
• Weavr, a UK banking product orchestration layer, raised a $40 million Series A.
• Funnel Leasing, a property leasing startup, raised a $36.5 million Series B.
• PropelID, a Bengaluru education loan provider, raised $35 million.
• PayMongo, a Filipinx merchant digital payment solution, raised a $31 million Series B.
• OCR Labs, a digital identity verification provider for financial services, raised a $30 million Series B.
• Standard Metrics, the investor relations platform previously known as Quaestor, raised $23.7 million.
• Foxbit, a Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange, raised a $21 million Series A.
• Dowsure, a Chinese cross-border e-commerce payments startup, raised a $20 million Series B.
• Promise, a US payment platform for government services, raised a $20 million Series A.
• Banked, a UK alternative real-time card payment method provider, raised a $20 million (£14.8 million) Series A.
• Siteline, a financial services provider for the construction industry, raised $18.4 million in funding.
• SeMI Technologies, a search engine optimizer, spun out from bank ING and raised $16 million.
• NayaPay, a Pakistani payments and messaging app, raised a $13 million seed round.
• HUBUC, a no-code, API-based financial services embedder, raised a $10 million seed round.
• Nous, a UK savings-as-a-service startup, raised a $9 million seed round.
• Savvy, a wealth management platform, raised $7.3 million in seed funding.
• Teller, a defi protocol for unsecured lending and borrowing, raised $6.85 million.
• Groundfloor, an online real-estate crowdfunding platform, raised $5 million.
• Marginfi, a defi margin trading bridge, raised $3 million.
• Monite, a finance automation provider for B2B platforms, marketplaces, neobanks, raised $5 million.
• Ref Finance, a defi automated marketmaker, raised a $4.8 million round of funding.
• Canza Finance, a Nigerian neobank for emerging markets, raised $3.27 million in seed funding.
• Leasy, an auto financing startup for ridesharing services, raised $2 million in equity and $15 million in lending capital.
• EdfaPay, a Saudi small business financial solutions provider, raised a $1.6 million seed.
• Umazi, an enterprise ID verification and due diligence platform, raised $1 million.
• Koxa, a treasury banking platform, raised an undisclosed amount of funding.
• Tingo, a massive Nigerian provider of phone leasing, credit, and financial services to rural communities, is looking to raise around $500 million in debt and equity at a $6.3 billion valuation.
• Penta, a German digital bank account provider, is raising funds at a €400 to €500 million valuation.

(Source: Fintech funding on track for new records this year)

☯️ Exits

💻 IPOs & SPACs

• Hanover Bank, a New York community bank, filed for a $35 million IPO.
• SHUAA Partners Acquisition I, a fintech SPAC for the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey, cut its target IPO by 50% to $100 million.

🤝 M&A - Fintech

• Public digital bank SoFi will acquire banking infrastructure provider Technisys for $1.1 billion, which, following the bank’s Galileo acquisition, makes it look increasingly like a core banking provider.
• Roboadvisor Betterment announced the launch of its new student loan management solution, which will be built through its acquisition of college saving service Gradvisor.
• Digital asset securities platform Securitize is retrofitting itself through the acquisition of stock transfer service Pacific Stock Transfer.
• Fintech rollup company Weaver Fintech will acquire a majority stake in South Africa’s PayJustNow.
• US revenue-based financing startup Pipe acquired UK media and entertainment financing company Purely Capital.
• The London Stock Exchange agreed to acquire American asset trading software firm TORA for $325 million.
• ID verification provider Sentilink acquired alternative finance data service Upstream Logix.
• Fintech TreviPay will acquire invoice payments network BATON Financial Services.
• Webster Financial Corporation announced that it will acquire health savings and payment provider Bend Financial.
• European digital asset investment platform Bitpanda acquired crypto custodian Trustology.
• Private equity firm Integrum announced its acquisition of end-to-end payment provider MerchantE.
• Wealth management platform Envestnet has been approached for a takeover at $3.9 billion.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

• Canadian private equity investor Brookfield is in talks to acquire Abu Dhabi Bank’s $1 billion payments arm.
• Jordanian bank Capital Bank agreed to acquire Societe Generale Bank Jordan.
• Italian payments processor Nexi is looking to acquire BPER bank’s merchant business.

Sponsored Content

The Fintech Guide to World-Class Recovery

The goal of a collections and recovery operation is to maximize profitability by efficiently recovering money lent to consumers while maintaining consumer loyalty — a tall order for fintech businesses trying to do it all in-house. But there is a win-win strategy out there, and you’ll find it in TrueAccord’s latest ebook, the Fintech Guide to World-Class Recovery. The recovery and collection process is an opportunity for fintechs to extend the forward-thinking, consumer-centric approach that has made them successful in disrupting the status quo. This ebook provides the tools and frameworks to ensure that you’re architecting the right recovery strategy for your company for the long run.