This Week in Fintech (3/6)

Hello Fintech Friends,

Sharing a reminder that you can sign up for our March 26th Fintech Geo Deep-Dives here.

Please find another week of financings and transactions below (and our Q4 M&A breakdown here).

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💸 Venture Financing

Klarna raised $1 billion and confirmed its $31 billion valuation.
Papaya, a global payroll and workforce platform, raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation.
Xendit, which builds payments infrastructure for Indonesia, announced its 2019 $64.6 million Series B.
Xfers, a Singaporean business payments solution, raised a $30 million strategic round from Indonesian fintech Payfazz. The two will form a joint venture called Fazz Financial Group.
This newsletter covers fintech and not crypto, but the boundaries of those worlds are increasingly blurring. Eco raised $26 million to build the next wave of financial products - but on crypto digital wallet rails.
Minu, a Mexican real-time wage access startup, raised a $14 million Series A.
Accounting practice management startup Karbon raised $10 million.
FutureFuel, a student loan debt management platform, raised a $10 million Series A1 from UBS.
CountingUp, a UK business checking account provider, raised a £9.1 million Series A.
UK publicly-listed investment platform Mode raised £6 million.
Flourish, a bank customer engagement platform, raised a $1.5 million round.
German business financial management startup Monite raised a €1.1 pre-seed.
Raise, a Kenyan end-to-end fundraising startup, raised a $25,000 seed investment.
African gig economy payments startup ImaliPay raised pre-seed funding.
Codat, a business data API, received a strategic investment from PayPal Ventures and American Express Ventures.
11Onze, a Catalonian digital community bank, raised a crowdfunding round.
Stripe is raising between $1 and $5 billion at a $100 billion valuation.

☯️ Exits and M&A

💻 Fintech

More details emerged on PayPal’s big for crypto custody firm Curv, which is valued at $500 million.
Digital merchant-funded offer platform Cardlytics is acquiring its rival Dosh (which powers Venmo’s rewards) for $275 million in cash and stock.
Betterment acquired Wealthsimple’s US investment business ($190 million in assets across 17,000 accounts) as the former prepares for IPO.
Airwallex acquired Hong Kong’s UniCard, which will give it a Chinese digital payments license.
Robinhood is expected to confidentially file for IPO as soon as this month.
Treasury and risk management platform GTreasury acquired intercompany netting solution Coprocess.
MoneyLion acquired Wealth Technologies, a consumer ML roboadvisor (founded by the MoneyLion founder’s spouse).
Calypso Technology, a capital markets software, put itself up for sale.
In an echo of GoDaddy’s $320 million acquisition of Poynt, e-commerce website platform Wix acquired restaurant payment technology provider SpeedETab.
Australian digital payments business ThinkSmart is trading up, following its sale of Clearpay to AfterPay.
Student loan platform Pillar is being acquired.

🏦 Bank

Morgan Stanley’s acquisition of asset manager Eaton Vance was finally approved.
Allied Irish Banks re-acquired Irish retail brokerage Goodbody Stockbrokers, which it formerly had to divest as part of a government bailout, for €138 million.
Sweden’s Nordax Bank made a $2.10 billion (17.8 billion kr) bid to acquire Norwegian Finans Holding, the owner of Bank Norwegian.

💲 Investment Management

Beacon Pointe Advisors acquired Wealth Design, a registered investment advisor with $350 million under management.
Advisory firm Pathstone acquired investment advisor Cornerstone Capital Group.

📈 SPACs

Beacon Street Group, a financial research and writing firm, will go public through a merger with Ascendant Digital Acquisition Corp at a $3 billion enterprise value.
1.12 Acquisition, a SPAC focused on both tech and finance, filed for a $350 million IPO.
HCM Acquisition, a fintech SPAC, filed for a $250 million IPO.
Cornerstone Investment Capital, a financial services SPAC, filed for a $250 million IPO.
Avalon Acquisition, a financial services-focused SPAC, filed for a $200 million IPO.

🔎 Weekly Deep-Dive

Need a deeper dive?

This week on Fintech Brainfood- How 80s pop sensation Michael Bolton shows the future of trust in fintech.

What is trust?
Why does it matter?
And how has it changed from what used to matter?
Also: 4 Fintech companies you should see, a breakdown of the Coinbase IPO, and the Fedwire issues.