This Week in Fintech (5/15)

Hello Fintech Friends,

Investment in Latin American startups is taking off ✈️

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, I may be able to help - reach out to nik@thisweekinfintech.com.

Sponsored Content

Did you know the contemporary art market crushed S&P returns by 174% between 1995 and 2020? Of course, unless you have $10 million to buy a Picasso yourself, you were locked out of this asset class. Until now. With Masterworks, you can finally invest in paintings by artists like Basquiat and Monet.

As a special bonus, This Week in Fintech subscribers can skip the 20,000 person waitlist for Masterworks here. (See important information.)

💸 Venture Financing

Block.one, Peter Thiel’s blockchain software firm, made a $10 billion investment into its new market-making, lending, and portfolio management subsidiary, Bullish Global.
SaltPay raised a previously undisclosed $500 million Series C in April.
Gojek, the Indonesian superapp and provider of GoPay, raised a $300 million round.
CloudWalk, a Brazilian payment technology network, raised a $190 million Series B.
Lili, a digital bank for freelancers, raised a $55 million Series B.
Stampli, a corporate invoice management solution, raised a $50 million Series C.
Babel Finance, a Hong Kong-based crypto service provider to financial institutions, raised a $40 million Series A.
Omnio, a banking-as-service provider, raised a €30 million funding round.
Transunion’s stake in Spring Labs was revealed as a $30 million investment in their Series B.
Treasury Prime, a banking-as-a-service provider, raised a $20 million Series B.
Collective, a self-employment back office that offers tailored financial services and accounting, tax, bookkeeping and business formation, raised a $20 million Series A.
Expensya, a Tunisian expense management software, raised $20 million.
Relay, a Canadian neobank for small businesses, raised $19.4 million, including a $15 million Series A.
FinLync, a corporate finance and treasury platform, raised $16 million in funding.
Pomelo, a Latin American payments infrastructure builder, raised $9 million.
Ontop, a tax, onboarding and payroll manager for Latin American companies, raised a $4.5 million seed round.
Divibank, a Brazilian “Clearbanc for Latin America,” raised a $3.6 million seed round.
Sanlo, a financial tools and capital provider to game and app businesses, raised a $3.5 million seed round.
Nano, a Vietnamese earned wage access payroll provider, raised $3 million in seed funding.
Caplight, a platform for trading private equity derivatives, raised a $1.7 million seed round.
KogoPAY, a business bank account provider for the UK, Lithuania, and Thailand, raised £1 million in pre-Series A funding.
VitraCash, a UK smart debit card, crowdfunded a £330,000 seed.
Visa made a strategic pre-IPO investment in Remitly.
FundApps, a regtech provider, raised an undisclosed growth round from Scottish Equity Partners.
Curve, the UK over-the-top card platform, is crowdfunding in-part for its next round.

US VCs on their way to LatAm fintech meetings.

☯️ Exits and M&A

💻 Fintech

REPAY, a developer of vertically-integrated payment solutions, acquired payments provider BillingTree for $503 million.
Snowball Finance, a Chinese online financial information portal, filed for a $300 million US IPO.
Simplex, a provider of a Visa crypto credit card, will be acquired by Canadian payments processor Nuvei for $250 million.
Insig AI, a machine learning tool for asset management, raised £6.1 million and listed on the AIM London Stock Exchange.
PayPal acquired returns management startup Happy Returns.
Stripe acquired Bouncer, a card authentication and fraud detenction startup.
NerdWallet filed for an IPO that could value the firm at up to $5 billion.
Marqeta filed its S1.
Private equity firm Advent International is weighing a sale of its stake in Indian investment advisory and wealth management firm ASK Group for up to $1 billion.
Mortgage insurance provider Enact Holdings postponed its planned $497 million IPO.

🏦 Bank

Deutsche Bank’s asset management arm DWS is planning to sell its IKS fund platform to French private equity firm BlackFin for around €300 million.
TPG and Liberty Financial are the front-runners to buy Australian bank Westpac’s auto lending business.

📈 SPACs

Mortgage fintech platform Better will go public at a valuation of around $7 billion through a merger with SPAC Novator Capital.
Former London Stock Exchange CEO Xavier Rolet will launch a $300 million fintech SPAC.
Serendipity Capital Acquisition, a financial services SPAC, filed for a $250 million IPO.
Fintech Ecosystem Development, a Southeast Asian fintech SPAC, filed for a $100 million IPO.

Sponsored Content

Have your ticket for Fintech Meetup yet? 750+ organizations and 1,500 industry professionals already have! Join startups & established fintechs, large banks, community banks & credit unions, networks, large tech & solution providers, investors and retailers & merchants! Only 250 tickets remaining, discounted rates available for startups. Apply now!