Robinhood wants its shares back (TWIF 2/11)

Love, Alexander Milov

Hello Fintech Friends,

Our podcast extraordinaire Helen Femi Williams interviewed Rodney & Travis, the co-founders of SoLo Funds, on building their company, the state of banking in Black communities, and why community banking matters. Listen in here.

"In the event that that person would have an emergency, like a flat tire or medical bill, or the pet needs a new procedure, all of a sudden, where does that person get money when they don't have may have limited savings So that was a eureka moment, it happened at a very, very intimate level," Rodney Williams

Elsewhere,

Black-Owned FinTech Firms Are Offering Black Entrepreneurs a Litany of Financial Offerings

Fintech Platform Stackwell Redefines the Meaning of Black Wealth

From Neon Money Club: Apple Music’s Top Artists May Have Missed A Multi-Million Dollar Opportunity

A Black Female Fintech Founder Leaned Into Her Differences To Raise $6.2 Million

The untold history of Black wealth in America

Black Families Shrink the US Wealth Gap But Still Have 70% Less

Black-Owned VC Firm Nex Cubed Partners With Costco To Invest $40 Million In HBCU-Founded Startups

We're consolidating our Saturday and Sunday editions this week to give your inboxes a bit of a break.👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!

Please find another week of fintech financing events below.

📺

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If you’re an early-stage startup founder raising equity or debt, we may be able to help - come check out our fund, The Fintech Fund (including a link to pitch us). Are you a fintech angel investor? Come join our syndicate.

💸 Venture Financing

CarbonPlace, a carbon trading marketplace that was originally founded as a nonprofit by nine banks, BBVA, BNP Paribas, CIBC, Itaú Unibanco, National Australia Bank, NatWest, Standard Chartered, SMBC and UBS, raised $45 million.
The Bank of London, a global clearing and transaction banking startup, raised a $40 million Series C extension, bringing the total to $160 million.
Lunar, the Danish neobank, raised €35 million to continue its Nordic expansion.
Coincover, a platform to help people protect their digital currencies from hacking and human error, raised $30 million.
Canoe, a fund administration platform for alt asset managers, raised a $25 million Series B.
Conquest Planning, a Canadian financial planning software provider, raised a C$24 million Series A.
Tazapay, a Southeast Asian cross-border payments startup, raised a $16.9 million Series A.
Car IQ, a vehicle payments startup, raised a $15 million addition to its Series B.
Moonfare, a private equity investment platform, added $15 million to its $115 million Series C, bringing the total to $130 million.
Turno, an Indian electric vehicle financing service, raised a $13.8 million (around ₹112 crore) Series A.
Elementus, an auditing and data intelligence platform for crypto companies, raised a $10 million Series A-2.
Fierce, a ‘financial super app’ that consolidates crypto, banking, etc. into one place, raised a $10 million seed round.
Minu, a Mexican low-income and employee lending startup, raised a $10 million Series B and $20 million in debt capital.
Follow, a lookalike trading platform for influencer investors, raised $9 million.
Cenoa, a blockchain wallet for purchasing USD, raised $7 million in seed funding.
Mazepay, a Danish B2B payments provider, raised €4 million.
Habitto, a Japanese personal savings startup, raised a $3.9 million pre-Series A.
Kasheesh*, a buy-now-pay-later alternative, raised a $3.5 million seed extension.
Uniify, a Danish automated financial customer onboarding app, raised €3 million.
Wink, a biometric ID and payments platform, raised a $3 million seed round.
Blip Labs, an embedded bill payment startup, raised $2.1 million in seed funding.
Inkle, an accounting and compliance startup for overseas-owned US startups, raised a $1.5 million pre-seed.
Nevly, a credit repair and financial health app, raised a $1.25 million pre-seed and launched its app.
Snab, a Spanish business-to-business payments and cash management startup, raised a €1.1 million pre-seed.
Raylo, a UK platform that allows consumers to own electronics via short-term leases (I guess this is fintech?), raised £110 million in combined debt and equity.
Kristal.ai, a Singaporean digital private wealth management platform, is looking to raise $30 million for its Series B.

UK businesses like debt!

💵 Debt Financing

Merchant Money, a UK business lender, raised an additional £115 million of lending capital.
Salad Money, a UK provider of lending to NHS and public sector workers, raised a senior debt facility of up to £40 million.
Financial data stack provider FINBOURNE raised a £30 million debt facility.

☯️ Exits

🤝 M&A - Fintech

Robinhood is planning to buy back its own shares from Sam Bankman-Fried's Emergent Fidelity Technologies.
Startup LevelField Financial, a crypto and digital asset service provider, announced its acquisition of Illinois’ Burling Bank for $50 million.
Hungarian financial fraud fighter SEON will acquire anti-money laundering startup Complytron for (a rumored) €2.5 million. Complytron previously raised €410,000.
Canadian bitcoin miner Hut 8 Mining Corp will merge with rival US Bitcoin Corp.
Bank ING spun out its in-house technology project Loan Optics to digital lending platform vc trade.
Crypto exchange Binance acquired a majority stake in Korean crypto exchange GOPAX.
Francisco Partners bought accounting and payroll software Greenslate from VSS Capital Partners.
Mortgage data vendor Black Knight is putting its Empower loan origination software up for sale due to antitrust concerns stemming from its pending acquisition by Intercontinental Exchange.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

The Rothschild family is approaching wealthy French families, including the Peugeots, to take its eponymous bank private in a $4 billion transaction.
Credit Suisse is working with private equity firm Apollo in the spin-out of its CS First Boston investment bank.

Adyen 2022 earnings are out:

- Total payments volume (TPV) up 49% YoY
- Net revenue up 33% YoY
- EBITDA margins at (a relatively low) 52% due to increasing headcount 30% in 2022
- POS TPV up 62% YoY, 16% of TPV
- CAPEX up from 5% to 8% in H2 due to investments in data centers pic.twitter.com/ImU3V8Pxmk
— Jareau (@jkwade) February 8, 2023

I am totally digging this series on #realtimepayments by @jenny_colgate in @twifintech. I have read every word of the first two parts and have learned a lot. Looking forward to part three. This is a great service to #fintech: https://t.co/vDiiWx9VMm
— Peter Renton (@peterrenton) February 8, 2023

Thank you @ThinkRiseGlobal for the invite to join the fintech investing panel last week!

It was a fun conversation, can't wait for the next one. pic.twitter.com/pkBxIdtpio
— Nik (@NikMilanovic) February 9, 2023

My secret power as a payments founder. I'm not afraid of archaic file formats 🤣😅 #fintech pic.twitter.com/9qU1GeHFK3
— wadearnold (@wadearnold) February 9, 2023

Let the P2P & neobank battles for users’ tax refunds commence: pic.twitter.com/sBAlPtl3J3
— Jason Mikula (@mikulaja) February 9, 2023

This week for the Builders Series, we highlight @shivanshukumar, Head of PM at @Marqeta. He turned around a failing product into a successful high margin top line growth product in 12 months and has been a huge driving force in making Marqeta one of the leading names in fintech. pic.twitter.com/wcG6rzQtdD
— This Week in Fintech (@twifintech) February 10, 2023