Pigment raises $145M to help European companies with financial planning (TWIF 4/6)

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Hello Fintech Friends,

If you missed it, yesterday we announced Fintech Fund II, our second pre-seed and seed-stage venture fund.

If you're a great founder building the next wave of financial services, let's talk!

And a reminder that, as always: Our news and editorial coverage is independent of any investing decisions. We cover all news – good and bad – on all fintechs. Any news pertaining to companies that are investments, employers, or other financial relationships of TWIF authors must be denoted by a * next to the company name for full disclosure.

This week, FT Partners covered the 'end of the megafund era,' highlighting that 2023 was the worst year for fundraising since 2016 – a dire signal for startups planning to raise in the next couple years.

With that said, I think the data overstate the severity of the situation: many longer-standing funds had been anticipating a contraction in LP capital for the last few years, and were proactive about raising their own 'megafunds' before liquidity dried up. Funds like Better Tomorrow Ventures ($225 million), Nyca Partners ($210 million), and Core Innovation ($100 million) are still deploying the funds they raised before the cash crunch. Even last year, Bain Capital Ventures announced a $1.9 billion fund, QED raised $925 million, Ribbit raised $800 million, and Flourish announced $350 million.

Net-net: fintech venture firms are certainly being more selective in 2024 than in 2021, but for strong founding teams, the capital is still available 💪

Line chart of Global VC fundraising activity showing Venture capitalists are struggling to raise new funds

Don't have time to read the news every week? Catch up with the audio version in our Weekly Briefing!

And last but certainly not least, we were excited to share the $1.5M pre-seed of our portfolio co. Radar*, building the future of payment automation in Latin America:

Please find another week of fintech financing events below. (PS: Have feedback for us? 👍👎 Let us know!)

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📊 Stat of the Week

CB Insights shows venture funding into fintech dropping 16% quarter-over-quarter, as reported by Mary Ann Azevedo at Techcrunch; our data show an even sharper 25% QoQ drop, with funding to the sector dropping 56% YoY. Either way, fintech funding has slowed to its lowest level since 2017.

Fintechs raised a total of $5.37 billion in Q1, down 25% QoQ and down 56% yoy.

Though the number of rounds raised was up 10% QoQ, the average size of each raise shrank 32% QoQ.

See our full quarterly analysis in @twifintech's Q1 '24 Signals!https://t.co/bvG7Y4O3R5
— This Week in Fintech (@twifintech) April 4, 2024

💸 Venture Financing

Pigment, a French CFO business planning and financial forecasting suite, raised a $145 million funding round.
Brim Financial, an infrastructure provider working on credit card and payment automation, raised an $85 million Series C.
Constantinople, an Australian banking-as-a-service provider, raised a $50 million Series A.
Electronica Finance, an Indian funding platform for small businesses and solar projects, raised $48 million.
Netgain, a software provider for finance and accounting teams, raised $35 million.
Seso, a platform for migrant worker documentation, H2-A visa processing, and HR, raised a $26 million Series B.
Ellipsis Labs, the developer behind crypto exchange Phoenix, raised a $20 million Series A.
Agora, a stablecoin issuer backed by dollar cash reserves, raised $12 million in seed funding.
Iceberg Data Lab, a provider of climate and biodiversity data solutions for financial institutions, raised a $10 million Series A.
Scrut Automation, an Indian governance, risk, and compliance platform with financial institution customers, raised $10 million in growth funding.
Zaver, a Swedish embedded buy-now-pay-later provider for Europe, raised a $10 million Series A extension.
Benjamin Capital Partners, the builder of a cash rewards app, raised $5.5 million.
Station 70, a startup for recovering and backing up crypto holdings, raised $5 million in seed funding.
Lockchain, a platform that brings automated risk management solutions to traders, investors, and fund managers in the blockchain ecosystem, raised a $4.6 million seed round.
Coadjute, a homebuying platform that works by connecting existing property software systems across the house buying journey, raised £3 million from Lloyds Banking Group.
Condukt, a Europe-focused business verification (KYB) provider, raised a £2.5 million pre-seed.
Hapax, an AI-driven decision-making software provider to banks, raised $2.6 million.
Palenca, a LatAm-based income verification startup, raised $2.4 million in additional capital, led by Experian.
Protiv, a platform for paying contractors and construction workers based on performance incentives, raised a $2.4 million pre-seed.
Merkle Trade, a decentralized trading platform that offers crypto, forex and commodities, announced a $2.1 million seed round.
Radar*, a Latin American B2B payments automation provider that has processed $330 million, raised a $1.5 million pre-seed.
Bavest, a provider of financial data, alternative data such as sentiment data or ESG and climate data to financial institutions, raised €1.1 million in funding.
Hello Alice, a provider of small business funding, raised an undisclosed amount for it Series C at a $130 million valuation from backers including Mastercard.
Zeepay, a provider of instant settlement of remittances into mobile money wallets in Africa, raised funding.