Weekly update #108

Welcome to this edition of the weekly newsletter. The idea behind this is to gather all the information in the startup ecosystem in one place, with a special focus on the fintech market and the VC industry.

Builders is back with Season 3! In the last episode, I sat down with Tomás Campos , founder of Spinwheel. You can find the full episode here on YouTube, or here on Spotify and here on Apple Podcast.

Tomás is the co-founder and CEO of Spinwheel, the agentic AI-powered credit data and payments platform that is revolutionizing the consumer credit ecosystem. Spinwheel services more than 15 million users and 165 million accounts, facilitating $1.5 trillion in connected debt across its network. A three-time founder, Tomás is a noteworthy entrepreneur, executive, inventor, and operator across payments, data, retail, consumer, and Saas industries.

Prior to Spinwheel, Tomás founded and sold his previous company to Westfield Inc. where he then served as the SVP of product. He also grew the digital payments division of Blackhawk Network Inc. to a $1.5 billion business and independent reporting segment as the global general manager.

With him, we talked about the whole experience of being a founder, that might not be for you, the differences between first time and second time founders, the credit market globally and how to raise funds in this environment.

Coming back to us, I’ve been reading a very interesting study this week, “The Fintech Effect”, from Plaid and The Harris Poll. The study is a survey conducted among 2,000 adults in the United States, with data analyzed by age, gender, region, ethnicity, income, assets, employment, marital, and parental status. The results show a clear indication of US based consumer’s feelings about the current wave of fintech tools. Here my main takeaways:

Around 68% of consumers worry about the broader economy, while 76% feel their income has lost purchasing power compared to last year. Job security concerns have risen to 68%, up 11 points in two years. In response, 85% of households have actively adjusted their financial behavior, mainly by reducing discretionary spending and seeking additional income. Younger consumers, especially Gen Z, are more likely to adopt side projects. Despite these pressures, 75% report improved financial confidence, with most attributing this to technology and fintech tools.

Fintech adoption continues to accelerate, with 78% of consumers now using financial apps, up 20 percentage points since 2020. Usage is also expanding in depth, as 19% of users expect to rely on six or more apps within six months, compared with 14% in 2020. Payments remain the leading use case, while tools for investing, credit, payroll advances, and lending have grown steadily. A majority of users report that these technologies deliver tangible benefits, reinforcing fintech’s role in everyday money management.

Fintech delivers measurable benefits, with users reporting time savings (55%), greater financial knowledge (46%), and lower costs (43%). Around 33% say fintech has increased their savings, up six points in two years, despite many Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Interest in financial education is at a peak, with 61% more engaged than ever and 80% motivated to improve their financial skills. However, only 19% receive financial education through apps, revealing a strong opportunity for in-app guidance on inflation and accountability.

Expectations around AI in fintech are rising rapidly. Around 54% of Americans are now excited about AI-powered financial tools, up seven points since 2023, and 33% have tried generative AI in the past year, compared with 20% previously. Already, 21% use AI to manage or understand their personal finances. Comfort with AI has accelerated, with 59% of consumers and 70% of Millennials reporting increased confidence in the last 12 months. Most users are comfortable relying on AI for subscription management, bill reduction, and customer support. Trust is driven by transparency, human oversight, stronger fraud protection, and clear data guarantees, while 61% trust apps more when AI is used for fraud detection and 73% favor stronger regulation.

Anyway we saw a lot of interesting news this week. Ramp closes a $300M raise at $32B valuation, Kraken closes a $800M round, and Revolut lands on Booking.com with their RevolutPay feature. Curve was officially sold to Lloyds Banking Group, Robinhood launched a cash delivery service in partnership with Gopuff, Airwallex became a member of EPI Company, PAYONE began nationwide release of Wero in Germany, and some very interesting partnerships between football clubs and fintech companies, with Liverpool Football Club and Arsenal Football Club partnering with PayPal and Zilch for payments. In the VC ecosystem, nvp capital closes a $80M fund, Keen Venture Partners a $150M one, but also XAnge, Sofinnova Partners and Remagine Ventures with new funds. And finally, some very interesting founding rounds from fintech startups like Flatpay, Condukt, Sumary, Deblock, Dost, Sphere, Takadao and many others.

But let’s take a closer look at the main news of the last seven days.

Rounds

• Flatpay reaches €1.5B valuation and expands its European footprint
• Ramp surges to a $32B valuation after new $300M raise
• Condukt raises $10M to scale AI-driven business verification
• Backflip launches Asset Management arm with $10M investment and $175M AUM
• Sumary secures $4.2M Pre-Seed round to accelerate AI-driven finance automation
• Kraken secures $800M to accelerate global expansion and on-chain finance strategy
• Deblock raises €30M Series A to scale fully on-chain banking across Europe
• Dost raises £6M Series A to launch AI-driven financial automation in the UK
• Sphere raises $21M Series A from a16z to scale AI-native global tax compliance
• Takadao raises $1.5M Seed round to advance shariah-compliant Web3 finance
• Numeric raises $51M Series B to build unified AI finance platform and launch cash management product
• Keyzy secures €147M to scale rent-to-own housing across Greater London
• Kaaj raises $3.8M seed to scale AI-driven credit risk automation for SMBs lending
• SAPI secures $80M to expand embedded finance solutions for SMBs
• Chargeflow secures $35M to scale chargeback automation as eCommerce losses hit $100B
• Kalshi hits $11B valuation with $1B funding round in prediction markets
• Stuut raises $29.5M Series A to automate accounts receivable with AI
• Maxima raises $41M to boost agentic AI automation for accounting and month-end close

VC funds

• XAnge announces first closing of €200M “XAnge 5” fund to back AI, deeptech and sustainable innovation
• Sofinnova Partners closes €650M flagship fund to accelerate biopharma and medtech innovation
• Keen Venture Partners secures €150M first close for new European defence and security fund
• nvp capital raises $80M second fund to back global enterprise software and vertical AI
• Remagine Ventures raises $25M second Fund to back early-stage AI founders

News on the market

• Robinhood partners with Gopuff to launch same-day cash delivery in the U.S.
• Revolut pushes on African expansion with a bank licence application in South Africa
• Revolut is now available as payment method in Booking.com
• Lloyds Banking Group’ £120M deal for Curve triggers shareholder opposition
• J.P. Morgan reshapes U.S. data access market with paid agreements for fintech API calls
• Blockchain.com targets 2026 for its upcoming IPO
• Airwallex becomes member of EPI, integrating Wero Wallet for European merchants
• General Atlantic buys $100M stake in SmartHR, Inc. in Japan’s largest ever startup secondary
• Pennylane enters Germany and plans 100 hires as it expands across Europe
• Survey shows nearly half of UK fintech founders considering relocation
• Curve finally confirms the sale to Lloyds Banking Group
• PAYONE begins nationwide rollout of Wero E-Commerce in Germany
• Adobe acquires Semrush for $1.9B to strengthen AI-Era marketing capabilities
• Integral acquires cleverlohn and raises funding to advance AI-driven accounting and payroll services
• Revolut opens first Greek branch and prepares to scale to 2M users
• Liverpool Football Club partners with PayPal in multi-year deal to power digital fan payments
• Revolut to launch Danish branch, targeting 1 million customers
• Is Coinbase going to release a prediction market product backed by Kalshi?
• Pleo cuts up to 100 roles as it refines Go-to-Market strategy across Europe
• Zilch becomes official way to pay for Arsenal Football Club in first global brand deal

Italian market

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And here some useful resources for everyone involved in the ecosystem:

Events you don’t want to miss

• Seamless Saudi Arabia | Riyadh - 17-19/11/2025 (link here)
• MoneyLIVE Payments | Amsterdam - 19-20/11/2025 (link here)
• 22nd Bank Management Conference | Athens - 20/11/2025 (link here)

You have a cool event you want to mention or to sponsor? Feel free to send me a DM.

Startups raising funds

• Loyyal - Loyalty platform from the MENA region, with entities in the US and South East Asia, provides a B2B2C platform to handle multiple loyalty programs and earn rewards all over the world. Raising a $6M Series A
• Freedhome - Proptech and fintech platform, enabling people to be able to gain profit from real estate by renting them to intermediaries. Raising a $1M seed round

• Weagle - B2B Tech startup that provides the very first browser designed for company, with total security for sensitive data. Raising $6 millions for their seed round.

• Shoppy Code:Gift card platform that offers a points based loyalty program. They share part of the profits coming from marketing budgets with their customers. Raising $500k.

Take also a look at the last edition of the newsletter, Weekly update #107.