Weekly update #119

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.

The latest episode of Builders has been released this week! In this episode, I sit down with Ken Villum Klausen , CEO and founder of Lunar. You can find the full episodes here on YouTube, or here on Spotify and here on Apple Podcast, but take a look first at a short clip from the video:

Ken Villum Klausen is a Danish entrepreneur and fintech founder best known as the Founder and CEO of Lunar, a digital banking platform he launched in 2015 that recently raised $46M. Based in Copenhagen, he has spent more than a decade building Lunar with the ambition of rethinking banking from the ground up, focusing on transparency, simplicity, and technology driven user experiences.

Prior to Lunar, he founded and led Wallmob, a mobile commerce company that was later acquired by Visma, and previously held leadership roles at digital agency Inzeit. Earlier in his career, he worked for nearly five years at Bestseller, progressing from sales roles to Brand Manager and International Retail Manager. His background spans retail, e-commerce, online advertising, and financial technology.

Klausen has been recognised with several awards, including Berlingske Business Talent 100 and Founder of the Year in 2019, reflecting his influence on the Nordic fintech ecosystem and his role in challenging traditional banking models.

Coming back to us, this week I’ve been reading a very interesting report called “State of digital investments in Europe” by Markswebb . It’s a study designed to understand what this fast-growing market actually looks like from the inside. The research examines how Europe’s digital investment ecosystem is structured today, how different types of platforms are positioned, and how well their capabilities align with real investor behavior, from long-term accumulation to active and speculative trading. Here my main takeaways:

The European investment platform landscape shows clear concentration in several segments. Trading platforms account for 31.3 percent of providers, leading the mid market with speculative and CFD focused products. Crypto platforms and marketplaces follow at 30.3 percent, reflecting sustained demand for digital assets and simplified user access. Banks represent 23.7 percent of the market, primarily offering long term instruments such as equities, ETFs, and fixed income products.

Robo advisors remain below 10 percent but continue to expand. Neobanks, at 5.7 percent, are growing rapidly with mobile first models and bundled services targeting younger clients. Traditional asset management platforms are the least represented segment, at just 1.3 percent.

Crypto, which account for 30,3% of total services, is most deeply embedded in retail investing across Eastern and Southeastern Europe, particularly in Romania, Serbia, Lithuania, and Poland, where it often substitutes traditional financial products. This reflects constrained institutional access, weaker trust in financial systems, and strong mobile first adoption.

In Western and Southern Europe, including France, Italy, and Netherlands, crypto remains peripheral with limited portfolio integration. Northern markets such as Finland and Sweden show moderate adoption, where crypto complements already diversified investment portfolios rather than replacing core assets.

The evaluation model applies two separate weighting systems, one for saving oriented investors and one for speculative investors. Each assigns priority to tasks aligned with distinct behavioral patterns, ensuring the assessment reflects how different users engage with digital investment apps.

The saving oriented system focuses on long horizon activities such as bond analysis, savings plans, and automated deposits, which support recurring and stable strategies. The speculative system centers on active trading functions including short selling and investor status checks. Shared features carry different weights: automated investing is more important for long term users, while trading functions are prioritized for speculative profiles. Universal tasks such as account management and documentation hold identical weight in both systems.

Opening a retail investment account should be fast, intuitive, and transparent. Users expect immediate access to a clear call to action such as an Open account button, ideally visible before login. The form should request only essential information, avoiding unnecessary fields, and streamline completion through features such as photo capture, address autofill, or eID integration.

After submission, clear confirmation and timely updates on verification status are critical. Additional steps, including tax forms like W eight BEN or base currency selection, should be explained transparently. Throughout onboarding, users should see remaining steps and any pricing details. A predictable and secure process strengthens trust and shapes long term perception of reliability.

But let’s take a closer look at the main news of the last seven days. Revolut became the back shirt sponsor for Manchester City Football Club, Crypto.com acquired AI.com domain for $70M, MrBeast acquired Gen Z fintech startup Step, Amazon launched Pay by bank in the UK. But also, Stripe prepares a new tender offer at $140B valuation, Uber acquires Getir in a $335M deal, Deel partners with MoonPay to enable stablecoin salary payments. Lots of new funds this week! With Benchmark raising a $225M special vehicle, Primary Venture Partners with a $625M new seed fund and Elaia with a $120M new fund. And finally, some very interesting funding rounds from fintech startups like Accrual, Taxnova, Porters, Levl, Bretton AI, Bracket, and many others.

Let’s take a closer look:

Rounds

• Accrual raises $75M to bring AI native automation into accounting firms
• Fundamental raises $255M to bring AI prediction to enterprise spreadsheets
• Veritus raises $10.1M seed to deploy voice first AI agents across consumer lending
• Taxnova raises $1M after completing a16z speedrun accelerator
• Waffo raises $30M to scale global payments and monetization infrastructure
• SiFi raises $20M Series A to scale spend management across Saudi Arabia
• InvestSky | Social Investing enters Saudi Arabia after $4M Seed and CMA approval
• omnispay raises $2M to build an AI native finance layer for SMEs
• ZeroDrift launches with $2M to bring real time compliance to financial communications
• Safqah Capital | صفقة المالية raises $15.2M Seed to accelerate SME real estate financing in Saudi Arabia
• Smart Bricks raises $5M pre seed to build AI infrastructure for real estate investing
• Olyv India (formerly SmartCoin) raises $23M Series C to scale digital lending platform
• Avenia raises $17.3M Series A to scale stablecoin payment infrastructure across LatAm and the US
• 어피닛(AFINIT) secures 32B Won Series E ahead of planned IPO
• Porters raises €2.7M Pre-Seed to automate banking back office with AI
• Levl raises $7M seed to scale fiat and stablecoin cross border payments
• Bretton AI raises $75M Series B to scale AI agents for financial crime compliance
• Complyance raises $20M Series A to reinvent enterprise GRC with AI agents
• Bracket raises $7M seed to replace spreadsheets in mid market treasury
• Tembo raises £16M to scale digital savings and mortgage platform
• Anthropic secures $30B Series G at $380B valuation!
• Blockbrain raises €17.5M Series A to scale secure AI agents for enterprise knowledge
• UPTIQ secures $25M Series B to scale AI infrastructure for financial institutions

VC funds

• Benchmark doubles down on Cerebras with $225M special fund
• Primary Venture Partners closes $625M seed fund as early stage rounds continue to scale
• Elaia secures €120M first close for digital venture Fund V
• Multimodal Ventures closes $15M debut fund to back Y Combinator startups
• Kindred Ventures raises $227M across Fund IV and Selector II
• Coinbase launches agentic wallets to power autonomous AI finance

News on the market

• Crypto.com makes $70M AI.com bet ahead of Super Bowl launch
• Last week I was reading a very interesting report from Juniper Research and commissioned by Revolut on scam ads on social media.
• Uber acquires Getir delivery unit in $335M deal to expand Turkey footprint
• Moonrise by Lunar brings real time payments to Norway through NICS Real
• NEOPAY and CredibleX partner to deliver embedded SME financing across the UAE
• MrBeast’s Beast Industries acquires Gen Z fintech app Step
• Stripe prepares new tender offer at $140B valuation
• Amazon launches pay by bank in the UK to streamline checkout and refunds
• Deel partners with MoonPay to enable stablecoin salary payments globally
• AstroPay and Xoom, A PayPal Service launch direct wallet payouts starting in Colombia
• Agibank cuts US IPO by over 50% amid valuation pressure in Brazilian fintech market
• Grab to acquire Stash for $425M to expand global financial services
• Cash App introduces payment links to simplify P2P transfers
• Rezolve Ai acquires Reward for $230M to build AI driven commerce and banking platform
• Revolut becomes official back of shirt partner of Manchester City Football Club

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

Events you don’t want to miss

• FIBE | Berlin - 15th-16th April 2026 (Link here)
• Stablecon EMEA | Amsterdam - 19th-20th May (Link here)

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

Founders to watch in fintech

I also wanted to start shining a light on the most interesting fintech founders out there, so I thought to start sharing how I look for ideas to invest on. Every week, I will start sharing the most interesting founders in fintech, divided per area.

This week we take a look at the most interesting founders in fintech in Asia.

I usually use Spectre to scout for new ideas, the team is great and they also give me a free account once they learned I was a fan of the product. So if you wanna take a look at it, you can find it here.

New funds

I recently spoke with Marco Scotti from Raspberry Ventures. Thanks to their Y Combinator Alumni network, they unlock access to the top 10% of YC companies for Angel investors. Co-investing up to $3M across 15 - 25 companies in each YC batch, 4 batches a year, before Demo Day; and before the Silicon Valley VCs come in and take allocations in the best companies.

Their next batch YC W26m is closing in the upcoming weeks. You can take a look here if you are interested!

Take also a look at the last edition of the newsletter, Weekly update #118.