Weekly update #144

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 was released last week! In this episode, I sit down with Kristy Kim, CEO and founder of TomoCredit. You can watch the full episode here on YouTube, or listen to it here on Spotify or here on Apple Podcast.

TomoCredit, a San Francisco fintech company focused on expanding access to financial services through technology. Since launching the business in 2019, she has led its development and the introduction of TomoIQ, an AI-powered financial advisor designed to support consumers in managing their financial lives.

Before founding TomoCredit, Kristy worked in business development at Credit Sesame and held investment roles at Kenetic, Oasis Labs and Vault12. She previously founded and led a venture-backed e-commerce company and served as Head of Global Business Development at Com2us Corporation, where she worked on international growth initiatives. Earlier in her career, she advised technology companies on mergers and acquisitions at J. Moore Partners, which later merged with B. Riley Financial.

Kristy is also a member of the Forbes Finance Council, where she contributes perspectives on fintech and personal finance. She holds an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and has served as a lecturer at Haas, teaching entrepreneurship and blockchain.

With her, we will talk about credit scoring in the US, fintech services and the importance of being in San Francisco to build your fintech startup.

Coming back to us, this week I’ve been reading a very interesting report, the “How retail banks build strategic distance” by McKinsey & Company. The strong financial performance of global banks in recent years is not reflected in their valuations: The price-to-book multiple of retail banks trails the average of all other industries by almost 70 percent globally. For example, in 2022, the price-to-book ratio of other industries was 2.9 times the banking industry globally, and in 2024, it was 3.3 times. Why? Markets doubt banks’ recent highs are sustainable, seeing them as tailwind-driven. Here my main takeaways:

Global banks are delivering their strongest financial performance in years, yet market valuations remain significantly lower than those of other industries. Banking revenues exceeded $3 trillion annually, growing an average of 6.2% per year between 2020 and 2024, while ROE surpassed pre pandemic levels. Despite this, retail banks’ price to book multiples trail other industries by almost 70%, with the valuation gap widening from 2.9 times in 2022 to 3.3 times in 2024.

Investors remain concerned that recent profitability is driven by temporary macroeconomic conditions. Banks also face fragmented customer relationships, changing channel preferences, rising costs, and competition from technology focused players. Customers increasingly use multiple financial institutions, rising from approximately 2.5 providers in 2021 to 3.0 in 2023, further weakening traditional banking relationships and increasing competitive pressure.

Retail banking is being reshaped by digital adoption, rising costs, and advances in AI. Mobile banking now has three times more active users than branches and generates 50 times more customer interactions, with touchpoints increasing by more than 90% since 2020. However, human interaction remains important for acquiring and cross selling complex products.

At the same time, banks face higher wages, technology expenses, funding costs, fraud, and credit risk. In Brazil, operating costs are expected to rise about 6% annually from 2024 to 2030.

Banks are responding with greater personalization, open banking, embedded finance, super apps, and AI. Around 65 million Brazilian accounts are already connected to open banking. AI can reduce credit model development times by up to 95%, while one Asian bank generated more than $500 million in economic value from AI and data initiatives in 2024.

Tech native banks are gaining ground by offering faster innovation, lower customer acquisition and servicing costs, and more personalized products. Incumbent banks can provide similar services, but legacy infrastructure, fragmented systems, talent shortages, and siloed operating models often slow execution.

Digital challengers are expanding rapidly. Nubank exceeded 107 million clients in Brazil by Q2 2025, more than doubling its 2021 customer base while reaching a 28% ROE. Revolut grew from about 2.5 million Spanish customers in 2023 to 4 million in 2024, while Nubank reached 12 million customers in Mexico in 2025, up 130% from 2023. In Germany, digital banks account for 45% of new accounts.

Retail banks are increasingly separating into distinct competitive archetypes as digital transformation reshapes the market. Rewired leaders are established institutions that invested early in technology and talent. In Brazil and Mexico, about 20% of their non sales workforce holds technology and digital roles, compared with less than 15% at other incumbents. Their next opportunity is to expand AI driven personalization, digital sales, and automation.

Sleeping giants remain large and operationally scalable but are losing customer relevance due to legacy technology and weaker digital experiences. In Spain, their share of primary customers falls by almost 50% among consumers who recently switched banks.

Retail banking competition is expected to intensify as digital superstars and rewired leaders strengthen their advantages in customer relationships, productivity, and technology. In Spain, sleeping giants still retain strong customer primacy, with more than 50% of their clients using them as their primary bank, compared with less than 20% for digital superstars. However, digital players already lead in customer satisfaction.

Banks face a more difficult position, lacking the scale of incumbents and the distinctive advantages of faster growing digital competitors. Looking ahead, banks that successfully combine AI powered advisory services, broader financial platforms, personalization, and operational efficiency are likely to widen the gap in revenue growth, cost to income performance, and ROE. As competitive pressure increases, more traditional and underperforming banks will need to accelerate digital transformation to remain profitable and relevant.

But let’s take a closer look at the main news of the last seven days, Chime cuts 10% of the workforce, Bending Spoons acquires Airtable for $1.25 billion, Western Union launches stablecoin card with Rain and norisbank launches Wero for instant payments. But also, Apple Pay launches in the Philippines, Stripe enables stablecoin payments for Dune, Deel acquires Clarity and Revolut consider record incentive package for Nik Storonsky. In the VC ecosystem, White Star Capital closes a $250M fund, Robinhood launches a $200M fund to invest on Y Combinator startups, Sequoia Capital closes a $10B AI fund, but also new vehicles from Adams Street Partners, South Park Commons and U.S. Venture Partners. And finally, some very interesting funding rounds from fintech startups like 10x Banking, Moment, Moss, Decade, Faye, Moove, Yellow Card, Rivo and many others.

Let’s take a closer look:

Rounds

• Ripple invests in ZILO™ and Licuido to expand tokenized capital markets
• 10x Banking secures £40 million to accelerate global expansion
• Bundle raises US$5.5 million for networked rewards platform
• Moment raises $22 million to expand payments across Africa
• Maximum emerges from stealth with $30 million seed round
• Moss reaches unicorn status with €30 million series C
• Polymarket seeks $1 billion at more than $20 billion valuation
• Decade raises $85 million in Latin America’s largest seed round
• Faye raises $50 million at an estimated $500 million valuation
• Moove raises $250 million at $2.1 billion valuation
• Yellow Card raises $40 million to expand stablecoin infrastructure globally
• Rivo raises $3.1 million to automate household cash management
• OpenFX acquires Global Ledger to expand embedded FX infrastructure
• Starling targets fee income growth and new products under Bernadette Smith
• Mastercard and AFS Group launch integrated corporate payments solution in UAE and Egypt

VC funds

• Adams Street Partners raises over $5 billion for secondaries strategy
• U.S. Venture Partners targets $400 million for 14th fund
• White Star Capital closes $250 million fund IV
• Robinhood targets Y Combinator startups with a $200 million retail fund
• South Park Commons raises $575 million fund IV for early stage tech founders
• Sequoia Capital plans record $10 billion AI fund under new leadership

News on the market

• Stripe enable stablecoin payments for Dune across Europe
• Flutterwave plans East African bank acquisition as IPO delays
• Chime cuts 10% of workforce as AI strategy accelerates
• Deel acquires Clarity to strengthen AI workforce security
• TBC Uzbekistan launches digital car loans
• bithumb official targets 2028 IPO with multi year preparation plan
• BBVA takes full ownership of Altura Markets S.V., S.A.
• BitGo launches Link for unified institutional crypto management
• Bending Spoons to acquire Airtable for $1.285 billion
• Mastercard completes acquisition of BVNK to connect stablecoins and fiat payments
• Santander adds global eSIM services to its mobile app in partnership with Gigs
• Visa acquires BioCatch for $2.4 billion to strengthen fraud prevention
• Bitget to exit Japan and close remaining positions by December 31
• AutoRek acquires Grath to expand AI driven reconciliation
• Apple Pay launches in the Philippines
• Plaid and Sierra bring financial data into AI agent workflows
• Revolut appoints Sid Jajodia to group board
• Western Union launches stablecard with Rain
• norisbank launches Wero for instant payments
• Revolut considers record incentive package for Nik Storonsky
• Visa Direct adds stablecoin payouts through zerohash
• KuCoin Exchange launches stablecoin gift cards for global business payments

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

Events you don’t want to miss

• Global Fintech Fest 2026 | Mumbai | 9-11 September (link here)
• Money 20/20 Middle East | Riyadh | 14-16 September (link here)
• European blockchain week | Barcelona | 16-17 September (link here)
• Nordic fintech week | Copenhagen | 23-24 September (link here)
• Korea Blockchain Week 2026 | Seoul | September 29 - October 1 (link here)
• TOKEN2049 | Singapore | 7-8 October (link here)
• Money 20/20 USA | Las Vegas | 18-21 October (link here)
• MERGE Madrid 2026 | Madrid | October 27-29 (link here)
• Hong Kong fintech week | Hong Kong | 02-06 November (link here)
• Africa Stablecoin Summit 2026 | Johannesburg | 12-13 November (link here)
• Solana Breakpoint 2026 | London | 15-17 November (link here)
• Singapore FinTech Festival 2026 | Singapore | 18-20 November (link here)
• Fintech Nerdcon | San Diego | 19-20 November (link here)
• Bitcoin MENA 2026 | Abu Dhabi | 7-8 December (link here)
• Abu Dhabi Finance Week 2026 | Abu Dhabi | 7-10 December (link here)
• TOKEN2049 Dubai 2027 | Dubai | 21-22 April, 2027 (link here)
• Money20/20 Asia 2027 | Bangkok | 27-29 April, 2027 (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 I took a look at the most interesting fintech startups in Berlin, focusing on companies bootstrapped in the early stage (pre-seed and seed).

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.

VCs and PEs raising new funds now

I would like to leave this part of the newsletter as space for VC and solo GP that are launching new funds right now. I frequently speak with GPs and LPs, and I like the idea of giving them a showcase where to announce what they are doing. Here the new funds raising right now that I have been talking with:

• Parallax Ventures, a fintech VC fund focused on Latam. They closed Fund I with a strong +50% IRR and 0.7x DPI, and are now raising Fund II. Take a look here if you want to know more or reach out directly to the GP at gennari@parallax.vc for details.
• Founder Factor, VC focused on YC companies, that just closed investments on the latest YC W26. They are expanding the current vehicle to double down on the current batch. You can take a look here if you are interested.
• RedFish Capital Partners, a private equity investor focused on Italian SMEs in growth and mature capital phases, with a track record exceeding 40% IRR and with over €200M in Assets. Currently raising its brand new AIF, which has already secured a soft commitment from the European Investment Fund (EIF). You can check them out at redfish.capital or contact the team at investor.relations@redfish.capital.

Overall, very interesting to see where the VC ecosystem is heading recently, between new emerging managers, solo GP and micro funds.

Always happy to support if I can! If you are raising a fund and you want to be listed here send me a message on Linkedin.

And finally, take also a look at the last edition of the newsletter, Weekly update #143