Weekly update #146

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.

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Coming back to us, this week I’ve been reading two very interesting reports from McKinsey & Company on payments. The first one is “How instant payments are transforming the financial landscape” and the second one is “Guardrails for growth: building a resilient payment system”. The connection between the two is very clear, instant payments adoption is accelerating across different markets, but that must come with clear and well defined guardrails to protect users from scams and frauds. Here my main takeaways:

Instant payments are becoming a larger part of global payments, reaching nearly $22 trillion in value across the 15 largest adopting economies in 2024. This represented about 1% of the $2 quadrillion in worldwide payment flows. McKinsey expects instant payment volumes to grow 15% to 18% annually over the next five years.

India and Mexico show sharply different adoption paths. India launched IMPS in 2010 and UPI in 2016. UPI now processes more than 19 billion transactions per month, nearly one third of India’s total transaction volume. Adoption benefited from zero fees, government subsidies, broad bank participation, digital public infrastructure, and the 2016 demonetization that removed 86% of cash by value.

In Mexico, instant payments account for less than 5% of transactions. About 33% of consumers make more than half of in store payments in cash, while only 18% frequently use mobile tap or QR payments.

Brazil offers another example of rapid instant payments adoption. Since the central bank launched Pix in 2020, instant payments have grown to nearly 30% of the country’s total transaction volume.

Pix entered a favorable market, with 83% of Brazilian households connected to the internet and consumers increasingly moving away from cash. Adoption was supported by zero consumer fees, mandatory participation for certain banks, and P2P, P2B, and B2B use cases integrated into banking apps and websites.

Initial growth came from P2P payments. In a 2024 McKinsey survey, 55% of Pix users cited speed and ease of use as their main reasons for adoption.

Pix then expanded rapidly into merchant payments. A 2025 McKinsey survey found that almost all Brazilian micro, small, and medium sized enterprises use instant payments, with Pix accounting for approximately 40% of their sales mix, reducing reliance on boletos and debit cards.

Alongside the rapid growth of digital and instant payments, fraud is expanding in scale and sophistication. Juniper Research estimates that online payment fraud could exceed $362 billion between 2023 and 2028. In 2024, more than half of surveyed consumers across 18 countries reported being targeted by fraud attempts, while global consumer losses were estimated at more than $1 trillion.

Key threats include synthetic identity fraud, real time payment fraud, account takeovers, phishing, social engineering, check fraud, and AI driven deepfakes. AI is increasingly used across email, text, phone scams, and takeover attempts, while large volumes of personal and account data remain available on the dark web.

Real time payments create additional exposure because transactions offer limited recoverability. In the United States, investment scams generated the highest monetary losses in 2024, while imposter scams were the most frequently reported category.

As payment fraud grows, providers face a difficult tradeoff between stronger controls and customer experience. Excessive prevention can increase false positives, transaction declines, and abandoned purchases, while customers increasingly expect reimbursement when fraud occurs. One survey found that 77% of customers would leave a bank that refused to refund a scam loss, compared with just 6% of financial institutions planning to reimburse all scams.

AI and machine learning are becoming central to more targeted fraud detection. Many institutions still record false positive rates in the high 90s, compared with rates in the 60s among best performers.

AML pressures are also rising. Up to $2 trillion is laundered globally each year, while related fines exceeded $6 billion in 2023. EMEA institutions spent approximately $85 billion on financial crime compliance, yet less than 1% of international criminal financial flows are intercepted.

But let’s take a closer look at the main news of the last seven days, Revolut applied to establish a branch in Finland, Bitstack becomes official sponsor of Racing Club de Lens, TikTok explores a P2P payment solution and Stripe acquired OpenRouter for $7B. But also, Rain launched the agentic payment alliance along with Visa and Mastercard, Revolut expands BaaS partnership with Minna Bank in Japan, PayPal resumes sell talks with Stripe and Advent and Chime explores stablecoin feature for his app. In the VC market, a lot of new funds this week! QuantumLight, the VC launched by Revolut founder Nik Storonsky, closed a $500M fund, Reach Capital closed a $265M fund V, Floating Point a $125M fund III, but also new vehicles from Ripple Ventures, Blackbird Ventures and Inovo.vc. And finally, some very interesting funding rounds from fintech startups like Ingenico, Multiplier (YC P26), Jem, Astraeus, Rillet, Amber and many others.

Let’s take a closer look:

Rounds

• Ingenico secures €150M investment to accelerate payment innovation
• Amber raises €7 Million series A to build autonomous business AI
• Sterling raises NZ$3.8M to expand AI finance automation
• Rezolv AI raises $12.5M series A to scale AI lending automation
• Rillet raises $100M series C at $1B valuation
• Clearco secures $100M debt facility as it targets break even in Q4
• Noggin HQ raises £2.3M and secures FCA credit referencing approval
• Navi secures $100M from Prosus Ventures in first institutional capital raise
• Multiplier (YC P26) raises $6M to build AI infrastructure for institutional investors
• Jem raises $8.4M to scale WhatsApp based workforce management
• Former MoneyLion executives launch Astraeus with $10M in funding

VC funds

• QuantumLight closes oversubscribed $500M fund II
• Reach Capital closes $265M fund V to back AI founders
• Ripple Ventures unveils fund IV with new sovereign tech focus
• Blackbird Ventures closes sixth fund above A$1 billion
• Floating Point closes $125M fund III for complex, regulated startups
• European Investment Bank (EIB) and Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego launch €30M fintech fund in Poland

News on the market

• PayPal sale talks with Stripe and Advent reportedly accelerate
• Chime explores stablecoin features for its banking app
• Stripe reportedly nears $7 Billion OpenRouter acquisition
• Citi to acquire Kard to expand personalized rewards
• Kraken partners with Mesh to simplify crypto deposits
• RedotPay delays $1B US IPO amid Binance lawsuit
• J.P. Morgan ended banking relationship with Polymarket over regulatory concerns
• Revolut expands BaaS partnership in Japan with Minna Bank, allowing users to open yen accounts
• Monzo chairman Gary Hoffman steps down after nearly eight years
• StoneX Group Inc. to acquire Banco Travelex and expand Brazil payments
• Thunes and Fiserv partner on real time global payouts
• Rain launches Agentic payments Alliance with Visa, Mastercard and Circle
• Revolut officially applies to open bank branch in Finland
• Bitstack becomes official partner of Racing Club de Lens
• Klarna Q2 revenue rises 27% as profitability accelerates
• TikTok explores Peer to Peer payments solution through direct messages
• Visa seeks new stablecoin partner after Mastercard’s $1.8B BVNK deal
• MoonPay adds Cash App Pay for digital asset purchases
• Monzo activates independent backup bank during app outage
• Stripe revenue jumps 41% as AI and crypto accelerate growth
• Revolut seeks approval to allow CEO borrow up to $250M against his shares
• Ant Group acquires an additional $309M stake in Paytm block trade
• Nium launches US card issuance as global platform expands
• PayPal and Venmo expand into tuition payments across US campuses
• Deel partners with Mesh to secure stablecoin payroll payouts
• Modulr becomes only non-banks to gain direct access to all 3 major UK payment schemes

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 Amsterdam, 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 #145