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Builders in Fintech

Issue 150 ·

Weekly update #150

Tabby | تابي raises $233M at a $6.5B valuation as it expands beyond BNPL. barq closes a $329.5M Series A at $1.85B, two years after launch. S&P Global agrees to acquire OpenZeppelin , the security standard behind $37T in onchain value. Circle launches the Arc mainnet with BlackRock, DTCC, Masterc…

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Weekly update #150

Tabby | تابي raises $233M at a $6.5B valuation as it expands beyond BNPL. barq closes a $329.5M Series A at $1.85B, two years after launch. S&P Global agrees to acquire OpenZeppelin , the security standard behind $37T in onchain value. Circle launches the Arc mainnet with BlackRock, DTCC, Mastercard and Visa. Global M&A hit $4.7T in 2025 — up 43% — with PE deal value rising 54% to $1.2T. Financial services M&A rose 40% to $499B; fintech deal value was up 108%.

Podcast

Builders #52 is out. This week my guest was Nicolas Kipp, CEO and founder of Credibur. Here a short clip from the video:

Listen on YouTube · Spotify · Apple Podcasts · Amazon

This week’s report: McKinsey 2026 M&A Trends

Global M&A deal value rose 43% to $4.7T in 2025, reaching 4.2% of total market value — up from 3.3% in 2024 and still below the 10-year average of 5.3%. Large deals ($10B+) numbered 60, the most since the post-COVID peak in 2021, with value more than doubling to $1.3T (+112%). PE deal value jumped 54% to $1.2T, with average deal size up to $890M.

Divestitures grew 30% to $1.6T. Financial services M&A rose ~40% to $499B; fintech and payments deal value grew 108%, average deal size up 131% to $1.2B. The Americas accounted for 51% of financial services deal value ($255B). Banks are still trading at 0.9× book despite record net income of ~$1.2T in 2024 — a gap McKinsey expects to drive consolidation in 2026.

The read: the M&A market is back on volume and conviction. The fintech subsector’s 108% increase in deal value points squarely at two themes this week: scale plays in payments (Global Payments/Worldpay, FIS/Issuer) and capability acquisitions (Allica/Kriya, Banca Ifis/Illimity). The same logic is running through the rounds this week — barq and Tabby are building at scale, not at the margins.

What McKinsey flags for 2026: cross-border deals in EMEA, more carve-outs as banks refocus on core, and AI as an accelerant of integration timelines. That last point is the one to watch — if AI genuinely compresses post-merger integration, deal cadence could keep rising even without valuation compression.

The week in six stories

1. [Tabby raises $233M at a $6.5B valuation as it moves beyond BNPL into a broader financial services platform](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michele-mattei_tabby-share-7505282282417737728-5JSd/) — The Saudi-based BNPL leader is now valued at $6.5B after raising $233M. The round signals Tabby’s pivot from instalment payments into a full financial services platform across the Gulf.

2. [barq closes a $329.5M Series A at a $1.85B valuation, two years after launch](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michele-mattei_barq-activity-7506268880554635265-r1zg) — The Saudi-founded payments network reached unicorn status just 24 months in, with the round among the largest Series A closes in MENA fintech.

3. [S&P Global agrees to acquire OpenZeppelin, the smart contract security standard behind $37T in onchain value](https://press.spglobal.com/2026-09-17-S-P-Global-Announces-Agreement-to-Acquire-OpenZeppelin) — Three days after leading Kaiko’s $110M round, S&P now owns both the market data and the security layer under tokenised finance.

4. [Circle launches the Arc mainnet in partnership with BlackRock, DTCC, ICE, Mastercard and Visa](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michele-mattei_circle-arc-blackrock-share-7506275902863970304-k0jV/) — Arc is a Layer 1 payment blockchain built for instant settlement. The consortium of partners positions it as the institutional-grade stablecoin infrastructure rail.

5. [Qupital raises $300M in Series C and ABS financing led by M CAPITAL to expand e-commerce trade finance](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michele-mattei_qupital-activity-7505656850076352512-CcgI) — The Hong Kong-based receivables financing platform combines a Series C equity round with an asset-backed securities vehicle to fund e-commerce seller working capital across Asia.

6. [Revolut prepares for a potential dual listing in London and New York, according to CEO Nik Storonsky](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michele-mattei_fintech-fintech-activity-7506660873369714688-lP1r/) — A dual listing would give Revolut access to deeper capital markets and validate its post-IPO ambition following the UK banking licence approval earlier this year.

Also: Split Pay raises $125M across Series A and B led by Khosla Ventures · Ridgeline raises $250M Series E at $1.425B to build the AI-native investment management platform · Celligence secures up to $100M from Mortgage Treasury to scale its AngelAi mortgage platform · Velocity raises Series A to $48M with Visa, Circle and Ripple · Grab agrees to acquire 60% of Atome Financial for $1.49B · Ramp launches in the UK six months after acquiring Billhop · OpenAI launches ChatGPT for financial services, built with Morgan Stanley and Evercore.

All rounds

Equity

Debt and credit

VC funds

Market news

Stablecoins and crypto rails

AI in financial services

M&A and exits

Expansion and licensing

Security

Funds raising now

Space for GPs and solo GPs launching funds. Not paid. If you’re raising and want to be listed, message me on LinkedIn.

  • Parallax Ventures — fintech, LatAm. Fund I: +50% IRR, 0.7x DPI. Raising Fund II. [link] · gennari@parallax.vc
  • Founder Factor — YC-focused. Just closed investments in YC W26 and is expanding the current vehicle to double down on the batch. [link]
  • RedFish Capital Partners — private equity, Italian SMEs in growth and mature phases. 40%+ IRR track record, €200M+ AUM. Raising a new AIF with a soft commitment from the European Investment Fund. redfish.capital · investor.relations@redfish.capital

Performance figures are provided by the managers. Nothing here is investment advice.

Events, next 30 days

  • 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)

Later: Money20/20 USA, Las Vegas (18–21 Oct) · MERGE Madrid (27–29 Oct) · Hong Kong Fintech Week (2–6 Nov) · Africa Stablecoin Summit, Johannesburg (12–13 Nov) · Solana Breakpoint, London (15–17 Nov) · Singapore FinTech Festival (18–20 Nov) · Fintech Nerdcon, San Diego (19–20 Nov) · Bitcoin MENA, Abu Dhabi (7–8 Dec) · Abu Dhabi Finance Week (7–10 Dec) · TOKEN2049 Dubai (21–22 Apr 2027) · Money20/20 Asia, Bangkok (27–29 Apr 2027)

Want an event listed or sponsored? DM me.

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