Weekly update #52

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.

No episode of Builders this time, the podcast will be back next week with another guest from the fintech ecosystem. In the meanwhile you can find the last episode with the complete video interview here on YouTube, or you can listen to the podcast here on Spotify or here on Apple Podcast.

As always, if you are a VC manager or a founder and want to be the next guest on the podcast feel free to send me a message on LinkedIn!

Coming back to us, this week I read an interesting report from Accel, named “AI eating softwares”, a very interesting study on the status of the tech market and the opportunities and risks that AI can bring. Here my main takeaways:

Let’s start from one solid point: the tech market is still pretty solid. Nasdaq is up 38% LTM adding to more than $8.4Tn of market cap. But this positive scenario is mostly driven by 6 big companies (Apple, Microsoft, Invidia, Google, Meta and Amazon).

But still, clouds are looming at the horizon, with geopolitical movements posing a huge risk to international companies. On top of that, taking in consideration the companies from Euroscape Public Cloud Index, we can see that still 39% of them are below the 2021 peak, with an average multiple EV/NTM rev still below the pre-covid era (7.1x pre-covid vs 5.9x Sep. 2024).

Another important variable to take in consideration is liquidity on the market. There is still very low sign of recovery in the IPO market, with few possibilities for institutional investors to recover their money in a traditional liquidity event. In the cloud market we saw three IPOs in 2024 (Rubrik, Planisware and Onestream) and only one in 2023 (Klaviyo).

The M&A activity is still pretty solid in the market, but there is very little sign of activity from the big techs. The capital missing from those companies has often been delivered by sponsor-led deals, most of the time led by Private Equity or Venture Capital. In the private markets we still saw a 40% rise in terms of funding compared to pre-covid era, but this value is mostly driven by AI funding.

Anyway we saw some very interesting news in the market this week. Venmo is going into crypto, launching a partnership with MoonPay, while Binance is expanding its reach in Africa, being available now in many new countries. Goldman Sachs was fined $50 million by CFPB over credit card probe for the partnership with Apple and N26 is finally able to open bank accounts in Italy again. In the VC industry, we saw Infinity Ventures closing a second fund at $184 million, and Resurge Growth Partners partners closing a $120 million fund, with more new funds being launched by Mobeus , dmg ventures and Sarmayacar. In the italian ecosystem, CyberGuru closed a stunning $23 million series B. And finally, some very interesting funding rounds from fintech startups like Emerge, OneLot, Parto, Zip, Akua, Moneybox, Finix, Monark Markets and many others.

But let's take a closer look at the main news of the last seven days:

Closed deals

• Emerge, a Mainland Angel Investors portfolio company, raises $12 million to redefine banking
• Philippines based OneLot raises a $4 million pre-seed to innovate how people pay for used cars in the country
• German fintech Parto raises a $2.5 million pre-seed to enhance digital payments for the social economy
• Procurement orchestration platform Zip raises a $190 million series D at $2.2 billion total valuation
• San Francisco based fintech Uprise - Embedded Financial Advisory raises $3.3 million to help SMEs make smarter financial decisions
• Authologic raises $8.2 million to improve KYC and AML processes in the industry
• Oxla raises a $11 million seed round to enhance high volume analytical data processing
• Latam payment startup Akua raises a $4.3 million seed round to expand its infrastructure in the region
• Brazilian fintech Agrolend raises a $53 million series C to enhance agri-finance in the country
• Arab Financial Services secures a $50 million capital injection to be a point of reference for payments in MENA
• AI fintech startup ONE ZERO BANK is reported raising $100 million
• Goldman Sachs invest in Financeit C$700m securitization warehouse to support Canadian home improvements
• Moneybox raises a $70 million round and hits a $550 million valuation after reporting profit
• interface.ai raises $30 million to help banks and fintech to field customer requests
• Valon announces a $100 million series C to build the first modern vertically integrated mortgage servicing platform
• Reality Defender closes a $33 million round to defend fintechs from AI generated deepfakes
• YouLend closes a deal with Castlelake to expand credit facility in the US up to $1 billion
• Payment startup Finix raises a $75 million Series C
• Monark Markets raises a $2.2 million in seed funding to revolutionise private market access
• Seattle based proptech Inspectify raises $5.26m to drive innovation in property risk assessment

Insights on the VC industry

• Mobeus raised successfully $90 million for two new funds
• dmg ventures raises $50 million for two new funds to back consumer oriented startups
• Infinity Ventures closes a second fund at $184 million to invest in early stage fintech startups
• Resurge Growth Partners closes a $120 million fund to back scaleups
• Sarmayacar’s Climaventures fund secures $15M anchor commitment from Green Climate Fund

News on the market

• Venmo announced that US customers can now purchase crypto through MoonPay in the app
• Mitsubishi Corporation acquires half of Ayala Corporation's stake in fintech unicorn Mynt
• Central Bank of Kenya wants to build an instant payment system to connect banks and fintech in the country
• Binance is now available in Africa, expanding in many new countries in the continent
• UBS sells its 50% stake in Swisscard AECS GmbH to American Express
• Santander launches a US based digital bank to to cut costs of auto lending
• Goldman Sachs got fined by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau $50 million over credit card probe related to Apple partnership
• N26 is back to business in Italy, as the regulator lifts off the limit on new bank accounts opening
• Italy's Tinaba becomes the first European digital bank to integrate with Alipay+ mini programmes
• Tide announced the acquisition of the payroll solution Onfolk
• Nigerian OmniRetail Technology Limited acquires payments platform Traction Apps
• Tillster closes a partnership with Stripe to propose the payment solution in restaurants globally
• Chinese clothing retailer SHEIN will propose a credit card in partnership with Mexican fintech Stori

A special look in the Italian market

• Italian tech startup Cyber Guru secured a $23 million series B to help companies train their employees in cybersecurity
• Another Italian founder, but this time in India. Even, healthcare startup launched by Matilde Giglio, raises a stunning $30 million round

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

Events you don’t want to miss

• VDS+ | Valencia 23-24.10.2024 (Link to the invite or website)

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

• PopulaRise - The platform that allows companies of every dimension to promote themselves on social media through the collaboration with their clients. B2B2C SaaS. Raising $1M.
• Tutornow - Edtech that provides an online tutoring platform for students with learning disorders. Raising $500k to $1M.
• Recivu - Fintech  startup trying to digitize the receipt flow by getting rid of papers. Looking for $150k in SAFE, already $50k committed.
• 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.

• Reach Finance - Reach is the fintech platform for wealth accumulation for the Y&Z generations, they provide users with the tools to build wealth such as a budget tracker, a financial plan and a systematization of investments. Looking for $700k, with already $500k committed.
• wrapp.ai - A fintech startups that offers a virtual accountant and CFO that can help SMEs scale globally. Looking for $1 million, $750k already granted from public funds, looking to close the last $350k.
• 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 #51