Weekly update #60

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.

First of all the latest episode of Builders will be released today. In this episode I sit down with Nasir Zubairi , CEO of the The LHoFT - Luxembourg House of Financial Technology, a public/private sector initiative to drive fintech and digitalization for Luxembourg's financial services industry. Nazir has multiple years of experience in fintech in many countries across the world, and honestly I was amazed the first time we sat down together to talk about everything he did in his career.

Recently nominated among the 100 most influential people in Luxembourg, Nazir had multiple roles in some very interesting financial institutions in the past. From Kredinet to RBS , from EuroTRX to Currencycloud Cloud, passing also through finleap and the International Monetary Fund.

The episode will be live here on YouTube and here on Spotify today at 10.30am. The podcast will then come back in January 2025 with a new season full of great guests, really looking forward to sharing them with you all! And as always, if you are a VC manager or a fintech founder and would like to join as the next guest feel free to contact me here on Linkedin!

Coming back to us, this week I’ve been reading a very interesting report this week, the “AI valuation multiples: funding rounds, valuations and investors universe from 2010 to 2024” from Adventis Advisor. The study take in consideration over 51,000 rounds worldwide in the last 14 years in Artificial Intelligence, analysing pre-money and post-money valuations. Here my main take aways:

Over the past decade, 48% of all fundraising rounds in the AI sector occurred at the Pre-Seed and Seed stages, highlighting a vibrant market for early-stage funding. However, only a small percentage of startups progress to raise additional rounds successfully. Despite consistent growth in the number of funding rounds across all stages over the last 15 years, the funding environment has recently shifted. Between 2021 and 2023, the later funding stages experienced the most significant declines, with Series A and Series B rounds dropping by 38% each. Meanwhile, Pre-Seed activity remained stable, and Seed rounds saw a 20% decrease.

The median size of Seed funding rounds has seen significant growth, increasing more than fourfold from approximately $500,000 in 2010 to $3 million in 2024. In contrast, the median Pre-Seed round size for AI companies has remained stable over the past decade, consistently ranging between $100,000 and $120,000. This reflects a steady pattern in early-stage investments while highlighting substantial growth in Seed-stage funding for AI startups.

Median funding round sizes have increased across all stages, experiencing a significant surge during the 2021-2022 tech boom. This growth was fueled by substantial monetary stimulus and an abundance of capital during the COVID-19 period. The most notable increases were seen in Series B and C rounds, driven by the participation of major venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz , HV Capital , EQT Ventures , and Sequoia Capital. However, with rising interest rates and a shift toward a more measured appetite for tech investments, median round sizes have now reverted to pre-COVID trends.

Pre-money valuation represents the total equity value of a company before receiving investment funds from a financing round. This valuation increases with the equity contributed by investors, resulting in the post-money valuation. For Pre-Seed AI startups, the median pre-money valuation has reached an all-time high of $3.6 million, while Seed-stage AI companies now have a median pre-money valuation of $12 million as of 2024.

Anyway we saw some very interesting news in the market this week. Revolut is live in Italy with Italian Ibans, while Bitpanda secured approval to enter the UAE market. Chime filed for an IPO in 2025, Affirm and Adyen expanded their partnership in Canada, and Visa completed the acquisition of Featurespace for $700 million. In the VC industry, G2 Venture Partners is raising $750 million for its third fund, Scientifica Venture Capital unveiled a new $200 million fund, but also Robin Capital launched a $15 million Solo-GP fund. In the italian market, Startgram closed a $300k pre-seed round, and Volume raised a $6 million round led by United Ventures . And finally, some very interesting rounds from fintech startups like Zest AI, Tyme, Current, CredibleX, Juicyway, Jiko, BVNK, Parafin, Funding Societies | Modalku Group and many others.

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

Closed deals

• Zest AI secures a $200 million funding round led by Insight Partners
• Affirm secures a $4 billion loan deal from Sixth Street
• Nubank just announced a $150 million investment in Tyme, a Philippines based digital bank
• US based personal finance app Current raised a $200 million funding round
• UAE based fintech CredibleX secures $55 million in a seed round to help SMEs with financing
• African fintech startup Juicyway closes a $3 million pre-seed round, with already $1 billion of cross-borders payments processed
• Jiko closes a $29 million series C round for its treasury bills digital platform
• BVNK raises a $50 million series B round to fuel the next era of stable coin payments
• Parafin raises a $100 million series C round to redefine financial services for SMEs
• Decentralized ledger platform Hedera Hashgraph raises a $100 million round to launch its own network
• Swiss fintech tiun. raises $2.5 million to modernise media monetization
• AI powered billing and payments platform Chargezoom secures a $11.5 million series A funding round
• Gigs raises a $73 million series B to help companies set up their own mobile service
• Basis secures $34 million series A to enhance accounting with AI
• InvoiceQ raises a $1.2 million pre-series A to enhance presence in GCC
• Risk intelligence platform Bureau raises a $30 million series B round
• Cross borders payments startup LeapFinancial secures a $3.5 million seed round led by Fuel Ventures 🚀
• Litigation fintech Sandfield Capital secures a $600 million facility from Perspective Investments
• Funding Societies | Modalku Group raises $25 million to boost capital for SMEs in Southeast Asia
• Former Revolut employees launched Neverless, a crypto startup simplifying access to small cap tokens, with a $6.7 million seed round

Insights on the VC industry

• G2 Venture Partners is raising $750 million for its third fund
• Scientifica Venture Capital unveiled a new $200 million fund
• Redesign Health closes a $175 million fund for its venture builder program
• Brazilian neobank Banco BS2 launches a $16 million VC fund to back Brazilian founders
• European solo-GP Robin Capital closes a first $15 million fund

News on the market

• MobiKwik IPO gets bids worth $4.7 bln as investors bet on fintech growth
• Bitpanda secures In-Principle approval from VARA to enter the UAE market
• FIS is set to buy UK supply chain finance platform DEMICA
• Tether.io invests in StablR to promote stablecoin adoption in Europe
• US based digital bank Chime submits confidential filing for a 2025 IPO
• Affirm and Adyen expand their partnership to bring flexible payments options to merchants in Canada
• Global HR platform Remote will give companies the possibility to pay contractors using stablecoins
• Visa completes acquisition of Featurespace for $700 million

A special look in the Italian market

• Startgram chiude un pre-seed da €310.000
• Revolut diventa una banca italiana, lancia gli IBAN locali e punta a raggiungere 4 milioni di clienti nel paese entro il 2025
• Italian startup Volume raises a $6 million seed round led by United Ventures

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

Events you don’t want to miss

• Coming again in January!

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.
• 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.

• 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 #59