Weekly update #75

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.

No episode of Builders this week, but you can always recover the last one where I sit down with Anne-Sybille Pradelles, co-founder of Formance. You can find the link to the full episode here on YouTube, or you can listen to it here on Spotify and here on Apple Podcast.

Anne-Sybille has a very interesting profile, coming from a financial background through experiences at Credit Suisse and AXA VENTURE PARTNERS, she then went deep dive on the startup ecosystem, working in cybersecurity startups before discovering her passion for the fintech industry, founding Formance.

Formance enables platforms and fintech companies to build modern financial applications composing payments, banking, lending, investing, and insurance through complex fund flows. After going through the program at Y Combinator, they raised a $21 million series A.

With her, we deep dive on the experience of launching a fintech startup from scratch, the funding environment in Europe, but also the feeling of going through Y Combinator and how to raise a round in less than 3 months.

Coming back to us, I’ve been reading two interesting study this week, the first one is a short report on the fintech market in Latin America by Multiples, and the second one is a quantitative analysis of VC investment in Q1 2025 by National Venture Capital Association and PitchBook, with a very interesting highlight of the comparison between Q1 in 2024 and 2025, on top of a first deal count in Europe. Here my main takeaways:

The Latin American fintech market has experienced remarkable growth and transformation in recent years, driven by technological advancements, regulatory developments, and a focus on financial inclusion. Between 2017 and 2023, the region's fintech ecosystem expanded by 340%, with Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia accounting for 57% of the total companies . This surge reflects a concerted effort to address the needs of underbanked and unbanked populations, as evidenced by the increase in fintech companies targeting these groups from 36% in 2021 to 57% in 2024.

In 2024, venture capital investment in Latin American fintech startups reached approximately $2.77 billion, marking a significant increase from the previous year . This influx of capital has been instrumental in fostering innovation and expanding financial services across the region. Notably, Brazil has reinforced its dominance in the market, securing half of the top 10 fintech deals in 2024.

A closer look at market valuations highlights Nubank as the clear leader, valued at over $50 billion and already publicly listed. The neobank, founded in Brazil, has become a benchmark for fintech scalability in emerging markets. It is followed by Kavak.com, a Mexican used car financing platform valued at $8.7 billion, and RappiPay Colombia, a Colombian super-app integrating payments and financial services, valued at $5.3 billion. Other major players include C6 Bank, Stone, Ualá, and PagSeguro International —many of which are still privately held, underlining the depth of private market interest.

Despite the maturity of several of these ventures, most of the region’s fintech unicorns remain privately owned. Only a handful—such as Nubank, Stone, PagSeguro, and dLocal—have gone public, suggesting a strong pipeline for future IPOs. The fact that companies like Mercado Bitcoin and Pismo have been acquired by giants such as Mercado Libre and Visa , respectively, signals strategic interest from global incumbents eager to tap into Latin America’s fintech growth.

Global venture capital activity saw a notable slowdown in the first quarter of 2025, according to a report by the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PitchBook.

Across all regions, deal volume declined year-over-year. In North America, the number of deals dropped to 3,155 in Q1 2025 from 4,282 a year earlier. Europe recorded 1,852 deals, down from 2,917, while Asia saw 2,063 transactions, compared to 3,111 in Q1 2024. Latin America also experienced a decline, with 156 deals versus 225 a year prior. Other regions combined registered 325 deals, falling from 561 over the same period.

M&A activity involving VC-backed companies followed a similar trend. In Q1 2025, exit value totaled $78.2 billion across 636 deals—slightly below the quarterly average of $80 billion and 726 deals recorded throughout 2024.

Venture capital deal sizes in Europe during Q1 2025 reflect a market marked by caution and macroeconomic uncertainty. According to Navina Rajan, senior analyst for EMEA private capital, average deal values are pacing below 2024 levels, particularly in early and late-stage investments. The chart illustrates that while venture growth rounds saw a significant spike in 2021 (€69.8M), they have since normalized, reaching €32.3M in 2024. Early-stage and late-stage VC deals also trended lower in 2023 before modestly recovering in 2024, reaching €12.1M and €8.2M, respectively.

The first quarter of 2025 continues this conservative trend, with venture growth deal values slightly rebounding to €16M, while early-stage VC and seed-stage deals remained relatively flat at €12.5M and €3.9M. Pre-seed and seed rounds remain small, averaging just over €1M and €3M, suggesting a continued preference for leaner fundraising in the earliest stages.

Anyway we saw some very interesting news in the market this week.The news of the week was surely the $40 billion round from OpenAI, the biggest venture deal ever. The IPO market is going crazy, with both Chime and Circle announcing they will go public. Visa is trying to win the Apple card deal and substitute Mastercard, while Vivid Money expanded to the travel market. In the VC industry, we saw Construct Capital raising a new $300 million fund, Revaia closing a $250 million growth fund, but also Maven 11 and NUNC Capital BV. In the Italian market, we saw Axyon AI closing a 4.3 million Euro seed round. And finally, some very interesting rounds from fintech startups like smallcase, WANNME, WeeFin, Signal, Wealthyhood, PayMate, Zepz and many others.

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

Closed deals

• Indian fintech smallcase raises a $50 million series D
• Paris based Tomorro raises $25 million to set a new standard for contract management
• Indian fintech axiTrust secures a $2.6 million seed round
• No, it's not an April fool. OpenAI just closed a $40 billion round at $300 billion total valuation, the largest private tech deal ever.
• Spanish fintech WANNME secures a €7 million round
• French based WeeFin raises $25 million to provide financial companies with a SaaS platform to manage ESG data
• PayMate secures a $30 million round from Crimson Prairie Ventures
• Global payments group Zepz secures $165 million in growth financing
• Cambrian Network secures a $5.9 million seed round led by a16z
• UK fintech Ayan Capital secures £25 million in Shariah-compliant debt
• Copenaghen based Signal secures $600k for its VC data intelligence platform
• London based fintech startup Wealthyhood lands €3.6 million to expand to Greece
• Fintech open banking platform Plaid closes a $575 million round at $6.1 billion valuation, half of what it was in the last one
• Y Combinator backed neobank Djamo secures a $17 million round with already 1M users in francophone Africa
• Fuse raises $6.6 million to help companies with payments to the MENA region
• Remittance startup Félix secures a $75 million round led by QED Investors
• Infinity Fincorp Solutions Private Limited secures $40 million in extended series A led by Beams Fintech Fund
• Bengaluru based fintech Scapia secures a $40 million round led by Peak XV Partners
• Paris based fintech Grâce secures $5.9 million in seed funding
• New York-based proptech startup Roam has raised $11.5 million in a Series A round led by Keith Rabois at Khosla Ventures

Insights on the VC industry

• Maven 11 closes a $107 million third fund
• Amsterdam based NUNC Capital BV launches a $20 million fund to invest in defense tech
• All-women led VC Revaia closes a new $250 million growth fund
• Construct Capital closes a $300 million fund for defense and manifacturing tech

News on the market

• Schroders Capital update the valuation of its Revolut stakes, implying an 85% rise from one year ago to $48 billion valuation
• Kazakh fintech Kaspi.kz acquires Rabobank's Türkiye operations
• Berlin fintech Vivid Money expands on the travel market
• Circle is engaging banks for its long awaited IPO, file expected in late April
• As it gears for the IPO, Chime is going to offer higher interest rates to attract more users
• AXA en France strikes a partnership with fintech Shares to offer a new platform for savings and retirement
• Visa is offering Apple $100 million to take over Mastercard role in Apple card
• Circle has officially filed for a $5 billion IPO in the US
• UK based digital bank Ziglu launches a crypto based debit card
• Swiss fintech Teylor AG acquires grenke AG’s entire factoring division
• French fintech next generation has acquired Lugh, a Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) from the French retail giant, Groupe Casino
• Fat Zebra, the Sydney-based digital payments provider, has announced the acquisition of SecurePay Group

A special look in the Italian market

• Italian fintech Axyon AI closes a €4,3 million round led by CDP Venture Capital SGR

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

Events you don’t want to miss

• 0100 Europe/USA - Amsterdam, NL | 02-04.04.2025 (Link to the event)
• EU startup summit | 24-25.04.2025 (Link to the event)

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

• 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 #74