Weekly update #88

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.

The latest episode of Builders has been released this week. In this episode I sit down with Saskia Bruysten , Partner and Co-founder at Carbon Equity. You can find the full episode here on youtube, or here on Spotify or here on Apple Podcast, but let’s take a look at a short clip first:

Saskia is an impact entrepreneur and investor. In her current role as Partner & Co-Founder International at Carbon Equity, she leads the platform's global expansion, democratizing private equity investments in climate tech to make them accessible to a broader audience. Carbon Equity is the world's most active climate tech LP.

Previously, Saskia co-founded and served as CEO of Yunus Social Business (YSB) alongside Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus. Under her leadership, YSB scaled social businesses that improved the lives of over 17 million people in East Africa, Latin America & India, providing access to employment, education, healthcare, and clean energy.

With her, we will talk about the latest trend in climate tech, nuclear energy, but also how VC invests in this field and how to choose a great founder with a world changing tech.

Coming back to us, I was reading a very interesting report this week, the “Spanish Tech ecosystem report 2025” from Dealroom.co. The report is a very detailed and interesting overview of the Spanish ecosystem in 2025, highlighting main trends, investments and growth drivers of one of Europe’s rising stars. Here my main takeaways:

Spain’s enterprise value has more than doubled since 2020, now exceeding €110 billion. Venture capital investment reached €1.9 billion in 2024. This momentum has accelerated in 2025, with €950 million raised in the first quarter—the strongest Q1 since 2021—and an additional €1 billion secured in Q2, the highest second-quarter figure on record.

The country has generated over 3,000 startups, most of which remain in their early stages. Although the progression to Series A rounds has historically lagged behind the European average and funding was predominantly early-stage until 2024, 2025 is showing a decisive shift as late-stage investments gain momentum.

Spanish startups secured €1.9 billion in funding during 2024, and 2025 has already exceeded that total. Last year saw a rebound in breakout-stage investments, a decline in early-stage activity, and just a single late-stage round, which was raised by SeQura.

In contrast, 2025 is showing strong momentum, with €2 billion raised by mid-June. Late-stage funding has notably increased, driven by significant rounds for Multiverse Computing, Travelperk, and Auro. The first quarter brought in €950 million, marking the highest Q1 since 2021, while the second quarter set a new record with €1 billion raised.

Health and Deep Tech lead in total startup counts, each surpassing 500 companies, with Health also showing the highest volume of early-stage funding. Enterprise Software stands out for its late-stage strength, recording 12 rounds above €100 million and three unicorns or billion-dollar exits. Fintech and Transportation sectors also demonstrate strong late-stage and breakout funding momentum, each producing multiple unicorns. While Climate Tech and Artificial Intelligence have fewer late-stage deals, they are emerging as promising fields with several breakout rounds and notable exits.

Non-equity financing has become a significant component of funding for VC-backed Spanish startups. After peaking at €5.4 billion in 2021, total funding declined to €3.1 billion in 2023 but rebounded strongly in 2024 to €4.3 billion. Notably, €2.3 billion of this recent total came from non-equity sources such as debt, lending capital, grants, and project finance, reflecting a growing appetite for alternative financing structures beyond traditional venture capital. This trend highlights a shift in how Spanish startups are securing capital to scale their businesses.

Anyway we saw a lot of interesting news this week. Circle applied for a national trust bank license in the US, followed shortly after by Ripple, and Coinbase acquired token management platform Liquifi. Robinhood released tokenized stock trading in the US, but faced some criticism about it, and is already followed by Kraken and Bybit. Stripe partners with TrueLayer to release pay by bank in France and Germany, and Qonto applied for a banking license in France. In the VC ecosystem, we saw some new funds from Halogen Ventures, Growth Capital Partners, Catalio Capital Management and a very interesting $34 million fund from Phosphor Capital and its founder Kulveer Taggar. And finally, some very interesting rounds from fintech startups like Klar, Campfire, Niural, Yaspa, InstaBank, Monit and many others.

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

Closed deals

• Natech Banking Solutions raises $33 Million to power the launch of greek digital bank Snappi
• Campfire raises $35 Million Series A led by Accel
• Klar secures $190 Million to accelerate digital banking expansion in Mexico
• NymCard raises $33 Million Series B to cement leadership in MENA embedded finance
• Niural raises $31 Million Series A to redefine global payroll and CFO operations with AI
• Indonesian fintech Monit raises $2.5 Million to scale AI-Driven spend management for SMEs
• Lovable is reported raising $150 million at $1.8 billion valuation, becoming Europe's next Unicorn
• London based fintech Yaspa secures a $12 million funding round
• Savvy Wealth raises a $72 Million Series B to scale AI-driven wealth management platform
• InstaBank secures $15 Million to launch Iraq’s next-generation digital bank
• zango raises $4.8 Million to build AI-native compliance for financial services
• Santander to acquire TSB Bank in £2.65 Billion deal to become UK’s third largest retail bank
• Coinstash secures A$4.7 Million to drive Australia’s next phase of crypto adoption
• A group of tech billionaires want to invest $250 million to launch Erebor bank and fill the gap left by SVB

Insights on the VC industry

• Halogen Ventures launches a $30 million fund to back the future of family
• Growth Capital Partners closes £411 million Fund VI to back founder-led technology and services companies
• Catalio Capital Management raises over $400 Million Fund IV to advance biotech and healthcare innovation
• YC veteran Kulveer Taggar launches Phosphor Capital with $34 million to back Y Combinator startups

News on the market

• Lunar co-founder and CTO exit the company to push for costs cut
• Rain and Toku partners to launch compliant stablecoin payroll for global workforces
• Robinhood plans to release proprietary blockchain and tokenized stock trading
• tapi acquires Arcus, a Mastercard company operations from Mastercard to accelerate mexican expansion
• Spendbase expands into digital banking and virtual cards to reshape business spend management
• Bolt secures Klarna partnership to reinvent checkout and bolster its turnaround strategy
• Kraken Digital Asset Exchange and Bybit launch tokenized U.S. Stocks in push to bridge TradFi and DeFi
• Starling Bank plans entry into US market through strategic acquisition
• Circle moves to establish national trust bank as it deepens institutional crypto infrastructure
• Stripe partners with TrueLayer to expand Pay by Bank to France and Germany
• Coinbase acquires leading token management platform Liquifi
• Figma unveils strong revenue and profit growth in IPO S-1 filing
• Ripple applies for US banking license
• Qonto applies for a banking license in France to broaden lending and savings offering
• Paxos unveils MiCA-compliant stablecoin USDG across the European Union

A special look in the Italian market

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

Events you don’t want to miss

• European women in Tech - Amsterdam | 25-26.06.2025 (link to event)
• Italian Tech Week - Turin | 1-3.10.2025 (link to 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

• 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 #87