Weekly update #91

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 last week, but you can always recover the last one where I sit down with Oliver Hughes, Head of international business at TBC Bank Group PLC. You can find the full episode here on youtube, or here on Spotify or here on Apple Podcast.

Oliver has multiple years of experience in fintech and banking, with the life of a real globetrotter in this field. Starting his career in Visa, he went on becoming Head of Russia for the US giant, handling operations in the country for almost a decade. After this experience, he jumped on the fintech train, becoming CEO of Tinkoff in Russia, leading the expansion of one of the most profitable digital banks in the world, building the team behind it from scratch.

Finally, he recently became head of international business at TBC Bank Group, the leading digital bank in Uzbekistan, one of the most interesting digital banks in central Asia. With him, we will talk about a decade of experience of fintech between Russia and Asia, the growing economy of Uzbekistan, the differences between financial services in the region.

Coming back to us, I was reading a very interesting report this week, “The state of stablecoin in cross-border payment”, based on FXC Intelligence data. The study, is an extensive analysis of the potential addressable market for cross-borders payments, including main technologies and volumes. Here my main takeaways:

In 2024, the total cross-border payments market was valued at $194.8 trillion, with $40 trillion attributed to non-wholesale flows. Stablecoin usage in this space remains minimal—still in the billions—representing less than 1% of the market.

However, the potential is significant. The total addressable market (TAM) for stablecoins in cross-border payments is estimated at $16.5 trillion (41% of the non-wholesale segment) as a base case, and up to $23.7 trillion (59%) in an upside scenario. Key growth corridors are flows between developed and emerging markets, especially involving Latin America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific.

USDT and USDC dominate the stablecoin market, together accounting for over 80% of total market capitalization. USDT remains the larger of the two, making it essential for some providers, while USDC’s scale also makes it widely adopted.

However, differences in reserve composition and transparency affect their adoption. USDT holds a portion of reserves in assets like bitcoin and precious metals and keeps reserves offshore, with less frequent transparency reporting. In contrast, USDC maintains all reserves in cash or cash equivalents at US-based banks, making it more acceptable to many US financial institutions, some of which avoid USDT entirely despite its widespread use.

While stablecoins are central to digital payments, the blockchains they run on—the underlying "rails"—play a critical role in their functionality. Circle has prioritized issuing USDC across 23 different blockchains to support broad use cases, including but not limited to cross-border payments.

Despite this wide distribution, most of USDC’s circulation remains concentrated, with 63% on Ethereum and 12% on Solana. USDT also has a major share on Ethereum (40%), though its larger total supply results in a greater volume on that chain. However, TRON dominates USDT’s circulation with 51% of its supply. Circle previously supported TRON but exited the blockchain in early 2024 due to compliance and regulatory concerns.

While USD-denominated stablecoins benefit the U.S., they are raising concerns in Europe about the risk of unintended dollarisation in markets with strong local currencies. European central bankers and payment industry leaders are increasingly alarmed by the potential threat these stablecoins pose to monetary sovereignty.

In response, interest in issuing euro-based stablecoins is growing across both banks and non-banks in Europe. Yet, their scale remains minimal. By the end of June, the combined market cap of the top nine euro-denominated stablecoins was under €500 million ($580 million), less than 1% of USDC’s market cap. Without greater liquidity, euro stablecoins will struggle to compete in cross-border payments, reinforcing the dominance of dollar-backed alternatives and their broader monetary implications.

Anyway we saw a lot of interesting news this week. Lovable reached $100 million in ARR in 8 months, one of the fastest SaaS startup ever. Block enters the S&P500, Revolut is hiring 400 employees for its Paris HQ, and PayPal launches PayPal world. Tether.io is looking to launch a US based stablecoin, while BitGo files for the IPO and J.P. Morgan considers offering bitcoin-backed loans. In the VC market, TVF | TechVision Fonds raises a $50 million fund II, Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund raises a $26 million fund II and Betaworks Ventures a $66 million fund III. And finally, some very interesting funding rounds from fintech startups like Xelix, Alix, Credibur, Freename, Buena, qlub, Lightyear, april and many others.

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

Closed deals

• KUN raises over $50 million to power the next phase of stablecoin-based cross-border payments
• Toduba raises €3.5 million to lead the digital revolution in employee welfare
• Xelix secures $160 million to transform accounts payable with AI
• Eton Solutions LP raises $58 million to scale AI-powered WealthTech for global family offices
• Zvilo secures €75 million facility to scale AI-powered trade finance across emerging markets
• SpacePay raises $1.1 million to turn everyday card machines into crypto payment hubs
• Alix raises $20 million to revolutionize estate settlement with AI
• Credibur emerges from stealth with $2.2 million to digitize Europe’s €430 billion private credit infrastructure
• qlub raises $30 million to scale its smart restaurant payments globally
• Buena raises $58 million to redefine property management with AI and M&A firepower
• Freename raises $6.5 million to build the unified internet where domains become digital identity keys
• 18-Year-Old Liam Fuller raises €1.2M to reinvent retail stock purchasing with AI
• Flend raises $3 million to digitally power Egypt’s SMEs with embedded lending
• Lightyear raises $23 million to expand across Europe and launches AI-powered investing tools
• april raises $38 million to embed AI-powered tax intelligence across the financial ecosystem
• Yieldstreet raises $77 million to democratize private markets for individual investors
• Quavo Fraud & Disputes secures $300 million to redefine fraud and dispute automation in fintech
• BetterComp raises $33 million to redefine compensation tech for Fortune 500 giants and beyond
• Monet raises £17 million to solve the creative industry’s £1.1 billion cashflow crisis
• Magentic raises $5.5 million to transform global supply chains with AI-powered procurement agents

Insights on the VC industry

• TVF | TechVision Fonds secures €50 million fund II to fuel deepTech innovation in the Rhineland and Euregio
• Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund launches a €26 million fund II to champion Europe’s women-led startups
• Betaworks Ventures closes $66 million fund III to back AI-native startups

News on the market

• USDT heads to the US: Tether.io plans a US-based stablecoin after Genius Act approval
• Revolut plans to open 400 new positions in its new Paris HQ
• Nubank reinvents loyalty program with NuCoin 2.0 with an unexpected announce
• Stripe acquires Orum.io to boost real-time bank payments and api-driven verification across the U.S.
• Block enters the S&P 500 in a milestone moment for Jack Dorsey’s fintech giant
• Revolut, Rapyd, Mesh, and Airwallex secure payment licenses in Israel, opening a new Chapter in fintech competition
• Telegram Messenger launches crypto wallet for 87 Million U.S. users
• BitGo files for U.S. IPO as crypto market surges past $4 trillion
• PayPal integrates with wallets from China and India to launch 'PayPal World' unlock cross-border payments for 2 billion users
• Lovable hits $100 million in ARR and release AI Agents for vibe coding
• J.P. Morgan eyes crypto-backed lending in latest shift toward digital assets
• Square allow now merchants to accept payments in Bitcoin
• Allocate acquires The Coterie’s platform to power the next era of private market infrastructure
• Corpay to acquire Alpha Group for $2.2 billion, expanding cross-border FX reach in Europe
• Goldman Sachs and BNY launch tokenized money market funds
• Mastercard and Uber deepen global partnership to transform payments across 170M users and 8.5M earners
• ​​Kalshi partners with xAI to bring Grok to the prediction markets

A special look in the Italian market

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

Events you don’t want to miss

• 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 #90