Weekly update #97

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.

Builders is back with Season 3! The first guest of the new season was Benjamin Depuis, partner at Breega capital. You can watch the full episode here on YouTube, or listen to it here on Spotify or here on Apple Podcast. Take a look at a short clip:

Breega is a Paris based growth VC fund, investing in multiple stages, from seed to series B, in European ventures. Launched in 2015, they already have 700 million in AuM and over 100 portfolio companies, with honorable mentions like Dalma and Jump.

During this interview, recorded during Money20/20 in Amsterdam, we’ve been talking about his dual experience going from traditional finance to startup founder, until his last VC experience. We also discussed how to choose a great founder, the overall capital fundraising environment in 2025, and his prediction on the fintech market.

Next week I will be in Riyadh for Money20/20 Middle East ! I will be joining Monica Brand Engel, Co-founder at Quona Capital, Ashish Aggarwal, Partner at PayPal Ventures, Rinat Blet, CEO at tiqmo and Umer Sharif, Investment Director at Joa Capital, to talk about investments in cross-border payments in the MENA region.

Happy to meet up if you are around for the event!

Coming back to us, I’ve been reading two very interesting reports this week, both about SMEs banking and both from McKinsey & Company . The first one is “Digital led with human touch: the next era in small business banking”, talking about the evolution of SMEs banking and the transition from physical to digital, and the second one is “End of Inertia: Agentic AI’s disruption of retail and SMEs banking”, a very interesting study on how AI agents are reshaping the digital banking experience. Here my main takeaways:

Small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) are becoming a key growth driver in global banking revenues. From 2019 to 2024, total banking revenues are projected to rise from $4.27 trillion to $5.77 trillion. Retail remains the largest segment at around 52–53% of revenues, while large corporations account for 26–28%.

SMEs, however, stand out with the fastest growth, expanding at a 7% CAGR compared to 6% for both retail and corporates. By 2024, SMEs will represent 21% of global banking revenues, underscoring their increasing importance in shaping banking industry growth worldwide.

Across the 2,500 respondents, digital experience is the top driver, with 45% citing good online or mobile banking. Branch location (34%) and access to a relationship manager (33%) also rank highly, especially for medium firms, where 36% value this factor.

Trust in the relationship manager is critical for 28% overall, reaching 32% for medium businesses. Other considerations, such as low credit interest (17%), bank reputation (15%), and software integration (14%), are secondary. The findings underline the growing importance of digital and relational banking.

Banks are extending their services beyond traditional finance to support micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. The most common offerings are e-commerce payment gateways (67%) and digital accounting and billing (61%), showing banks’ push into digital enablement. Other significant services include corporate treasury support (52%) and data storage or virtual safes (47%). Start-up support (36%) and assistance in setting up e-commerce platforms (36%) also feature prominently.

More specialized services, such as HR management (24%), CRM platforms (15%), and legal support (13%), are less frequent. Overall, banks are increasingly positioning themselves as comprehensive business partners, not just lenders.

Net interest income is becoming the dominant driver of credit card revenues as rewards expenses rise. Between 2019 and 2024, general-purpose credit card revenues grew from $180 billion to $249 billion, driven mainly by net interest income, which rose from $99 billion to $128 billion. By 2029, revenues are projected to reach $329 billion, with $167 billion from net interest income.

Rewards expenses, however, will expand sharply to $110 billion, squeezing margins. While interchange fees declined at a –6% CAGR between 2019–24, they are expected to recover slightly. Overall, profitability increasingly depends on consumer borrowing.

Anyway we saw a lot of interesting news this week.This was surely the week of public listings, with Klarna officially announcing the IPO date, looking to raise $1.27B, followed by Gemini shortly after, looking for $2.22B. Revolut launches a buyback program to old investors, in an effort to remain private longer, while at the same time starting a secondaries for employees at $75B valuation. But also Airwallex acquired OpenPayd, Mollie expanded to the Nordics, TrueLayer launching in Poland and Chase from J.P. Morgan announcing the launch in Germany in 2026. In the VC ecosystem, we saw Siena Secondary Fund gaining momentum and backing from institutionals, while 8 VCs from India and the US struck a $1B deal to invest in Indian startups. In the Italian ecosystem Waveful raised a $2.1 million round. And finally, some very interesting funding rounds from fintech startups like Munify (YC S25), Obita, Allasso, Kapital, Kite AI, Utila, ModernFi and many others.

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

Closed deals

• Munify (YC S25) raises $3M to redefine remittances for Egyptians abroad
• Portal to Bitcoin raises $50M to put Bitcoin at the heart of DeFi
• Obita raises $10M to accelerate stablecoin-powered cross-border payments
• Allasso raises $3M to reinvent options analytics with AI
• Kapital secures $100M to scale AI-driven SMEs banking in LatAm
• Anthropic raises $13B Series F at $183B valuation
• PayPal Ventures leads $18M Series A in Kite AI to build agentic Web3 economy
• Treasury raises €126M to build Europe’s Bitcoin vault
• Utila raises $22M to power global stablecoin infrastructure
• ModernFi raises $30M Series B to strengthen U.S. banking infrastructure
• Allocate secures $30.5M to modernize private market investing
• OrangeX secures $20M to fuel global expansion and regulatory push
• Tangany secures €10M to expand EU digital asset custody under MiCA
• Pave Finance raises $14M to scale AI-powered portfolio management
• Waveful raises €2.1M to power global expansion of the social app
• LayerX raises $101M to scale AI-powered back-office automation in Japan

Insights on the VC industry

• 8 leading VCs formed a $1B+ U.S.-India deep tech alliance on startups
• Siena Secondary Fund II gains momentum with institutional and founder backing

News on the market

• CaixaBank becomes first in Spain to enable Apple Pay installments
• Wise eyes UK banking license to deepen its infrastructure play
• Revolut will let employees sell shares at $75B valuation in new secondary sale
• Money20/20 middle east
• Northmill Bank eyes EU expansion with AI-driven banking strategy
• Uzbekistan fintech Uzum Bank prepares for Eurobond and IPO
• Klarna expands debit-first card across Europe after U.S. launch
• Zopa Bank acquires Rvvup to supercharge embedded payments strategy
• Klarna officially confirms $1.27B New York IPO after 1 year delay!
• Viva Republica (Toss) roll out Pay-by-Face to 1 million stores in Korea by 2026
• BharatPe and Unity launch lifetime-free RuPay credit card with UPI
• 0TO9 | Bank of Entrepreneurship emerges from stealth to launch 1,000 European fintechs by 2045
• Airwallex acquires OpenPay to launch global billing platform
• Stripe launches payment terminal in Japan to drive unified commerce for businesses
• OpenAI acquires Statsig in $1.1B deal and reshapes leadership for next growth phase
• Mollie expands to Finland, Denmark and Norway
• TrueLayer enters Poland to power instant payouts
• Gemini files for $2.22B IPO on Nasdaq
• J.P. Morgan's Chase to enter German retail banking in 2026
• ABN AMRO Bank N.V. launches BUUT, a neobank designed for teenagers
• Revolut launches share buyback in a move to remain private longer

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

• Money 20/20 - Riyadh | 15-17.09.2025 (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 #96