BlackFin Tech weekly — June 19th, 2023
Every Monday, we publish a short digest which sums up last week's fintech activity.
Dear Fintech Folks, we hope you're all doing well. As always, thank you for reading our updates every week. Let’s dive into the latest:
Last week we saw 12 deals in Europe for a total of €60m raised with 3 deals in France, 3 in the UK, 1 in Germany, Spain, Austria, Estonia, Belgium and Czech Republic.
Congratulations to the insurtech Thinksurance, on its €22m Series B Round, followed by the crypto trading platform, Bit2me, which secured an additional €14m from its latest funding round. Finally, Apron, the UK-based B2B payments platform for small businesses raised a €5m Seed round.
Let’s dive in:
Thinksurance raised a €22m Series B round led by Viewpoint Ventures and M-Tech Capital as well as venture capital fund Segenia Capital. Existing investors Eight Roads Ventures, a global venture capital firm, and Columbia Lake Partners also participated in the round.
Based in Germany, Thinksurance enables insurance distributors to fully digitalise consultations and policy processes, allowing them to provide tailor-made insurance solutions for their clients.
Thinksurance customers are big insurers such as Allianz, Axa and Zurich, and also over 50.000 individual brokers and agents that consulted more than 1.5 million customers with the company’s platform.
Bit2me has announced the closing of a €14 million venture round led by Investcorp and followed by Cardano Foundation, Stratminds, Telefonica Innovation Ventures and Yield Guild Games.
It's a crypto trading platform that also provides tools for using its cryptos. For example, they provide a card that allows you to pay using its crypto wallets.
This investment will be used to consolidate its position as the leading exchange in Spain and accelerate its expansion into Latin America, thereby increasing its customer base and establishing itself as a key player in the international Web3 sector.
Apron, a UK-based B2B payments platform for small businesses, raised $5.5M in seed funding. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with angel support from the founders of Melio and Klarna.
It provides a supplier payments platform for small businesses. Within the system, users can handle invoices, batch pay suppliers, smooth out approvals, and automatically reconcile.
The company intends to use the funds to grow the team, product, and reach.
Apron covers 150+ countries and 30+ currencies.
Congrats also to CMTA, BoomFi, Trezy, Santexpat, Easyvest, Feve, Involancer, 4Trans Factoring and Fortu Wealth for their fundraisings!
In addition to this week’s fundraising activity, we also observed the following M&A deals:
Nasdaq, a global technology leader in the financial industry, acquires Adenza, a capital markets software house, for $10 billion, solidifying its position as a technology leader and expanding its offerings in regulatory technology and risk management systems.
European fintech company XMDS-Holding acquires KUARIO, a leading Dutch self-service payment provider, to enhance its mobile payment solutions and address the growing use of self-service kiosks. XMDS-Holding has become a prominent player in the fintech industry through strategic acquisitions and offers a range of services, including Ginger (e-commerce payment gateway) and Vayapay (EMV gateway).
Backbase, a digital banking platform provider, acquires Nucoro, a digital wealth platform, to expand its offerings and strengthen its position in the wealth management industry. Nucoro's advanced investment capabilities and personalized wealth management solutions complement Backbase's digital banking platform, allowing for a comprehensive suite of digital wealth management solutions.
Market Pay, a payment institution focused on e-commerce, acquires NovelPay, enhancing its capabilities and presence in the payment industry. NovelPay's expertise in payment processing and risk management solutions complements Market Pay's existing services, enabling the expansion of their portfolio and further strengthening their position in the industry.
And finally, here are the news that caught our eye last week:
Investor cuts Revolut valuation with 40% writedown. Molten Ventures wrote down its stake in Revolut from around $115 million in March 2022 to around $70 million this March. The Bank of England has indicated that it plans to reject Revolut’s application for a UK banking license.
Stubben Edge launch supporting UK business growth. Its new capital arm is called “Stubben Edge Capital. Their AUM has grown from a standing start in 2021 to £400 million and is on track to get to £2 billion of AUM by end of 2023.
Luko finally announces its takeover. On June 15, Raphael Vullierme announced that the company would be acquired by Admiral. Luko should diversify alongside Admiral and perhaps in turn propose a digital offer. No job cuts are planned for now among the 180 or so employees.
Ukraine wants to tax crypto gains at 18% from 2024. One of the commision member said that they hope that the law will be adopted in September and will come into force in 2024. An expert explained that a tax rate of 18% could deter investors, and possibly provoke an outflow of users and crypto companies from Ukraine.