BlackFin Tech Weekly — June 24th, 2024
Every Monday, we publish a short digest which sums up last week’s Fintech activity.
Hello FinTech Friends,
Welcome back to our newsletter! Even though we did not see a huge number of new fundraising deals last week, there were a couple of interesting M&A deals happening in the European Fintech scene. Furthermore, there was a large series B round that we want to tell you more about!
Last week we saw 5 official fintech deals in Europe for a total amount of 90.6m€ raised with 2 deals in France, 1 deal in the UK, 1 deal in Germany and 1 deal in Austria.
Congratulations to FINBOURNE, a London-based provider of cloud-based, automated data management platform, who has raised €60 million in a Series B funding round led by Highland Europe and AVP. Applause also goes out to Hero, a fintech startup based in Paris, which has raised €11.3 million in an all-equity funding round led by Valar Ventures, with participation from SquareOne. Lastly, we extend our congratulations to Ramify, a Paris-based wealth management and financial advisory platform, who has raised €11 million in a Series A funding round led by 13books Capital, with participation from Fidelity International Strategic Ventures (FISV), Newfund, AG2R, Crédit Agricole.
Honorable mention also goes out to Zilch for having raised a €118m debt facility.
Let’s dive in
FINBOURNE Technology, an investment management solutions provider offering a cloud-native data management platform, has raised €65 million in Series B funding led by Highland Europe and AVP. This round will support its commercial development, including expanding sales, product, and marketing capabilities across the US, UK, Ireland, Singapore, and Australia. The funds will enhance go-to-market strategies and assist global investment management, banking, and capital markets firms by democratizing data and leveraging AI and ML for operational efficiencies. This follows a Series A round of £15 million in 2021, marking the next phase of FINBOURNE's growth and development.
Hero, a fintech startup based in Paris, has raised €11.3 million ($12.2 million) in an all-equity funding round led by Valar Ventures, with participation from SquareOne, which also contributed to the previous €7 million round in 2022. Hero offers a comprehensive banking product for small businesses, integrating money management, payment acceptance, and credit lines within a single platform. The funds will be used to develop and expand its banking product, enhance its core banking system, obtain regulatory approval from ACPR for payment services, build in-house technology solutions, and strengthen its credit offerings and risk scoring engine. Hero's platform allows businesses to manage multiple accounts and IBANs, utilize payment cards, and finance supplier invoices or advance their own invoices, with the main revenue stream expected from its credit products.
Ramify, a Paris-based wealth management and financial advisory platform, has raised €11 million in a Series A funding round led by 13books Capital, with participation from Fidelity International Strategic Ventures (FISV), Newfund, AG2R, Crédit Agricole, and business angels. Ramify targets affluent investors in France with €100,000 to €5 million in financial assets, offering a comprehensive wealth management solution that combines digitalization, advisory services, and reduced fees. The funds will be used to accelerate product development, enhance service offerings, leverage AI and data for personalized advice and optimized investment strategies, expand the client base with automated back-office systems, and strengthen the team of quantitative finance researchers, developers, and financial experts. Ramify aims to become the leading premium investment solution for a new generation of investors in France, addressing the significant wealth transfer expected over the next fifteen years.
In addition to this week’s fundraising activity, here is the European M&A activity of the week:
Eurazeo has announced the acquisition of Rydoo. Eurazeo is a French private equity and venture capital fund. It has €35bn in assets under management and investments in over 600 mid-market companies. Rydoo is an expense management software company that was founded in 2011 in Mechelen, Belgium. Today, it serves over 3,000 mid-market and large companies across 132 countries with recurring revenues of over €20m. Eurazeo is acquiring a majority stake in Rydoo with Marlin Equity Partners, Rydoo’s previous majority shareholder, staying on board as a minority shareholder.
Ageras has announced the acquisition of Shine. Ageras is an accounting software provider from Denmark, with over 300,000 SME clients across Denmark, Germany, France and the Netherlands. Shine is a mobile banking app for SMEs, startups and freelancers that was founded in 2017 in Paris, France. It counts over 100,000 SMEs as its clients and was previously owned by the French banking group Societe Generale. Shine is Ageras eight acquisition and its largest yet. With the acquisition Ageras aims to expand its product suite and gain a stronger foothold in the French market.
Generalfinance has announced the acquisition of Workinvoice. Generalfinance was founded in 1982 in Milan, Italy and provides a range of credit solutions to its clients. Workinvoice is an Italian company founded in 2013 which allows its customers to sell their receivables to institutional investors. Since its inception, receivables of a value of over €700m have been traded on the platform. The initial transaction price of the acquisition will be around €6.4m, but there are also several performance-based levers, which could result in a higher final transaction price.
And finally, here are the news that caught our eye last week:
Adyen and SumUp have partnered to offer accelerated settlements for small businesses in Europe and the UK, enabling near-instant access to funds for over 4 million merchants in 36 markets.
SumUp's platform includes payment acceptance, card terminals, POS registers, business accounts, online store hosting, and invoicing tools, while Adyen's technology will enhance SumUp's ability to provide same-day settlements year-round, improving cash flow for SMBs.
This partnership aims to reduce the need for large working capital reserves by allowing SMBs to receive funds minutes after a sale.
Embedded finance platform Unit has laid off 15% of its workforce due to slower-than-expected revenue growth and increased regulatory scrutiny within the fintech ecosystem.
Unit's platform includes a Dashboard, APIs, SDKs, and white-label UIs that help companies build banking and lending products.
The company, emphasizing the need to focus on efficiency, aims to achieve profitability without raising additional capital, despite the current slowdown being seen as temporary.
TrueLayer, founded in 2016, offers integrated real-time bank payments and financial data services to 20 million users across 21 countries. Last week, it has appointed Lisa Scott, former Banked executive, as its first Chief Strategy Officer to drive market expansion, adoption of open banking services, and consumer engagement.
Scott brings extensive industry experience from her roles at Banked, Lloyds TSB, and PayPal, where she held significant leadership positions.
Have a great week & see you soon!