BlackFin Tech Weekly — June 2nd, 2026
Every Week, we publish a short digest which sums up last week’s Fintech activity.
Hello FinTech Friends,
Welcome to another week of fintech insights. Let’s explore the news and trends shaping the industry!
Over the last week, there were nine fintech deals in Europe, totaling €168.4m in disclosed funding, including two transactions in the UK, two in Ireland, one in Germany, one in Belgium, one in Spain, one in Italy and one in Switzerland.
Congratulations to the three largest rounds announced last week:
Fonoa, a UK-based AI tax operating system for global businesses, has raised €96.8m in a Series C round led by Headline.
Geordie AI, a UK-based AI agent security and governance platform, has raised €26.4m in a Series A round led by Balderton Capital.
MokN, a France-based cybersecurity company focused on identity theft protection, has raised €13.2m in a Series A round led by Google Ventures.
Let’s dive!
Fonoa, a UK-based AI tax operating system for global businesses, has raised €96.8m in a Series C round led by Headline, with participation from new investors Eurazeo and Forestay Capital, alongside existing investors Index Ventures, OMERS Ventures, Coatue, and Dawn Capital. Alongside the fundraise, the company acquired Indirect Tax Edge from PwC, expanding its platform across the full indirect tax lifecycle from tax ID validation and real-time determination to e-invoicing, reporting, and filing. The funding will support product development, AI integration, and global expansion, as Fonoa aims to build a unified tax operating system for multinational businesses.
Geordie AI, a UK-based AI agent security and governance platform, has raised €26.4m in a Series A round led by Balderton Capital, with participation from existing investors General Catalyst and Ten Eleven Ventures, alongside new investor Crosspoint Capital. The company provides a platform enabling enterprises to identify, monitor, secure, and govern autonomous AI agents across internal systems, giving teams visibility into agent access, behavior, and operational risk. The funding will support product development, team growth, and international scaling, as Geordie AI aims to become core infrastructure for safely deploying AI agents at enterprise scale.
MokN, a France-based cybersecurity company focused on identity theft protection, has raised €13.2m in a Series A round led by Google Ventures, with participation from Datadog, existing investors Moonfire Ventures and OVNI Capital, as well as angel investors. The company provides a cybersecurity platform that helps organisations detect and recover compromised identities before they can be exploited, including through decoy access points that expose stolen credentials used in phishing attacks. The funding will support product expansion, R&D, and international growth across France, the US, and the UK, as MokN aims to build a multi-product platform for active identity theft protection.
In addition to this week’s fundraising activity, here is the European M&A activity for the week:
Code Gaia, a Germany-based sustainability management software provider, has merged with Planted, a Germany-based sustainability and ESG solutions platform, under the newly created House of Gaia Holding. The transaction combines Code Gaia’s software platform with Planted’s sustainability expertise and service offering, creating a broader solution for ESG, sustainability management, and EHS requirements. The merger supports the group’s ambition to build a leading platform for holistic sustainability management, helping mid-sized companies address regulatory requirements, improve operational efficiency, and turn sustainability into a business advantage.
Dynamo Software, a US-based alternative investment management software provider, has acquired InvestHub, a France-based platform digitizing workflows for private equity and asset management firms. The acquisition strengthens Dynamo Software’s private markets operations capabilities by adding tools for investor subscriptions, onboarding, compliance, capital calls, distributions, and investor portals. The transaction supports Dynamo Software’s strategy to expand its AI-powered platform for alternative investment managers, helping clients streamline front-to-back-office workflows, reduce manual processes, and improve investor relations across private markets.
Cartage, a France-based temporary car insurance platform, has acquired Assurlib, a France-based insurance solution for peer-to-peer campervan, van, and converted vehicle rentals. The acquisition strengthens Cartage’s position in flexible vehicle insurance by adding expertise in a growing leisure vehicle segment where clear temporary coverage is essential for both owners and renters. The transaction supports Cartage’s strategy to become the reference platform for occasional automotive insurance use cases, expanding beyond short-term car lending and vehicle repatriation into campervan and van rental insurance.
TrueLayer, a UK-based Pay by Bank network, has acquired in3, a Netherlands-based Buy Now Pay Later provider specializing in consumer credit via account-to-account payments. The acquisition expands TrueLayer’s checkout capabilities beyond instant debit payments into credit, enabling consumers to pay immediately or overtime through the same Pay by Bank experience. The transaction supports TrueLayer’s strategy to build an independent European payments alternative to card networks, combining its real-time bank payment infrastructure with in3’s consumer credit expertise to offer merchants a single integration for debit and credit at checkout.
And finally, we bring you four news stories that caught our eye last week:
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Institute of International Finance (IIF) reported on 27 May 2026 the successful testing of Project Agorá, a blockchain prototype backed by seven central banks and more than 40 financial firms enabling near-instant cross-border settlement via tokenised bank deposits. Participants include JPMorgan, HSBC, BNP Paribas, Visa, UBS and MUFG, alongside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank. Tests used “atomic settlement” via tokenised central bank reserves while preserving privacy and AML checks. The project aims to defend correspondent banking against USD stablecoin rivals Tether and Circle, contrasting with the China-led Project mBridge, which the BIS exited in 2024. The Bank of Canada joins the next testing phase.
Visa announced a €500m European investment over the next decade, responding to EU pressure for payments sovereignty and reduced reliance on US schemes, which handle two-thirds of euro area card payments. The plan includes a new Eurozone data processing centre and a tech hub in Warsaw. Visa Europe CEO Antony Cahill said the business is “built in Europe, governed in Europe”, overseen by the Bank of England and the ECB. The move follows similar positioning by Mastercard as the ECB advances the digital euro and banks back the European Payments Initiative to develop pay-by-bank alternatives to US card schemes.
The ECB has told euro zone banks to invest more in cybersecurity to counter rising risks from advanced AI models capable of detecting software flaws in legacy banking systems. Outgoing Vice President Luis de Guindos said defences must deepen as AI-powered cyberattacks become “structural”. A recent ECB meeting featured a US bank with access to Anthropic’s Mythos model, unavailable to European peers. De Guindos stressed pervasive investment is needed across both large and small lenders, as Mythos-class large language models trigger global regulatory warnings over risks to financial infrastructure.
Riverty, the Bertelsmann-owned BNPL fintech, has secured a full EU CRR banking licence from the ECB and Luxembourg’s CSSF, and will launch Riverty Bank in July 2026 under current CRO Oliver Kuhaupt. The licence upgrades Riverty from a PSD2 payment fintech to a credit institution, enabling embedded payments, credit and liquidity services to European merchants via its own balance sheet. Riverty, the rebranded fintech arm of Arvato Group, includes AfterPay, Paigo and Aqount, serving 1,800+ merchants and processing around 235 million transactions annually, with plans to expand embedded finance across Europe.
Have a great start into the week!
*The information presented in this publication comes from publicly available sources. While the management company uses strict data selection criteria and focuses on the reliability of its sources, it cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies, omissions, or errors in the data provided. This publication is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an investment recommendation.