BlackFin Tech weekly — November 6th 2023
Every Monday, we publish a short digest which sums up last week’s Fintech activity
Good afternoon, fintech friends! We trust you've had a delightful weekend. As we step into the second week of November, let's check out the latest insights and updates that the fintech landscape has to offer.
In the past week, we saw 7 deals in Europe for a total amount of €148.5m raised officially with five deals in the UK, one deal in The Netherlands and one in France.
Congratulations to Atom Bank, the UK-based neobank, on its £100m Venture round with existing shareholders BBVA, Toscafund and Infinity Investment Partners. Well done as well to Accelex, the provider of AI-driven automation for data acquisition in private markets, for raising a €$15m Series A round led by FactSet.
Finally, Stockbridge-based Superhog, a risk assessment and KYC platform for rentals, raised a $6.7m Series A round led by 6 Degrees Capital, Hambro Perks and Solano Partners.
Let’s dive in
Atom Bank successfully secured £100 million in new equity funding, one of the largest raises of the year, from its longstanding shareholders, including BBVA, private equity firm Toscafund, and Infinity Investment Partners,
The funds are earmarked to bolster Atom’s balance sheet, aiming to enhance its competitive edge in the savings, business lending, and mortgage sectors, positioning itself against both traditional high-street banks and other digital challengers.
Atom’s CEO, Mark Mullen, has expressed that this fundraising round is anticipated to be the last private capital raise before the company pursues an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange, albeit without committing to a specific timeline due to the volatile market conditions and recent financial sector uncertainties.
Launched in 2016, Atom has recently expanded its environmental focus by partnering with climate tech company Kamma, which provides analytics on financed emissions and guidance on regulatory reporting and green asset qualification.
Building on its profitable performance, Atom Bank has reported surpassing its previous annual profit with a quarterly operating profit run-rate of over £25 million.
Accelex, a provider of AI-driven automation for data acquisition, reporting, and analytics in private markets, has successfully closed a $15 million Series A funding round.
The round was led by FactSet, a notable player in financial digital platforms and enterprise solutions, with further backing from prior investors Illuminate Financial, AlbionVC, SixThirty Ventures, and Expon Capital.
This financial boost is intended to accelerate Accelex's growth, enhance its product capabilities, and fortify client success initiatives. Established in 2018, the company specializes in extracting, analyzing, and sharing challenging unstructured data, leveraging proprietary AI and ML technologies.
FactSet's partnership is strategic, aligning with its own ambitions to expand its foothold in the private markets segment. Accelex’s offerings are seen as key to innovating within the alternative assets industry, aiming to offer clients better insights into investment performance drivers.
The significance of Accelex's work is underscored by its client base, serving entities that manage a combined asset base exceeding $1.5 trillion, spanning over 13,000 private market funds and 4,000 asset managers. The firm's global reach is further established with offices in key financial hubs such as Paris, Luxembourg, New York, and Toronto.
Superhog, a platform dedicated to bolstering risk assessment and protection technologies for short-term rental properties, has successfully raised £5.5 million in a Series A financing round.
This influx of capital is led by investment entities 6 Degrees Capital, Hambro Perks, and Solano Partners.
CEO Humphrey Bowles expressed enthusiasm for the investment, which signifies a pivotal step for Superhog in advancing its technology-driven security measures for the short-term rental. The goal is to make these innovations widely available, thus safeguarding the interests of property managers, hosts, and guests globally.
The new funding will propel Superhog's objectives, including the enhancement of its proprietary risk assessment and protection technology, a drive to expand its market reach, particularly in the United States, and a strategic increase in its workforce to support these growth initiatives.
Over the past two years, Superhog has dedicated efforts to expand its client base, now boasting partnerships with over 800 property management companies worldwide. This client growth underscores the market's reception of Superhog's approach to mitigating risks associated with short-term rentals.
Congrats also to Sprout AI, Nuvalaw, Fero Payment Science and My Easy Transfer for their fundraisings!
In addition to this week’s fundraising activity, here is the European M&A activity of the week:
Travelers, a US-based insurtech has acquired Corvus, a policy administration platform for brokers distributing commercial insurance, with a specific focus on cyber products. The deal value was estimated at $435m. Travelers has disclosed that it will fund the transaction from internal resources, adding that the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024. The transaction will facilitate the company’s access to innovative cyber capabilities that were on the roadmap, including sophisticated underwriting algorithms, advanced cyber vulnerability scanning and digital connectivity to customers and distribution partners. The relationship between these two is not news: in September this year, Corvus announced that it has expanded its relationship with Travelers, in which the primary insurer would serve as a capacity provider for Corvus products in the US.
Crowdcube, renowned UK-based equity crowdfunding platform, has completed the acquisition of Semper as the secondaries market picks up its pace across Europe. Semper helps startups sell secondaries or shareholders by offering software, legal and financial advice to investors. Like Crowdcube, the deals it facilitates are startup-led. Since launching 2013, UK-based Crowdcube has run crowdfunding campaigns for companies like Monzo and Revolut, and raised a total of £1bn for more than 1,300 businesses. The acquisition of Semper will allow it to double down on the asset class and expand its offering to run crowdfunding deals for later-stage companies, Cooper tells Sifted.
With Intelligence, UK-based leading provider of investment intelligence for allocating decisions, fund-raising, and business development, has acquired FolioMetrics for an undisclosed amount. FolioMetrics provides advanced software solutions to the alternative investment industry. This acquisition enhances With Intelligence’s already exiting fund-raising offering, by allowing those at asset managers to use proprietary investor intelligence in a workflow tool. This builds on With Intelligence core offering of data that includes profiles, fund information, performance metrics and analyst perspectives.
And finally, here are the news that caught our eye last week:
Klarna’s employees in Sweden, represented by several trade unions, had planned to strike on November 7th in a push for a collective bargaining agreement, challenging the company's approach to significant operational decisions such as layoffs. However, the company has now resolved this by negotiating a deal to become a member of BAO.
Airbnb has partnered with Klarna to launch the Pay Over Time option in Ireland, enabling guests to pay for their bookings in three interest-free instalments, with a plan to expand the service globally
Amsterdam's fintech unicorn, Mollie, has gained a Payment Institution license from the FCA, allowing it to accelerate its growth plans in the UK, expand merchant services, and launch new products. At the same time, Mangopay has secured authorization as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) from the FCA, enabling electronic money issuance and digital payment facilitation in the UK.
Francesca Carlesi assumes the role of CEO for Revolut's UK division, a significant move in light of the company's ongoing quest for a UK banking license, a process initiated in 2021
Have a great week & see you soon!