BlackFin Tech Weekly - September 29th, 2025
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 twelve fintech deals in Europe, raising a total of €330 million, including five transactions in the UK, two in France, two in Denmark, one in Netherlands, one in Germany and one in Italy.
Congratulations to the three largest rounds announced last week:
Fnality, a United Kingdom-based payments company providing blockchain-based real-time wholesale payment systems backed by central bank reserves, has raised €116 million in a Series C round led by WisdomTree, Bank of America, Citi, KBC Group, Temasek, and Tradeweb.
Tide, a United Kingdom-based neobank for SMBs, freelancers, and sole traders, has raised €102 million in a venture round led by TPG.
Light, a Denmark-based banktech company that automates global accounting with AI, covering bookkeeping, invoices, payments, reporting, and multi-entity consolidation, has raised €25.5 million in a Series A round led by Balderton Capital.
Let’s dive in!
Fnality, headquartered in the United Kingdom, provides blockchain-based real-time wholesale payment systems backed by central bank reserves. The company has raised €116 million in a Series C round led by WisdomTree, Bank of America, Citi, KBC Group, Temasek, and Tradeweb, with participation from Banco Santander, Barclays, BNP Paribas, DTCC, Euroclear, Goldman Sachs, ING, Nasdaq Ventures, State Street, and UBS. The fresh funds will be used to further develop Fnality’s blockchain settlement infrastructure and expand its network of participating financial institutions.
Tide, headquartered in the United Kingdom, is a neobank for SMBs, freelancers, and sole traders. The company has raised €102 million in a venture round led by TPG. The fresh funds will be used to accelerate Tide’s growth in existing markets, expand internationally, and further enhance its digital banking solutions for small businesses.
Light, headquartered in Denmark, automates global accounting with AI, covering bookkeeping, invoices, payments, reporting, and multi-entity consolidation. The company has raised €25.5 million in a Series A round led by Balderton Capital. The fresh funds will be used to scale Light’s smart finance platform globally, enhance AI-powered features such as OCR in bill payments and contract ingestion, and expand its teams across the Nordics, London, and New York.
In addition to this week’s fundraising activity, here is the European M&A activity for the week:
Connect Earth, a UK-based climate fintech providing carbon measurement solutions to financial institutions, has announced the acquisition of Datia, a Sweden-based ESG reporting platform serving asset managers and banks. The deal strengthens Connect Earth’s sustainable finance infrastructure by combining carbon emissions data with regulatory ESG reporting tools, supporting institutions facing growing disclosure requirements.
Aosphere, a UK-based regtech offering digital tools to simplify financial regulations, has acquired Investment Navigator, a Switzerland-based compliance platform that ensures investment products meet cross-border regulatory rules. The acquisition expands aosphere’s regtech offering by integrating investment product compliance workflows, enhancing support for financial institutions operating across multiple jurisdictions.
And finally, we bring you four news stories that caught our eye last week:
Swiss UBS has agreed to pay €835mn to conclude a long running French tax evasion case, made up of a €730mn fine and €105mn in civil damages for conduct spanning 2004 to 2012. Prosecutors described tactics that included self-erasing hard drives, discreet approaches at social events, and travel designed to evade scrutiny, claims the bank said lacked sufficient proof of unlawful solicitation The accord leaves UBS paying less than a fifth of the original €4.5bn ruling issued in 2019, following years of appeals that reached the Supreme Court. UBS says it is fully provisioned for the payment and continues resolving legacy Credit Suisse matters, including a recent $300mn settlement on US mortgage securities and a separate agreement exceeding $500mn tied to tax evasion facilitation
Nine European banks including ING, UniCredit, KBC, Danske, SEB, DekaBank, CaixaBank, Raiffeisen and Banca Sella announced plans to launch a euro denominated stablecoin through an Amsterdam company in the second half of next year. They said the initiative would support fast and low cost digital payments while strengthening Europe’s strategic autonomy, in contrast to US backed stablecoins which currently dominate global issuance. Global stablecoin supply stands at nearly three hundred billion dollars, compared with only about six hundred twenty million euros of euro pegged tokens. The European Central Bank has raised concerns about private tokens and continues to push a digital euro, but Deutsche Bank research warns economies risk marginalisation if they fail to adopt such technology.
Revolut pledged £3bn for the United Kingdom as part of a global $13bn expansion, targeting 100mn users and entry into 30 countries by 2030, alongside 1,000 new jobs at its Canary Wharf base. Chief executive Nik Storonsky declared a full UK banking licence the top priority, noting earlier overseas expansion relied on lighter permissions which produced an inferior product. He said Revolut now focuses on either acquiring full licences or buying local banks outright. After a three year process, the group remains in a mobilisation phase limiting deposits to £50,000 until the PRA grants full approval. At the London event, Chancellor Rachel Reeves praised the pledge as a vote of confidence and promoted easier visas after new US restrictions. Revolut will also seek a South African licence and may acquire a bank in the United States
HSBC reported a 34 per cent improvement in predicting order fill probabilities after testing an IBM quantum computing tool on more than one million bond market requests across over five thousand European securities. Executives called it their clearest proof yet that quantum techniques could improve financial trading, particularly in fragmented over the counter markets where measuring execution quality is difficult. The analysis covered September 2023 to October 2024, with researchers warning about limited generalisation across market conditions. IBM emphasised qubit progress and a race with Google toward industrial scale computing by decade end, while experts cautioned rapid advances might undermine encryption standards currently relied upon by banks
Have a great start into the week!
Sources of the fundraising reports
*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.
The strategic autonomy angle is key here. CaixaBank joining this consortium signals that even second tier European banks understand the risk of US dominated stablecoin infrastructure becomming the rails for digital payments. Three hundred billion dollars in US stablecoins versus six hundred million euros shows how far behind Europe has fallen. If these nine banks can actually execute on the 2026 timeline with proper MiCA compliance, they might capture meaningful share before the ECB's digital euro creates competiton internally.