Cryptocurrency-focused enterprises, cybersecurity firms, challenger banks and InsurTechs were among the big winners of the 31 FinTech funding rounds reported last week.
Of the 31 FinTechs who raised money despite the continued challenges induced by Covid-19, digital asset-focused firms were at the forefront with crypto-based firm BlockFi taking centrestage as it bagged a massive $350m Series D round.
Co-led by Bain Capital Ventures, DST Global, Pomp Investments and Tiger Global, the round gave the company a $3bn valuation. The latest round followed its three previous rounds in the last two years totalling $100m with the most recent being a $50m Series C last August, led by Morgan Creek Digital. Founded by Zac Prince and Flori Marquez in 2017 BlockFi has raised just over $508m in total.
Given that the company has seen its client base grow from 10,000 in 2019 to more than 225,000 at present, it’s easy to see how the firm’s monthly revenue exceeds $50m. Clearly, the crypto space is ripe with more startups sprouting across the globe.
But it wasn’t the only crypto-based venture to raise capital last week. River Financial and Eco were among other companies whose cash injections FinTech Global reported on last week.
In the same week, the cybersecurity sector saw much traction after Synk’s $300m investment round. As the cybersecurity market is estimated to surpass $198bn by 2025, according to a report from Market Research Future, the sector is clearly poised to continually attract investment with businesses continually introducing new security infrastructures.
The Massachusetts-based firm, which achieved unicorn status in January 2020, has continued to scale up. Founded in 2015 by Guy Podjarny, Assaf Hefetz and Danny Grander, Synk is drawing some serious investor attention after the latest Series E round, which followed its $200m Series D in September last year. With this, the valuation of the company now stands at $4.7bn, quadrupling its value since the start of last year.
Other cybersecurity firms raking in money last week included Cowbell Cyber, Aqua Security and Lumu.
Elsewhere, with more challenger banks mushrooming across the globe aiming to digitise the FinTech sector, UK-based Starling Bank snagged £270m in a Series D round making it one of the most developing unicorns in the country. Looking at its rivals in the UK, Revolut and Monzo, which are worth $5.5bn and $1.2bn, respectively, the news paints a rather positive picture for neobanks in the region.
The digital banking landscape indeed has a slew of FinTech giants including Nubank, which recently secured a $400m capital raise pushing its valuation past the $25bn mark, as well as Chime that achieved a $14.5bn valuation in September 2020.
However, while there ware various investment rounds in most sectors from online payments to cybersecurity last week, the segment which stood out was InsurTech, with startups such as Hi Marley, Corvus Insurance, Zego, AngentSync, RATESDOTCA, WeLab and Hepstere top up their coffers.
These rounds in the sector come after industry experts expressed confidence in the sector saying that the Covid-19 crisis could escalate market growth for the InsurTech ecosystem. Despite dragging its feet in embracing technology, the insurance industry has proved that it is on the brink of a complete digital transformation.
In 2016, the global InsurTech sector raised $1.7bn in total, according to FinTech Global’s research – a figure which jumped to $6.2bn by 2020.
While the FinTech industry globally is gaining traction, UK-based startups seem to take the lead with Starling Bank, Synk, Zego snapping up millions of dollars in total. Despite the slowdown caused by Covid-19, the top ten UK FinTech deals in 2020 collectively raised £2.24bn, making up 44.6% of the overall investment. Seemingly, the trend might continue this year as well.
Now, here’s a look at the other FinTech funding rounds which took place last week.
London-based InsurTech Zego nets $150m in Series C funding round
Valuing at $1.1bn, the new $150m investment round meant the InsurTech became the UK’s newest unicorn, days after Starling Bank also attained the rank.
Led by DST Global, which has previously invested in success stories such as Klarna, Stripe and Airbnb, the fundraise also saw Zego’s existing investors including Wise founder, Taavet Hinrikus, as well as Target Global, Balderton Capital and Latitude.
Bullish about the future of the firm, Zego CEO and co-founder Sten Saar said, “In the five years since we started Zego, we’ve covered hundreds of thousands of businesses across Europe, whether they be self-employed drivers or riders or whole fleets of vehicles, and this is just the start for us.”
Flutterwave enters unicorn club with a 170m round
Africa-based payments technology company Flutterwave’s $170m Series C was led by Avenir Growth Capital and Tiger Global Management. Founded by entrepreneur Olugbenga Agboola in 2016, the company’s valuation jumped to $1bn with the total investment reaching $225m to date.
The new funds will go towards the firm’s international growth strategy and boost its customer acquisition. Flutterwave achieved a revenue compound annual growth rate of 226% from 2018 to 2020. The key reason driving startups such as Flutterwave has been the shift to digital payments in Africa, especially during the global pandemic.
Digital lender LenderPay scores an undisclosed eight-figure round
Successfully closing an eight-figure sum, LenderPay’s Series B round saw investors namely Financial Plus Credit Union, Ascentra Credit Union, Collins Community Credit Union and Serve Credit Union pump in money for the startup’s growth.
The US-based FinTech aims to improve the efficiency of lending through its technology which boasts of handling a host of processes including credit reports, valuation, flood determinations, title products, loan documents, portfolio monitoring among many more.
Detailing on its future plans, CEO Omar Jordan said, “Especially now, as credit unions and community banks can so acutely feel the need for their human-centric services, they are compelled to provide fast, efficient, superior answers to their neighbours’ biggest problems and opportunities. Our platform gives them exactly that – a simple, elegant way to serve more members, better and faster.”
Emergence Capital leads a $25m round for InsurTech Hi Marley
Boston-based Hi Marley, a developer of a smart short-messaging platform built for the insurance industry, landed a $25m round led by Emergence Capital. The startup plans to use the financing to add new features, develop scalability and bolster its engineering, sales and customer-facing teams.
The main goal for the startup was increasing transparency, cutting through inefficiencies and streamlining communication in the insurance industry between insurance providers and policyholders. It claims the number of carriers using its platform has doubled in a year – a figure it plans to keep scaling up in the coming months.
Privacy startup DataGrail scores a $30m Series B
DataGrail, which helps customers automate data discovery to help them comply with a growing body of privacy regulations such as GDPR, CCPA and similar laws, bagged $30m.
Led by Felicis Ventures, the round had cash injection from Basis Set Ventures, Operator Collective and previous investors. With this round, the company has raised a total of about $39m to date.
Given how understanding and complying with complex regulations can be a herculean task, DataGrail CEO and co-founder Daniel Barber believes more startups must make it a simpler process. He said, “Privacy laws, like CCPA and GDPR, give people the right to have their data deleted, or refuse its sale. [DataGrail] makes it remarkably easy to untangle what’s become a spider web of data across the entire tech stack.”
Bitcoin-based River Financial hauls in $12m
San Francisco-based bitcoin financial services provider River Financial closed a $12m Series A round led by Goldcrest Capital.
Alex Leishman and Andrew Benson co-founded the company in 2019 with the aim to offer people a platform to buy, sell, store and manage Bitcoin. Having previously raised $5.7m in seed funding last June, its total fundraise stands at $17.7m. After hitting an all-time high where it surpassed $60,000, the price of bitcoin has experienced a roller coaster ride, therefore attracting retail and institutional investors making the sector a lucrative one.
The firm aims to attract baby boomers to invest in the bitcoin business. Co-founder and COO Andrew Benson said, “Even as global interest in Bitcoin grows rapidly, most Americans over the age of 45 who want Bitcoin still don’t own any. River is helping to fix that by creating familiar, high-end financial solutions for investors who are new to bitcoin.”
Aqua Security secures $135m, becomes a unicorn
Aqua Security, a Boston and Tel Aviv-based company providing cloud-native security technology, raised $135m in Series E funding at a valuation of $1bn. The funding comes on the heels of Aqua doubling the number of paying customers in 2020.
Led by ION Crossover Partners, the round saw investors such as M12, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Insight Partners, TLV Partners, Greenspring Associates and Acrew Capital.
The unicorn plans to improve its product portfolio and expand its presence with the new capital. After the current round and its $30m Series D round in May 2020, the firm’s total funds raised until now stands at $265m since it was founded in 2015.
Flywire closes $60m Series F round, might go public
Payments processor Flywire raised a $60m Series F funding round in a bid to fuel its international development. To add on, it plans to scale up its primary aim to facilitate payments in the education, healthcare and travel sectors.
Led by Whale Rock Capital Management, Marshall Wace and Sunley House Capital, the round included previous Flywire backers Spark Growth, Goldman Sachs, Temasek and Adage Capital Management.
Days after the funding, the firm submitted a draft registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission towards an initial public offering.
Hepster reportedly raises $10m in its Series A round
German InsurTech platform Hepster nabbed $10m in a Series A funding round led by Element Ventures. Other investors comprised of Seventure, GPS Ventures, MBMV and previous investors. Hepster plans to use the funds to broaden the company’s insurance ecosystem and scale up its network, with a focus on leveraging automation.
By using the company’s services, businesses can build insurance policies from scratch, tailored to the needs of their individual industry. Its app enables consumers to find the right insurance coverage for them across a host of categories, tariffs and terms.
AeroPay scores $5m to facilitate payments for cannabis
Digital payments platform AeroPay raised $5m in a venture funding round to expand its reach in the cannabis industry and further develop features of its product.
Despite the legalisation of cannabis, national banks and payment systems remain apprehensive when it comes to cannabis. As a result, despite being an industry expected to be worth $130bn by 2024, the sector has largely been cash-driven.
With partnerships with firms in the sector such as cannabis software Blackbird and eCommerce site for cannabis retailers Olla, AeroPay aims to accelerate its growth and digitise the space.
RATESDOTCA gets $51m in debt and equity
The Canada-based platform for insurance and money products, completed a $51m round of equity and debt funding round.
The round was a combination of equity investment from majority shareholder Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and debt financing led by BMO Financial Group through a syndicated facility with TD Bank Group.
The InsurTech intends to use the funds to invest in technology to create a digital insurance shopping experience to boost its goal of helping Canadians make better insurance and money decisions.
CA-based digital crypto app Eco closes $26m round
The $26m round, which brought Eco’s total funding raised to date to $35m, was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z Crypto with participation from Activant Capital, Founders Fund, Coinbase Ventures, Slow Ventures, Tribe Capital, Valor Capital Group and over one hundred other funds and angels.
The crypto app and wallet intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations, its business reach and its development efforts.
Security provider Privacera picks up $50m in a Series B
Data cloud-governance and security provider, Privacera has raised $50m in a Series B funding round led by Insight Partners with other backers including Sapphire Ventures, Accel and Point72 also participating. Including the latest round, Privacera has raised about $68m to date.
Privacera plans on using this fundraise to enable detailed data access control on on-prem and cloud services. It also intends to expand its SaaS investments and its cloud storage, analytics and reporting environments.
Cybersecurity firm Lumu closed a $7.5m Series A round of funding
Lumu’s $7.5m round was co-led by SoftBank Group Corp’s SB Opportunity Fund and Panoramic Ventures. ISS former CEO Tom Noonan and Palo Alto Networks former CEO Lane Bess were also part of the round.
With the aim to achieve its vision to help businesses measure cyber engagements in real-time, the company intends to use the funds for sales and marketing initiatives and beef up its research and development. The firm claims to have analysed more than 55 billion metadata records and detected more than 11 million adversarial contacts – a figure it intends to grow exponentially.
Cowbell Cyber bags $20m in Series A round
The California-based AI-powered cyber insurance provider Cowbell Cyber closed a $20m Series A funding round.
The round was led by Brewer Lane Ventures with participation from Pivot Investment Partners, Avanta Ventures, Markel Corporation, and existing investors ManchesterStory, Tri-Valley Ventures and Holmes Murphy.
With plans to use the funds for product development, expansion of risk engineering, sales, marketing efforts and increase of footprint nationwide the firm will also continue to grow its network of 4,500 agents and brokers.
WeLab’s $75m Series C1 round will help the firm scale up
Hong Kong-based FinTech company, WeLab completed the initial close of Series C-1 funding for $75m.
The round was led by Allianz X with existing investors also participating including China Construction Bank International, International Finance Corporation, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, TOM Group and Sequoia Capital.
The funds will be used to accelerate its pan-Asian growth strategy and expand its digital financial services.
Pipe raises $50m to boost its recurring revenues trading platform
The FinTech firm launched just last year has added $50m to its coffers in a new round of funding with the aim to bolster its global footprint and accelerate its partnerships.
Led by Jim Pallotta’s Raptor Group and Siemens Next47, participants in Pipe’s latest round of funding also included Shopify, Slack, HubSpot, Okta, Chamath Palihapitiya, Marc Benioff, Michael Dell’s MSD Capital, Republic, Alexis Ohanian and Joe Lonsdale.
The latest round of funding brings the total equity raised to $66m.
Cedar raises $200m for boosting its health billing platform
New York-based Cedar, a payment platform for hospitals, health systems and medical groups, raised $200m in a new funding round led by Tiger Global.
The fresh cash injection will help the company meet the increasing demand as well as accelerate its product portfolio. Furthermore, it will also collaborate with its development partners.
With the new funding, the five-year-old firm’s valuation stands at $3.2bn. The latest round follows a year of growth as the company claims its valuation quadrupled since last year. Previously, Cedar raised $151m from a long list of venture, strategic and individual investors.
Money manager M1 Finance raises $75m
Chicago-based finance app which offers automated investing, borrowing and banking, M1 Finance raised $75m in a Series D funding round.
The round which was led by Coatue, with participation from previous investors Left Lane Capital and Clocktower Technology Ventures will be used to build tools to automate life-long, positive financial habits as well as double the firm’s employee headcount by the end of 2021.
M1 claims it has over 500,000 investors who use its platform for investing, digital checking, and portfolio lines of credit.
InsurTech AgentSync raises $25m in Series A funding round
The Denver-based InsurTech AgentSync, which automates the tools and infrastructure powering the insurance industry, raised $25m in a Series A funding round.
This funding, which brought the company’s valuation to $220m, was co-led by Elad Gil and David Sacks’ Craft Ventures, with participation from Marc Benioff, Caffeinated Capital, Operator Collective and Nine Four Ventures.
Alongside boosting the team with more hiring, the firm will focus on product development to build new solutions that reduce compliance risk for agencies and carriers as well as scale the business.
Corvus Insurance closed a $100m Series C at a $750m valuation
AI-based smart commercial insurance product provider Corvus Insurance secured $100m in Series C funding.
The round which was led by Insight Partners, with participation from previous institutional investors, will help power the firm’s goals of developing its underwriting and go-to-market strategies, while also further expanding its digital platform, the CrowBar. With this round, the company’s total funding raised comes to $147m.
Elucidate secures €2.5m in Pre-Series A funding
Germany-based financial crime risk scoring platform, Elucidate raised €2.5m in pre-Series-A funding.
The round was led by Frontline Ventures with participation from existing investors Seed X Liechtenstein, APEX Ventures and Big Start Ventures.
Founded in 2018 by Shane Riedel, the company intends to use the funds to accelerate market penetration to the public sector and regulators, in addition to banks, non-banking financial institutions and FinTechs already using the platform to assess, score and price financial crime risk.
Stockal reportedly raises $1m from ScaleX Partners
Stockal, the India-based retail investment platform, is said to have secured $1m. While the firm is currently in the process of raising its pre-Series A round, targeting between $2m and $3m, this round was led by ScaleX Partners and Aroa Ventures.
With the funds, Stockal plans to boost its technology and release its mobile app. Its platform enables users to invest in 3,500 companies as well as pick between several ready-made portfolios.
Wrapbook closes $27m Series A funding round
Digital financial services solution provider for businesses Wrapbook raised $27m in Series A funding, which was led by Andreessen Horowitz, Equal Ventures, Uncork Capital, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo and Michael Ovitz.
The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations and its business reach. Furthermore, it aims to fill the gap in the digital financial industry.
Co-founder Cameron Woodward said, “We are replacing what has essentially been a paper driven process with a completely digital system in order to increase prosperity for both employees and employers. Our goal is to replace the pain points of the current cobbled together approach with an easy-to-use platform that meets everyone’s needs.”
AutoRek bags significant funding from SEP
Scottish Equity Partners completed a significant growth equity investment in AutoRek, the provider of financial control, regulatory reporting and data management software. The investment will help AutoRek to accelerate its product development plans and further extend its offering internationally.
While the RegTech firm has been tight-lipped about the details and figures of the round, the funding has reportedly been made under SEP’s £260m SEP5 fund, The Times reported.
The new capital will aid the company enhance its proposition and address a $2bn global regulatory and data management software market.
InterPrice Technologies snags $2.5m in a seed round
InterPrice Technologies which provides corporate issuers and financial institutions with greater transparency in financing costs, secured $2.5m in its seed round.
The round was led by Bowery Capital, with participation from Chaos Ventures, Operator Partners and Dash Fund.
InterPrice’s platform automatically aggregates bond, commercial paper and loan indications into dashboards across a host of currencies and financing products. As CEO Olga Chin put it, the firm’s goal is to “enhance relationships through real-time dialogue between users focused on data that matters most.”
Flourish Savings bags $1.5m in a fresh funding round
Platform designed to incentivise users to save or invest money, Flourish Savings closed a $1.5m financing round.
The investment was led by Canary, a Brazil-based venture firm, with commitments also coming from Xochi Ventures, First Check Ventures, Magma Capital and GV Angels.
The digital engagement platform will use the capital to increase its customer base in Latin America, hire more staff and build new product features.
AcreTrader gets $12m in Series A funding
Fayetteville-based farmland investing platform, AcreTrader raised $12m in a Series A funding round.
The round, which brought the total amount of funds raised to date to $18m, was led by Jump Capital with participation from Narya Capital, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, and existing investors RZC Investments and Revel Partners.
Aiming to improve overall access, liquidity and transparency to farmland transactions across the nation, the firm will develop its online tools, data science, marketing, as well as continually expand its team of agriculture, finance, and technology experts.
With these out of the way, here are a few funding rounds from last week you might have missed.
Tausight closes a $20m Series A financing round
Cybersecurity platform ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and availability of patients’ protected health information Tausight raised $20m in Series A funding.
The firm aims to continue the development of its platform and expand its go-to-market team. The round was co-led by existing investors Polaris Partners and Flare Capital Partners, which were joined by new investor .406 Ventures.
Founded in 2018 by David Ting, the firm enables facility information officers to efficiently secure clinical workflows when clinicians access patient’s private information. Highlighting the role of cybersecurity firms in the healthcare industry, Ting commented, “By analysing in real-time how patient data is stored, used and transmitted in the clinical environments, healthcare organisations are better able to proactively address vulnerabilities that could lead to an eventual costly cyber incident.”
Neobank Cheese bags $3.6m in seed funding
Digital bank Cheese scored $3.6m in seed funding from an investor group co-led by Ifly.vc and Amplify. The challenger bank which was launched to mainly cater to the Asian community, aims to help them get access to better banking and financial services. Its digital banking software offers its banking services via a multi-language platform.
Given that the US is home to nearly 21 million Asian Americans, most of whom continue to be discriminated against and face challenges in securing basic banking services due to a lack of credit history and language barriers, the California-based company said it will bridge the banking gap for Asian immigrants.
Silvr inks £2.6m to boost and finance online businesses
France-based FinTech Silvr which finances e-businesses unable to access bank loans and are seeking to raise equity capital, raised £2.6m from investors, including ISAI, Idinvest and Serena Capital.
It aims to continue developing its financing tool for e-commerce companies to help scale up their business growth while retaining all of their capital. Founded in 2020 by Nima Karimi and Grégory Tappero, the company is already working with 15 online customers to finance their digital campaigns and multiply their turnover.
Silvr intends to use the funding to hire a dozen new employees and target 100 customers within the next 18 months.
Rock Paper Coin raises $1.625m
Rock Paper Coin, a payments tool for wedding and event professionals with solutions to digitise their B2B operations, brought in $1.63m in funding led by XYZ Venture Capital, Cascade Seed Fund and Jake Silverstein.
Rock Paper Coin’s software offers digital contracts, invoices and payments for those transacting in the wedding industry. Since its launch at the end of 2019, the company has processed more than $1.8m in transactions, it claimed.
The company is aimed to streamline workflows between event planners, suppliers and their end clients.
Clara bags $3.5m in pre-seed funding to help companies track their spend
Alongside its product launch, Clara unveiled its $3.5m pre-seed round led by General Catalyst.
Based in Mexico, Clara offers a business spend management solution for Latin American companies, linking a corporate card product to transaction monitoring and analytics technologies.
Additional backers in the round included Picus Capital, Canary Ventures, SV Angel, GFC, SOMA Capital, Liquid2 and Adapt Ventures. Hoping to capitalise on the ongoing digitisation in most sectors, Clara aims to enable businesses embrace electronic payments to help them spend more strategically.
WorkFusion lands a $220m round
New York-based WorkFusion closed a $220m Series F led by Georgian. The company’s software helps automate certain repetitious operations in areas such as anti-money laundering, Know Your Customer, lending, capital markets and Treasury services. Its platform is also used to solve critical business problems, especially in banking and financial services.
With this round, WorkFusion has raised more than $340m to date. Using the platform enables businesses to automate mundane operations helping them focus on up-skilling employees whilst reducing costs.
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