US FinTech unicorn Alloy launches in the UK

US FinTech unicorn Alloy launches in the UK

Happy Friday FinTech Fanatic,

It seems FinTech funding gets a roaring start in 2023, or at least for the Nordics anyway ;-)

While we saw no less than 3 Nordic funding rounds yesterday , we can still keep our eyes on the region as yet another Danish company announced a major cash injection.

This time it’s neobank Lunar , headquartered in Aarhus, which raised €35 million . The money will be used to help accelerate Lunar's path to profitability.

They are not the only European FinTech attracting money, as London-based lending infrastructure provider Kennek closed a $4.5m pre-seed funding round to scale-up its European operations.

Yet again, congrats to all the teams!

Speaking about the UK, US FinTech unicorn Alloy is making its way into the Kingdom . The identity decisioning platform will open an office in London and announced key hires.

Alloy, which has some well-known companies in its portfolio such as Brex , Marqeta and Gemini , has so far raised more than $210 million, reaching a valuation of $1.55bn.

Launching the UK is part of their EMEA growth and global expansion.

In the slipstream of US Alloy setting foot in the UK, there was another transatlantic FinTech move.

Nigerian (but San Francisco-headquartered) FinTech Flutterwave expanded on the African continent .

Earlier this week the Kenyan government cleared fraud allegations against Flutterwave , now one of Africa’s leading payments technology companies, and announced it has received regulatory approval to operate as a payments and money remittance service provider in Egypt.

Rumors go Flutterwave has plans to list on the Nasdaq Stock Market and enter the lucrative lending market as it gears for more growth.

Thanks for reading this far, but this isn't all the news yet. Please find some other FinTech snacks listed below??


NEWS HIGHLIGHT

Revolut has launched a donations page on its app for users to support victims of recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Fintech continues to prove itself a force for good in times of crisis , as has been seen during other world events like the war in Ukraine.

INSIGHTS

Japan becomes the mobile wallet adoption leader among 11 countries. according to PYMNTS ’ Q3 2022 ConnectedEconomy? Index, “How the World Does Digital ,” which measured the digital activity of 30,000 individuals across 11 countries. Link here

FINTECH NEWS

Affirm ’s stock plunges as it misses earnings. Affirm posted its second quarter results for the 2023 fiscal year. gross merchandise volume of $5.7 billion set a new record but still fell short of an outlook that Affirm itself had provided in November.

Finzly releases API connection to access FedNow Service . The FedNow Service is a new instant payment platform the Federal Reserve Banks are launching in 2023 to provide financial institutions of every size access to safe and efficient instant payment services in real time.

Adyen shares slip on headcount raise. Adyen's second half earnings missed estimates as the company pledged to hire more staff to deal with an ambitious global growth strategy.?

Plum expands its trading platform to 3,000 stocks, ETFs to follow. Plum has added more than 2,000 new US stocks for both UK and EU customers, available as fractional shares to its premium customers.

Treasure launches its managed treasuries allocation. With Managed Treasuries businesses now have access to an actively managed allocation to Treasury bills, which provides more liquidity, less volatility, and higher returns than the suboptimal buy-and-hold strategy.

Paypal ′s China unit gets ready to accelerate its business. PayPal Payments (Beijing) has won approval from the Chinese central bank to almost double its registered capital to 4.52 billion yuan ($666 million), which will be the largest capital base of any non bank payment provider in China.

Atlantic Money launches its cheap foreign exchange service across Europe. The company originally started in the U.K. with GBP as the base currency and nine different currencies on the recipient’s side. Since then, the company has expanded and is now live across 29 European countries.

GoCardless launches new function to “reap the benefits of B2B payments.” The new feature enables end-to-end payment processing capabilities for bank-to-bank payments including reconciliation, mandate management, reporting and refunds.

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DIGITAL BANKING NEWS

Tide rolls funding options into ‘Tide Partner Credit Services’ as acquisition completes. Financial details of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but prior to its acquisition Funding Options had raised around £20m in equity funding as well as £5m in cash from BCR in 2019. Link here

FinTech Australia says ING systems upgrade may breach open banking rules. ING is preparing to swap out its consumer data right (CDR) system, which relates to how bank customers can choose to share their data with third party providers.

FTX NEWS

Robinhood will try to buy back Sam Bankman-Fried’s Shares. Shares in Robinhood Markets Inc. jumped in after-hours trading Wednesday after the company said it plans to pursue repurchasing the shares that SBF bought last year.

Lawyers and advisors in FTX bankruptcy have billed nearly $20 million for 51 days of work. More than $10 million of that was for work done in November 2022, as Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire entered bankruptcy protection in Delaware.

Argentina will require solvency proof from crypto firms after the FTX debacle. Argentines are among the biggest adopters of crypto in the region, in part due to stringent currency controls and annual inflation of almost 100%.

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M&As

SUMA Wealth acquires Reel . The merging of the two companies creates an unprecedented partnership as SUMA becomes the first to acquire a fellow Latina-founded financial technology company, flipping the script and shattering glass ceilings.

#DONEDEAL

Moonfare caps Series C extension at $15 million. With the extension of the Series C financing round, Moonfare now welcomes 7 Global Capital (7GC) as an additional institutional investor. Link here

Habitto raises a further US$3.9 Million In pre-A financing round. Habitto is looking to take on the financial anxiety that the Japanese face about their future. The mobile offering connects savings, investment and life insurance products supported by digitally enabled financial advisors.

Tazapay raises US$16.9m Series A funding. The company plans to use the funds from this round to further scale its business across Asia and expand in regions where there is strong demand for its services.

Digital asset protection company Coincover raised $30 Million. The new capital will be used to recruit talent, update products and add partnerships to protect against crypto hacks or human error.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

BankiFi adds Steve Ellis to Board. Ellis’ addition to the team is just the latest in BankiFi’s recent dedication to the North American market . Ellis has over 35 years of experience in banking, leadership and financial services.

Silicon Valley Bank appoints new leadership. Ashraf Hebela has been named the new Head of Technology & Healthcare Banking for North America; and?Lewis Hower ?will step up to lead Startup Banking. Link here

Tuum appoints Edgardo Torres-Caballero as new Chief Revenue Officer. The appointment is part of Tuum’s wider strategy to support continued growth which also includes setting a strong focus on strategic partnerships as a key strategic pillar for expansion.

Metro Bank appoints Richard Saulet as MD consumer finance. He will now be responsible for leading and developing Metro Bank’s unsecured lending products , which include personal loan propositions under the RateSetter brand, according to the bank.


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Cheers,

Marcel van Oost

Connecting the dots in FinTech

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