Weekly update #25

Welcome to this edition of the weekly newsletter. The idea behind this activity is to gather all the information in the startup ecosystem in one place, with a special focus on the fintech market.

This week I was a speaker at "Exponential Italy" in Luxembourg, an event focused on the italian fintech ecosystem organised by the The LHoFT - Luxembourg House of Financial Technology . It was a great pleasure to be part of this wonderful event along with extremely talented professionals in the investments industry from company like P101 , Azimut Investments S.A. and Armundia Group and aggregator like Fintech District .

In order to prepare for the speech, I've read some very interesting reports, and among them you can find a very interesting research from Dealroom about the investment in the italian startup ecosystem in Q1 2024.

$407 million were invested in Italian startup in Q1 2024, one of the best quarter for the entire ecosystem so far. But taking a closer look at the image you will notice a couple of things. First of all, we are very far from the crazy high point from 2022, even if the trend is consistently growing in the last couple of quarters. Second, and most important, the research in my opinion is impacted by two main deals: Milan?s Bending Spoons and Pisa?s Medical Microinstruments. And one can argue that both companies are right now far from the traditional definition of startups, lowering down the total amount of investment by a staggering 75%.

But again, the trend is growing, and numbers are here to prove it. From the composition of the investments made during the last sixteen quarters, it is clear that the italian ecosystem is made by a regular and constant flow of early stage deals, that survived also the downturn in 2022, but at the same time we can clearly see the difficulty we have in moving those startups to seed first and series A later. Ironically, during the event, we saw the same exact conclusion in the report published by P101, that I strongly recommend you to read.

Finally, a snapshot of the different sectors that received the highest amount of investments in the latest quarter. And here, my main focus obviously was on the last position, with the fintech industry only attracting $9.2 million in Q1. A downtrend very well known by fintech professional all over Europe.

My main take away from the report, and from this event. I can wait to see if the growing trend of investment in startup ecosystem will continue in upcoming quarters, hopefully with many international and later stage VCs joining. At the the same time, I am still very hopeful on the future of the italian fintech ecosystem, but I want to quote one of my friend from LOhFT, that talking about the Luxembourg ecosystem said: "Here I can get things done". And we could surely benefit from that kind of attitude.

Anyway we saw some very interesting news in the market this week. Stripe raised $649 million via a stocks sale, while Ramp raised additional $150 million, in one of the biggest round in European fintech recently. In the italian market, Cosmico Italia raised a $4 million Seed round, while Fiscozen was acquired by the Norwegian group Visma . In the VC ecosystem, how can't we talk about Rosberg Ventures , the fund launched by former F1 pilot Nico Rosberg , that raised $75 million, while two mega funds were raised in the US, with Andreessen Horowitz raising $7.2 billion across 5 funds and Evolution Equity Partners launching a $1.1 billion fund on cybersecurity and AI. And finally, a lot of wonderful deals for fintech startups like Flatpay , BridgeWise , Wagestream , Pliant , finmid , Toku and many others.

But let's take a closer look at the main news of the last seven days:

Closed deals

• PULA cultivates growth with $20M Series B funding;
• Tabs Raises $7M to Transform B2B Accounts Receivable Processes;
• Monad Labs raises $225M led by Paradigm to revolutionize blockchain speed;
• Berlin based finmid secures a $23 million series A;
• Dapta raises $1.2M in Pre-Seed funding to empower SMEs with AI solutions;
• Kamina secures $3.2M in Pre-Seed funding to revolutionize financial education;
• Prague-based Apify raises €2.8M for AI data mining;
• Microsoft invests $1.5B in G42 amid US-China rift;
• Northzone announces their latest investment, $10 million in GovDash (YC W22) series A;
• Danish startup Flatpay raises $47 million for his SMEs payment solution;
• Ramp raises additional $150 million at a $7.65 billion valuation;
• Bridgewise closed a monumental $21 million funding round, bringing its total capital raised to $35 million;
• Pliant raises $18 million from PayPal Ventures;
• Rippling is raising $870 million at the crazy valuation of $13.4 billion;
• Wagestream raised $17.5 million to boost his employees benefit platform;
• Cilean fintech Toku raises $9.3 million to expand in Brasil and Mexico;
• Cozero raises $6.5 million to help corporates reach zero emission carbon footprint.

Strategic moves on the market

• Fintech giant Stripe raised $694 million in funds via a stocks sale;
• As well as other neobank, Nubank is venturing into telecommunications;
• Noname Security nears $500M acquisition by Akamai Technologies;
• Revolut Valuation rebound 45% in a recent evaluation by Schroders;
• LBBW partners with Bitpanda to offer crypto custody services in Germany;
• Elon Musk is looking to raise $4 billion for his latest venture, x.AI;
• Do you wanna buy a buy-now-pay-later? In a shocking breaking news, the UK based BNPL Laybuy is reported looking for buyers;
• Klarna is launching his credit card in the US market;
• TokenX and IXOPAY agreed on a merger in the tokenization market;
• MTN Group, the telecommunications giant has announced plans to invest a substantial $1.8 billion to bolster its data and fintech services offerings across Africa in 2024.

A special look in the Italian market

• Il gruppo norvegese Visma entra nel mercato italiano investendo in Fiscozen;
• Cosmico raccoglie €4 milioni per espandersi a livello globale.

Insights on the Vc industry

• From Formula 1 to Venture Capital: Rosberg Ventures accelerates with a $75M fund launch;
• Evolution Equity Partners just launched their new $1.1 billion cybersecurity and AI fund;
• Maven Ventures is heating up the consumer tech investing scene with the announcement of their $60 million Fund IV;
• Andreessen Horowitz raises $7.2 billion across 5 funds;
• Lazard partners with Elaia to launch a new fund.

Startups raising funds

• Fantalegends - a Fantasy Football free-to-play mobile game that aims to provide an enjoyable and safe experience, user-centered, with more than 2k daily active users. Raising $1M.
• PopulaRise - The platform that allows companies of every dimension to promote themselves on social media through the collaboration with their clients. B2B2C SaaS. Raising $1M.
• Bitcoin People - Fintech company focused on crypto payments between corporate and cross countries. B2B, SaaS. Raising $500k. Round closed!
• Tutornow - Edtech that provides an online tutoring platform for students with learning disorders. Raising $500k to $1M.
• Recivu - Fintech? startup trying to digitize the receipt flow by getting rid of papers. Looking for $150k in SAFE, already $50k committed.
• Weagle - B2B Tech startup that provides the very first browser designed for company, with total security for sensitive data. Raising $6 millions for their seed round.
• Reach Finance - Reach is the fintech platform for wealth accumulation for the Y&Z generations, they provide users with the tools to build wealth such as a budget tracker, a financial plan and a systematization of investments. Looking for $700k, with already $500k committed;
• wrapp.ai - A fintech startups that offers a virtual accountant and CFO that can help SMEs scale globally. Looking for $1 million, $750k already granted from public funds, looking to close the last $350k.

If you are a startup and want to be present in this list, please contact me directly.

If you are an angel investor or a VC interested in those companies, contact me for an intro!

Take also a look at the last edition of the newsletter, Weekly update #24