• private equity crossing into late stage unicorn deals
• two revenue-based sellers raised serious growth money + market overview
• more BNPL growth funding and embedded tools emerging at the early stage

 

---

 

Highlights

Top deals

🇬🇧 Lendable, which operates a consumer finance broker platform, raised £210 millionfrom investors led by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board.
• one of the Euro fintech darlings, founded in 2014 and valued at £3.5bn+, 1 bill higher since a secondary transaction announced 12 months ago 
• raised relatively little equity, famously having been angel-backed by Stefan Glänzer and Eileen Burbidge.

🇬🇧 Credit Kudos, software developers using open banking to facilitate more informed credit checks on loan applications, was acquired by Apple for $150 million.
• raised less than $10 million since 2015, backed by high profile angels from London + Ascension, TriplePoint and EF.
• strategic deal for Apple as it strengthens its Apple Pay and the Apple credit card infrastructure (now it uses third parties)

🇬🇧 ClearBank, "the first clearing bank to have launched in the U.K. in 250 years", raised £175 million from APAX, in a deal estimating a $1 billion value for the company
• a PE type of deal, as the company has been previously backed by PE firms PPF Group and Norther Private Capital. 
• founded by Nick Ogden, who also did WorldPay (sold to Fidelity), works with 200 customers - large financial institutions and fintechs using its infrastructure to enable faster transactions - serving 13 million bank accounts and £3 billion in assets.

🇬🇧 Currencies Direct, operator of digital FX and international payment platforms, added BlackStone in the captable in a £140 million deal.
• also a PE deal, as CD was acquired by Palamon and Corsair in 2015, when it had an EBITDA of £13 million.
• £105 million in revenues and £43 million of EBITDA as of 2021

🇫🇷 +Simple, operator of a marketplace for digital commercial insurance players in the EU market, raised $100 million from KKR, joined by existing investors Tikehau Capital, Eurazeo and Speedinvest.
• 100,000 customers covering 500 trades across France, Germany and Italy.   
• aggressive growth by acquisition, the French used part of this money for acquiring 3 businesses, after having acquired 5 others in 2020-2021.

🇬🇧 Blockchain.com added Lightspeed Ventures and Baillie Gifford as investors in the company.
• Lightspeed is aggresively building its European portfolio after having hired Paul Murphy in the London office last year - it did 12 deals in the past 6 months.

 

---

 

The non-dilutive finance startup providers

In March there were two equity investment deals involving loan providers selling to SAAS startups against their revenue collaterals:
 
🇸🇪 Ark Capital - $184 million mostly debt in a round including seed equity financing from LocalGlobe and Swedish investors.
• launched 5 months ago by three founders who previously worked for Spotify, Nordea and EQT Ventures
• have Euro ambitions from the get-go, were initially pre-seeded by high profile local angels.

🇪🇸 Capchase - $80 million series B led by 01 Advisors, and joined by American late stage investors.
• launched by Spanish founders based in Boston roughly 2 years ago.
• expanded aggressively in Europe, with local operations led by ex-Northzone Henrik Grim
• 3000 customers which were sold loans worth roughly $2 billion via two products: plain debt and B2B BNPL.

Quick market considerations:
• revenue-based financing is a relatively new kind of product serving an emerging Euro market of SAAS startups with PMF looking to grow aggressively.
• target customers are VC-backed startups - they've already been de-risked and have hefty marketing budgets.
• fast process, little paperwork and data-driven decisions are the main competitive advantages for getting new business.
• global TAM: $42.34 Billion in 2027 at CAGR of 61.8% from 2020 to 2027

More about the revenue-based financing market, the main VC-backed European startups in this space and their investors here.

 

---

 

Interesting deals

Banking-as-a-service

🇩🇰 Lunar, neo-bank providing a range of consumer financial services in the Nordics, extended its series D in a $70 million transaction. Investors include Kinnevik, Heartlandand Tencent.

🇬🇧 Yonder, a startup building a financial service operation based on a credit card and rewards program, went out of stealth with a $26 million seed funding round co-led by Northzone and LocalGlobe.

🇳🇱 in3, doing B2B BNPL w/ 1500 Dutch online and offline merchants, raised $11 millionseries A from Finch Capital.

🇬🇧 Atlantic Money, startup building a foreign currency exchange transfer, raised $4.5 million from investors co-led by Amplo and Ribbit Capital, and joined by Robinhod's founders.

🇩🇰 Anyday, BNPL startup operating a payment proceessing business, raised $4.4 million seed from Inventure.

🇪🇸 Libeen, a real estate startup that sells homes to millenials using only the monthly rent and a 5% downpayment, raised €2.5 million from German VC Cusp Capital.

🇬🇧 Playter Pay, a B2B BNPL company that builds what thay call a "Hire Now, Pay Later" business, raised a $1.7 million seed funding round from investors led by Fin Capital and 1818 Ventures, and joined by RLC Ventures.

🇬🇷 Woli, developing a mobile app for parents that automates allowance and offers absolute security and control, raised $800k from Eleven Ventures and angel investors.

 

---

 

Marketplaces

🇫🇷 Shares, building a social investment platform that gives everyone access to the stock market, raised $40 million from investors led by Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, joined by Singular, Global Founders Capital and Red Sea Ventures.

🇩🇪 Moonfare, doing a B2B investment marketplace for 1,000 banks, family offices and their advisers, extended its series C with a $35 million additional raise from British PE Vitruvian.

🇪🇸 Vivla, operating a building a real estate fractional investment platform for consumers, raised $30 million, mostly debt, from Fasanara and local Spanish investors including Samaipata.

🇸🇪 Insurely, operating an open insurance platform that makes it easy for consumers to manage and switch among different insurance products, raised $21 million series A led by Insight Partners.

🇸🇪 Savr, a digital investment platform with 90,000 customers in Sweden that can choose their option of funds and pay half the commissions and distribution fee compared to market prices, raised $16.4 million from Schibsted.

🇧🇪 Yago, operating a digital insurance brokerage handling 8,000 customers and 15,000 insurance contracts, raised $2.4 million seed from BeAngels, HI Invest, IPM.

🇪🇪 Kwota, startup building a carbon credits marketplace, raised $1.7 million seed from investors led by Change Ventures and Startup Wise Guys.

🇩🇪 Konvi, building a crowdfunding platform enabling partial ownership into high-yielding, luxury assets, raised $900k from German angel investors.

 

---

 

Embedded tools

🇨🇭 Yokoy, software startup helping over 500 medium and big clients with an automated spend management tool, raised $80 million series B led by Sequoia, joined by Speedinvest, Visionaries Club, Zinal Growth, Balderton, Six FinTech Ventures, Left Lane Capital and Swisscom Ventures. 

🇫🇷 Budget Insight, developing an aggregator of banking and financial data and open finance platform that allows its clients to connect their applications to the bank of their users, raised €31 million in investment from American PE PSG Equity. 

🇬🇧 TransFICC, developing e-trading technology for banks and asset managers trading in Fixed Income and Derivatives markets, raised $17 million from AlbionVC and a bunch of banks including Citi, HSBC or ING.

🇩🇪 lemon markets, startup that built a development environment to process market data in an own automated strategy leading to order execution at the stock market via an API, raised $16.5 million seed from investors co-led by Lakestar and Lightspeed, and joined by early backers Creandum and System.One.

🇩🇰 Cardlay, which provides corporate cards and white-label solutions for banks and card issuers, raised $6 million more from existing investors.

🇩🇰 Softpay, developers of an Android-based mobile application that can be turned into a full tap-to-mobile payment terminal and allowing merchants to receive payments anywhere in-store, raised $5.5 million from Danish angel investors.

🇪🇸 Wenalyze, developing an analytics platform for banks and insurance companies, raised $1.9 million seed from Athos Capital joined by Bankinter.

🇩🇪 Leverest, SAAS developers of a scalable software-as-a-service platform on which investors can handle their M&A deals, was seeded by BMH Hessen.

 

---

 

Web 3

🇬🇧 akt.io, a wealth-centred neo-bank enabling users do automated investing, raised €27 million in an ICO.

🇨🇭 FlowBank, multi-asset trading platform that offers a wide range of online banking & investment services to brokers & corporate clients, raised €24 million more from existing shareholders CoinShares.

🇪🇪 Swapin, developing a platform that helps individuals and businesses accept and spend crypto, raised $1.9 million from Estonian angel investors.

🇬🇧 QIS Risk, developing a SAAS tool for financial risk management for cryptocurrencies, was pre-seeded by Haatch.

🇩🇪 Violet, working on an identity protocol built on Ethereum, is rumoured to have raised series A led by Balderton (was pre-seeded w/ $3.5 million back in September)

 

---

 

Other SAAS

🇫🇷 Flowlity, developing an AI-based tool used to build resilient supply chain, predict sales and consumptions and optimize inventories, raised $5.5 million from 42CAP, Fortino and EF.

🇬🇧 Kolleno, SAAS startup developing an automated solution for receivables management, raised $5.3 million seed from Eurazeo, Stride VC, Hubspot Ventures and angels.

🇬🇧 SimplyPayMe, developers of a SAAS tool used for payments acceptance utilising a mobile device, raised $4 million from angel investors.

🇬🇧 Lune, developing a SAAS for emissions and carbon removal calculations, raised $4 million seed from Crane Ventures and angel investors.

🇬🇧 Ribbit, developing an adaptive behavioral analytics platform which leverages bank behavior to empower financial service providers to make decisions, raised $3.3 millionseries A led by ABS Capital.

🇵🇱 Irmatiq, developing an investor management tool designed to automate the communication with investors in private (non-public) companies, was pre-seeded by Polish early stage investor Arkley Brinc.

 

---

 

Active investors

Institutional - 139

🇦🇹 Speedinvest (3 deals)
🇫🇷 Eurazeo
🇪🇸 JME Ventures
🇬🇧 Balderton
🇬🇧 LocalGlobe
🇸🇪 SEB VC 
🇸🇪 Creandum
🇺🇸 Left Lane Capital 
🇺🇸 Lightspeed 
two deals each

 

Angel investors - 60

🇩🇪 Maximilian Tayenthal (co-founder at N26)
🇪🇸 David Riudor (CEO and founder at Goin)
🇬🇧 Alexander Kent-Braham (co founder at Marshmallow)
🇫🇮 Ilkka Paananen (co founder at Supercell)
🇨🇭 Didier Denat (CEO at Citi Switzerland)
🇧🇬 Vlad Tenev (co founder at Robinhood)
🇺🇸 Leif Abraham (CEO at public.com)

 

---

 

Did you find this useful? 🤔

Great    •    Good   •    Meh

 

---

 

Questions or comments? Let us know!