Top 5 VC Deals of the Week in Digital Wealth (7/12/22)

Getting an early jump this week on the Top 5 VC deals of the week and at a cursory glance, we’re seeing fewer deals and lower funding levels. Now that could change as more reporting comes out for the week, and there’s no doubt we’re in the throes of summer and folks want to be at the beach rather than the office. I sure do, but thus far, we’re seeing just one deal top over the $100M level. So – as we’ve noted a few times in the near past (and has been noted by CB Insights as well), funding levels are indeed coming down in the fintech sector as talk of a recession continues.

A few key points from this week’s deals:

• Our top deal this week came in at $120M for a British gamified life insurance company. Yeah, that’s a first and they claim exactly that – they issue rewards for healthy living. Their website indicates that they focus on group insurance;
• The British are coming, the British are coming! Yes, the UK seems to win the race this week with three of five deals originating out of England;
• Another of the week’s winners has a puzzling corporate name – ZILCH – which either can be construed positively or negatively. But hey, they snared $50M in cool cash, so apparently that name is a winner in their investors’ eyes;
• Another unusual trend we saw in our primary source for this info were 3 deals whose funding sources were “undisclosed” this past week. We’ve never seen that and find that fascinating.
• Finally, the winners are in MULTIPLE sectors within fintech – read below to see the interesting diversity.

AS AN ASIDE – we’d be remiss to not mention the massive $800M Klarna deal that was announced late Monday, but with a huge caveat. Valuation on the firm – with the new funding round – DROPPED 85%. YES, you read that right. We’ll cover this in greater detail next week, but we see this as one of many key indicators that the fintech market is shaking up (a/k/a correcting), and we’ve recently seen other bullet points from this trend with news of the canceled $5B Apex Clearing SPAC deal (Apex is still a VERY viable firm, btw, and still one that I have long admired and continue to admire), the demise of Voyager Digital (this one made me truly sad), the crumbling of CELSIUS and now this Klarna “re-valuation”. All different sectors of fintech – all different types of shifts – but pointing to overall shifting trends and downdrafts within the sector at large.

In the meantime, without further ado, here are this week’s top 5 fintech VC deals for the week below, in order from highest to lowest funding levels.