Last week was one for the record books for founders, funders, and The Fed. Let’s throw in the American public, too, while we’re at it, many glued to the news wondering what to do with their cash – if anything.
As the headlines continue, there’s more to the story (as there always is); starting last week, cash-short banks outside the VC/tech world have borrowed emergency funds into the billions from the Fed. Is a new monetary system, incorporating blockchain and crypto, imminent? Time will tell.
Some notable trends this week:
- VC funding and awards have slowed to a trickle, for now;
- Most funding last week was by BIG banks and the wealth sector in payments development;
- A really unusual “virtual fashion/blockchain” company made our top funding round this week – DressX. You MUST click thru to their site to read about their offering – it’s most unsettling, actually;
- Stripe was the Payments, award winner. But a Series I, hmmm. We’ll leave it to you to surmise what that may mean, but the firm is already 13-years old, so it’s a “curious” funding round, to say the least.
Drum roll please, here are this week’s Top 5 VC Deals
1Stripe
$6.5B, Series I | Equity| SF | Payments | GIC, Goldman Sachs Asset and Wealth Management, Temasek, Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, MSD Partners, Thrive Capital| https://stripe.com/
LinkedIn Overview:
“Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies—from the world’s largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups—use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities…”
2Apexx Global
$25M, Series B | Equity | UK | Payments | MM Ventures, Alliance Ventures, Forward Partners| https://apexx.global/
LinkedIn Overview:
“APEXX acts as a Payments-as-a-Service platform combining all the worlds acquirers, gateways, shopping carts, and Alternative Payment Methods into a single integration. APEXX consults its enterprise level customers to consolidate their global Payment Service Provider relationships, and display all their reporting and transactional data in a single interface…”
3Tilia
$22M | Equity | SF | Payments | Dunamu, J.P Morgan Payments| https://www.tilia.io/
LinkedIn Overview:
“Games, virtual world publishers, mobile applications and NFT providers use Tilia to power their virtual economies. With Tilia you can accept payments, issue virtual tokens, manage in-game purchases, and enable users and creators to earn and extract real money.”
4DressX
$15M, Series A | Equity | LA | Blockchain | Greenfield Slow Ventures, Warner Music, The Artemis Fund, Red Dao | https://dressx.com/
LinkedIn Overview:
“DRESSX is the largest digital fashion store that carries 3D clothing collections from most well-known contemporary brands born in the physical world and in the digital space…”
5Wingspan
$14M, Series A | Equity | NYC | Payments | Andreessen Horowitz, Distributed Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, Ludlow Ventures, 186 Ventures | https://www.wingspan.app/
LinkedIn Overview:
“Wingspan is the first payroll platform for independent contractors. Purpose built for a flexible workforce, Wingspan provides companies with the tools to efficiently and effectively manage contractors at scale–ensuring simplified onboarding, accelerated payments and access to benefits.”
