This week, financial inclusion and ‘un-banking’ were prevalent in the startup funding scene, a sign that times are changing for consumers and SMBs (small to medium-sized businesses). Worldwide there is a shift toward efficient payment and collection applications outside the banking industry.
Another significant shift in 2023; big banks are partnering with early stage wealthtechs to elevate their efforts to continue to remain relevant:
“JPMorgan chooses Vestwell’s tech for small-business 401(k) services” -Source: American Banker.
Some notable trends this week:
- And, they’re back! PhonePe (featured twice previously this year in this column with earlier fundings) is this week’s #2 and continues to raise capital as they seek to elevate their payments platform in India, and we suspect, beyond.
- This week was a HOT funding week with double-digit deals across the categories we follow. Payments and all things ‘unregulated currencies’ continue to progress- a positive sign of things to come.
- Well-known funders spent $ this week; Bain Capital Crypto, Bank of America, ING, and more.
And here are this week’s Top 5 VC Deals
1Worldcoin
$115M, Series C | Equity| SF | Blockchain | Blockchain Capital, a16z crypto, Bain Capital Crypto, Distributed Global | https://worldcoin.org/
LinkedIn Overview:
“Worldcoin is a digital currency secured by cryptography. As a descendant of Bitcoin it shares many similarities but is more advanced and business friendly. Our major goal is to become the cryptocurrency of choice for merchants and consumers…”
2PhonePe
$100M, Capital| Equity | India | Payments | General Atlantic| https://www.phonepe.com/
LinkedIn Overview:
“PhonePe was founded in December 2015 and has emerged as India’s largest payments app, enabling digital inclusion for consumers and merchants alike…”
3Episode Six
$48M, Series C, Capital | Equity | Texas| Payments| Avenir, Anthos Capital | https://episodesix.com/
LinkedIn Overview:
“Episode Six (E6) is a global provider of enterprise-grade payment processing and digital ledger infrastructure for banks and companies looking to offer payments to their customers…”
4Open Fin
$35M, Series D | Equity | NYC| FinTech| Bank of America, Pivot Investment Partners, ING Ventures, CME Ventures, CTC Venture Capital, SC Ventures, Tribeca Early Stage Partners | https://www.openfin.co/
LinkedIn Overview:
“The largest global financial institutions use OpenFin’s intelligent workspaces and developer platform to help their teams work smarter, faster, and more effectively…”
5FLOWX.AI
$35M, Series A| Equity | NYC | FinTech| Dawn Capital, PorfoLion, SeedBlink, DayOne Capital| https://www.flowx.ai/
LinkedIn Overview:
“FLOWX.AI is the first development platform that allows FIs and other enterprises to build amazing digital apps in just 10 weeks, while reviving their legacy infrastructure and providing a path to re-building it from within…”
