The messy pileup…
2023 is ending much like a pile-up that slows down traffic on a busy freeway, impending travel to various destinations. At least, that’s the state of the startup environment here in the U.S.: a mess of layoffs, closures, and slowdown for large-cap down to small startups.
“Cuts come as companies contend with rising interest rates, a tougher fund-raising climate, and tightened customer budgets.
The number of announced cuts peaked early this year, exceeding 65,000 in January alone. Over the past six months, monthly disclosed U.S. tech industry layoffs have hovered between 3,000 and 11,000.“ – Crunchbase.
Some notable trends this week:
- Payments deals took home the $$
- Banks continue to fund payments startups
- Foreign deals dominated
Drum role, please; here are this week’s top 5 VC deals…
1Wormhole
$225M, Capital| Equity | Cayman Islands | Blockchain | Jump Trading, Brevan Howard, Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital | https://wormhole.com/
LinkedIn Overview:
“Wormhole is a generic message-passing protocol that allows interoperability between blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Oasis, Fantom, Celo, Acala, Aurora and Klaytn“
2Paysend
$65M, Capital| Equity | UK | Payments | Mastercard, Infravia Growth Capital, One Peak, Hermes GPE Innovation Fund | https://paysend.com/
LinkedIn Overview:
“At Paysend, we’re on a mission to deliver the World’s Simplest Money Transfer. Paysend is a next-generation integrated global payment ecosystem, enabling consumers and businesses to pay and send money online anywhere, anyhow and in any currency...“
3Candex
$45M, Series B, Capital | Equity | NYC | Payments | Goldman Sachs Asset Management, WIL, Altos, NFX, Craft, JP Morgan, American Express, Edenred | https://www.candex.com/
LinkedIn Description:
“Candex is a fintech consolidator for large organizations so that they can make purchases from one-time, irregular and low risk suppliers using existing P2P processes…“
4Exectras
$30M, Capital| Debt | Missouri City | Payments | Tacora Capital| https://exectras.com/
LinkedIn Description:
“With an Exectras Membership, the business gains access to outstanding Fortune 500 business services at deeply discounted rates and also receives some of the most sought after benefits and perks for all their employees!…“
5Mozaic.io
$20M, Series A, Capital |Equity | Chicago | Payments | Volition Capital | https://mozaic.io/
LinkedIn Description:
“Mozaic.io is a global payment platform for multi-party payouts…“
