🌊The Fintech Wave(#22)
Hi, ya’ll from snow-covered❄️Boston.
TLDR; SEE VC focused on fintech raised a new fund. We build a table to compare revenue-based financing options in Europe. Debit card for Gen Z. Fintech offers a new way to fund your home purchase. FTX US valued at $8B. Bolt founder called out Stripe and YC as Mob Bosses in Silicon Valley. Check this thread at the end of the newsletter.
If you like this newsletter please share it with friends and encourage them to sign up👇
Europe News and Funding
Eleven Ventures has a new fund💸 - great news for Southeastern European fintech startups
Bulgarian-based Eleven Ventures raised a new €60 million fund to support founders in the SEE region. One of the investment focus is fintech, so if you are building fintech you might want to send them an email. They are also an early investor in Payhawk (currently valued at $570M).
Revenue-based financing for French startups
After “Buy Now Pay Later”, revenue-based financing is the current trend within European fintech startups. Almost every country has its player in the revenue-based financing field. This week French startups can also use this financing since Karmen raised $22M to support it.
The process of getting financing is similar to other competitors: Karmen connects to a startups’ financials and runs it through a credit risk algorithm that accounts for subscription numbers, banking account status, and accounting data to either approve or deny an application within 48 to 72 hours. Some competitors claim they can do it within 24h.
The below table shows a comparison of EU Revenue-based financing startups.
Debit card + Lottery for Gen Z raised €2M
Everything is building social financial experience for Gen Z in the UK. The product is inspired by Premium Bonds - a lottery bond issued by the UK government since 1956. The principle behind Premium Bonds is that rather than the stake being gambled, as in a usual lottery, it is the interest on the bonds that is distributed by a lottery. The bonds are entered in a monthly prize draw and the government promises to buy them back, on request, for their original price. Prizes range from £25 to £1,000,000.
Everything offers a free debit card where users could win cash rewards (lottery) with every *tap*. The more they use it, the higher their chances of winning. it is possible to win up to £1M. This is actually one of the best differentiation from the competition we have seen recently.
Americas News and Funding
Hometap🏠 is a new alternative to home loans
Hometap just raised $245M from Bain Capital Ventures for its home financing platform, which is totally different from traditional home financing.
Hometap offers debt-free cash in exchange for a share of their home’s future value — all without any monthly payments or interest over the life of the investment. The company makes money when the value of the home goes up. It is definitely a great business model in the current real estate market where prices only go up. It will be interesting to see this startup's performance in the bear market.
New credit score💳 solution for every online and mobile banking platform
SavvyMoney raised $45M for its consumer credit score solution. The startup provides consumer credit reports for more than 700 institutions in the USA.
Interestingly, one of the investors is TransUnion - one of the 3 main credit bureaus in the USA. For consumers, SavvyMoney is entirely free and it allows consumers to access the full credit reports, provide credit monitoring alerts and show the ways users can save money on new and existing loans.
SavvyMoney makes money when the financial institutions integrate SavvyMoney reports into digital banking, adding additional value and functionality to end-users.
Crypto ₿ites
Embedded crypto infrastructure startup raised $6M
Netherlands-based Onramper, allows any online business to allow users to buy cryptocurrencies directly without leaving their website. This is an excellent idea and it was overlooked for a long time, so I’m pretty bullish on this startup.
Via API websites can integrate widget for all fiat<>crypto gateways such as MoonPay, Coinify, etc. Onramper charges a 1% fee + gateway fee.
NFTs🖼️ are getting used in political campaigns
To attract younger supporters, politicians are now launching their NFTs to raise money for the campaign. For example, Blake Masters, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Arizona, sold his supporters limited edition NFTs depicting the cover of his book -- and raised nearly $575,000.
FTX.US raised $400M
One of the youngest billionaires in the world, Sam Bankman-Fried, added an additional $400M of funding to the USA FTX subsidiary. Sam Bankman-Fried net worth is $22.5B and this is what peak performance looks like👇
FTX is a global cryptocurrency derivates exchange and it has more than $10B of transactions per day. FTX.US is a crypto exchange available only to USA residents.
