🌊The Fintech Wave(#29)
TLDR; New fintech VC fund. Embedded banking platform, ClearBank, raised £175M. Startup solving salary payments💸for migrant workers. Ramp’s competitor💳 raised $180M. Yuga Labs🐒 worth $4B.
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Europe News and Funding
New fintech VC fund
Finleap is the €100M new fintech fund focused on embedded finance, with HQ in Berlin. It will invest in Pre-seed and Seed rounds up to €4M. If you are building an embedded finance startup you can apply for funding on their website.
Embedded banking platform, ClearBank, raised £175M
UK-based fintechs are not slowing with funding rounds. ClearBank is Banking-as-a-Service that allows any business to offer banking services to their customers.
I really love these kinds of solutions because it allows startups to scale and build products faster. For example, it would take years for any fintech startup to get banking licenses and it would cost millions. When doing business through ClearBank, startups can use their license and launch products much faster because ClearBank deals with all regulatories, accounts, payments. I’m really bullish on all fintech infrastructure startups.
Startup solving salary payments💸for migrant workers
Berlin-based Kadmos raised €8.3M for its payroll solution. The startup is focused on payrolls for migrant workers. After looking at their website I have no idea how it works, to be honest. “Pay your migrant workers from one single platform,
no matter where they come from or where they currently are.”
They help companies pay international workers which is fine, but that worker overseas probably already has a bank account. I don’t see any selling point worth €8.3M except that you can track everything in one CRM, but that’s nothing new. If you have time, check their website at let me know what do you think.
Americas News and Funding
Ramp’s competitor💳 raised $180M
Corporate cards and management platforms are having their moment - every week there is a funding round. This week, Jeeves raised $180M at a $2.1B valuation. Looks like there is an investor’s FOMO for corporate spending startups. Corporate spending is a $100 Trillion market, so any company in this space has almost unlimited space for growth.
Jeeves publicly launched less than a year ago and they quadruple its valuation since then. While Ramp is focused on the US market, Jeeves is covering 24 countries in North America, LATAM, UK, and the EU.
Jeeves solution is especially good for traveling - if you use Jeeves card in Germany you can pay it back in EUR, and if you use the same card in the USA you can pay in USD. This is significantly reducing FX costs to businesses.
Also, Jeeves offers revenue-based financing up to $100K within 24h. Great offer for startups that don’t want to raise money from investors and give up more equity.
Crypto ₿ites
Yuga Labs🐒 raised $450M
Creators of the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club raised $450M at a $4B valuation. Of course, the round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, which has been investing heavily in the Web3 space. The company will build its own metaverse project called “Otherside”.
The financials of Yuga Labs are fascinating - in 2021 company made $137M with 95% margin. I don’t think there are many other businesses with this kind of margin. Most of the money is made by taking the cut of the transaction each time their NFT is sold.
In case you want to deep dive into why this could be a $100B company, check their pitch deck HERE.
