Fintech

United Kingdom-based neobank Monzo has had quite the bittersweet year. The company’s full-year financial results for 2022 paint a picture of a business that’s growing rapidly, though at the cost of sticky, large losses. However, it’s not all bad news: Monzo has been cash-flow posi

Vartana, a business-to-business (B2B) sales closing and financing platform, today announced that it raised $20 mlion in a Series B funding round led by Activant Capital with participation from Mayfield and Audacious Ventures. The financing, which brings Vartana’s total raised to $39 mlion, wl

We still see regular updates on the calamitous fallout of the 2020 collapse of Wirecard, the now-insolvent fintech out of Germany that had built an elaborate house of cards on false accounting and murky business. Meanwhile, some of the assets from that operation, now under new ownership, appear to

Last year wasn’t an easy one for European fintech giant Klarna. The company saw its valuation being truncated in an $800 million funding round, and coverage of its 2022 results focused on contrasting its stiff losses against a more conservative market. This column argued at the time of its ea

Earlier this month, we noticed that several popular American fintech companies were seeing rapid revenue growth thanks to high interest rates. Basically, interest-driven revenue was helping offset declines in consumer trading activity at Coinbase and Robinhood as people pulled back from active trad

Mexican fintech company Kapital grabbed a fresh round of capital, $20 million in Series A and $45 million in a debt facility, less than a year after securing a $8.6 million seed round. The company, founded by Rene Saul and Fernando Sandoval in 2020, got started after the pair sold their previous bu

Anne Boden nearly lost a grip on Starling Bank years ago when the neobank was in the middle of a coup effort led by its CTO, but now it looks like Boden is doing the walking away. The outspoken founder of Starling Bank — which was last valued at over $3 billion, is profitable and has 3.6 mill

For all the talk about emerging markets and their similarities, moves involving African startups expanding to Latin America are rare. Only two significant activities come to mind recently: Migo's expansion to Brazil and Paga's planned move to Mexico, their respective second markets outside

Austin, Texas–based Episode Six, a payments and banking infrastructure provider, today announced that it raised $48 million in a Series C funding round led by Avenir with participation from Anthos Capital. In an email, CEO John Mitchell said that the tranche will be used to expand Episode Six

QED Investors today announced the closing of two new funds totaling $925 million, capital that it will be using to back early-stage financial technology startups, as well as growth rounds for later stage companies. Specifically, today QED is announcing an “oversubscribed” $650 million early-sta

South African digital banking platform TymeBank has raised $77.8 million in a pre-Series C round led by African-focused growth-stage fund Norrsken22 and Swiss global impact investment firm Blue Earth Capital. TymeBank expects to close its Series C round later this year, it said in a statement. Tenc

Venmo announced today that it’s introducing teen accounts, allowing parents and legal guardians to open a Venmo account for their teenagers so they can send and receive money. The account, which has no monthly fees, also comes with a Venmo Teen Debit Card. Each Venmo Teen Account is connected

Sabi, a Lagos-based B2B e-commerce startup providing digital commerce infrastructure to Africa's informal economy, has raised $38 million in Series B funding at a valuation of $300 million, according to two people familiar with the matter, signaling revived investor interest in a B2B e-commerce

Step, the digital banking service geared toward teens and young adults, is now offering a 5% rate on its savings accounts. With just one in three Americans having adequate savings for emergencies, Step is among dozens of startups, like Current, Greenlight, Super.com and Hyve, focused on helping