SME neobanks funding bonanza 🤯🤑; Wise shares tank on an analyst note 😬; Ditching the US, European FinTechs are turning to LatAm 👀
Good Morning FinTech, January 12
Good day Everyone,
And happy Wednesday! I hope you’re enjoying your week as much as I do. To make it better, here’s a mix of 3 super interesting & hot FinTech stories I’ve prepared for you today:
SME neobanks funding bonanza 🤯🤑
Overwhelming news 🗞 We know that the FinTech funding has been on steroids for quite a while, but it hasn’t seen this much heat in a single day… Especially, in the SME banking space.
I’m talking here about Novo, KoinWorks, Qonto, and Brex. All of them have topped up their bank accounts recently and lifted their valuations by quite a bit. Let’s take a brief look at each of them.
Novo. Novo, a digital-only bank for US small businesses, has hit a $700M valuation off the back of a $90M Series B funding round led by growth equity firm Stripes. Launched in 2018, Novo now services more than 150k SMEs, providing access to a free paperless business checking account with debit card access, all managed through a mobile app. Last year the firm added an app marketplace, invoicing, cash flow insight tools, and the ability to add up to five Reserves to their accounts.
KoinWorks. The Indonesia-based financial platform for SMEs has raised $108M in Series C funding led by MDI Ventures. KoinWorks was originally created to help SMEs, which are often turned away by traditional financial institutions, get access to working capital. Since then, it has also developed a comprehensive platform of financial tools to help its customers, including e-commerce vendors and social commerce sellers, increase their sales. The startup says its user base tripled to 1.5M customers since they launched, and a waitlist of 100k SMEs that are being onboarded onto its new financial software.
Qonto. France-based FinTech upstart Qonto has raised a $552M Series D funding round, reaching a valuation of $5B. Founded in 2016m, Qonto is a challenger bank focused on business bank accounts. The startup focuses primarily on small and medium companies as well as freelancers. It currently operates in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. With 220,000 clients, Qonto still plans to grow at a rapid pace in the coming years.
Brex. In the last FinTech mega round, Brex has confirmed that it has raised $300M in a Series D-2 round that ups its valuation to $12.3B. TechCrunch in October was the first to report that Brex was raising the capital and had achieved decacorn status. Greenoaks Capital and TCV co-led the financing, which brings the three-year-old San Francisco startup’s total raised to $1.2B. The company offers business bank accounts with credit cards that have built-in rewards, spend controls, and expense tracking. The accounts give businesses early access to their online revenue, billpay tools, and integration with popular accounting tools – all with zero fees. The company serves “tens of thousands of businesses” ranging from small private companies to large public brands, including Airbnb and Classpass.
4 FinTechs and about $1 billion raised. What does this tell us? Here’s the takeaway👇🏼