BlackFin Tech weekly — July 18th
Dear Fintech folks, we hope you all had a great week and are enjoying the incredibly great weather! Fintech and Insurtech Investments aren’t showing signs of slowing down and we have 2 Unicorns who raised!
Last week, €1,344m was raised across 22 deals. BNPL Unicorn Klarna raised a €761m Venture round cutting their valuation to $6.7bn from $45.6bn, followed by Wefox which raised a €380m Series D with a combination of debt & equity, and finally congratulations to Smart who raised a €46m Growth round.
This week the United Kingdom is on top again with 6 deals, followed closely by Germany with 5 deals, France, Sweden and Switzerland both with 2 deals, and Finland, Belgium, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands each generated one deal.
Subsector-wise, Investment banking contributed the most deals with 5 out of 22, Wealth Management, Banktech and Payments each contributed 4 deals, Insurtech contributed 3 deals and finally Crypto contributed 2 deals.
Let’s Dive in:
Klarna raised €761m :
- The Swedish BNPL Unicorn raised a €761m venture round that saw participation from Silver Lake, Sequoia Capital, Mubadala, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, CPP IB, and Bestseller Group alongside both Co-founders of Klarna Sebastian Siemiatkowski & Johens Jacobsson and Niklas Adalberth ( General Partner at Norrsken VC).
- The latest funding round saw Klarna’s valuation drop almost $39 billion from last year when it raised a $639m round at a $45.6 billion valuation led by Japanese firm Softbank. The news comes amid a global market downturn, where Klarna’s public peers are down 75% to 90%. In May the company announced that it had laid off 10% of its global workforce, citing market constraints.
- Despite these challenges, Klarna not only saw investments from existing shareholders but new entrants Mubadala and the Canada Pension Plan Investment board.
Wefox raised €380m:
- The Berlin-based Insurtech raised a €380m Series D with a combination of Debt and Equity in a round that saw their Post-money valuation rise to $4.5 billion. The Round was led by Mubadala Investment Company with participation from Eurazeo, LGT, Horizons Ventures, OMERS Ventures and Target Global.
- Founded in 2015, Wefox is a full-stack digital insurance company that sells various insurance products through a combination of in-house and external brokers, bypassing the direct-to-consumer model most insurtech competitors adopt. This model has meant that Wefox generated $200m in revenues in the first four months of 2022.
- Wefox says it intends to use the fresh capital for further product development and to expand across Europe, followed by Asia and the US.
Smart raised €46m:
- The British Pension savings platform raised €46m in growth financing from CIBC Innovation Banking a Venture debt fund.
- Founded in 2014, Smart is a savings and Investments platform, aiming to make the pension auto-enrolment and administration process simpler for businesses and their employees. The platform delivers retirement savings and income solutions tailored to the user's needs. Smart operates in the UK, the USA, Europe, Australia and the middle east.
- The funding will be used to expand its market growth, accelerate the launch of strategic products and undertake acquisitions.
Congrats also to Kadmos, Lightyear, Element, Morpho Labs, Stableton, Oper, Hero, Li.Finance, Fido, Penny, Lilo, Ride Capital, Quartr, Invedor, Zazuu, Carbon Equity, Fuell, Calingo Insurance and Credabill on their respective rounds.
And here is the news from the last week that caught our eye:
- Crypto VC Investments drop 26% in the First half of 2022, in a period hit by cryptocurrency price drops, the collapse of the Luna Terra stablecoin and the liquidity crises faced by many crypto firms including lender Celsius and Crypto Hedge fund Three arrows capital, the article by Coindesk discusses the drop in VC investments in the space.
- Stripe is the latest Fintech to falter, taking a 28% internal valuation cut, The payment processor was last valued at $95billion, but has since seen the internal value of its shares decrease by 28% and comes from a 409A price change.
