BlackFin Tech Weekly — September 14th
Hi Fintech enthusiasts,
It’s been quite a week! After a few calm weeks during the summer, deal announcements have definitely started again! This is especially true for French fintechs coming in strong this week!
€160m+ were raised across 8 deals last week! One of our portfolio companies, Descartes Underwriting, closed a nice $18.5m Series A, 18 months after we led their Seed round. We reinvested, and Cathay Innovation and Serena joined in! The insurtech startup works with (re)insurers and brokers in order to offer innovative and tech-based insurance products. Congratulations to the whole team! To understand why we reinvested, go read our article!
Geography-wise, this week France had the most deals, with 4 companies announcing funding rounds. Next on the podium was the UK; with two deals. There was also one Dutch and one Estonian deal: Mercuryo.io.
Let’s dive in:
This week on show:
Mollie closes a huge Series B of €90m, with the company now valued at $1bn+:
- The fintech was founded in 2004, is based in Amsterdam, and has now 300 employees. It provides an API to integrate payments inside a website or app for e-merchants;
- Between April and June, the number of customers grew by 200%: the fintech now has over 100 000 clients;
- The round was led by TCV;
- The funds will be used for international expansion and product development;
- This is only the second time that the company is raising, having previously closed a €25m Series A in 2019.
BIMA raises $30m:
- The insurtech based in London provides life and health insurance policies, along with telemedicine via a mobile platform. They target emerging markets and focus on underserved families. For 75% of its customers, they are accessing insurance services for the first time;
- The company provides 35 million health insurance life insurance policies, having grown its customer base by 11 million over the past 2 years;
- BIMA is now active in 11 countries (Ghana, Tanzania and Senegal in Africa; and Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines and Sri Lanka in Asia);
- The round was led by CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund, with existing investors LeapFrog Investments and Allianz X also joining in;
- The new funds will be used to expand its product offering, scale its capabilities, and consolidate its presence in Asia and Africa.
Congratulations also to Yomoni, SumSub, reciTAL and New Deal!
//And what else?
- Have a look on our medium article about our investment in Hypatos!
- Have a look at our Linkedin page to have some insights about our portfolio their recruitment, our events and the activity of the team!
- And if you wish to receive BlackFin Tech posts straight into your inbox and stay updated, click here and if you just want to browse our website to get to know us better, head over to blackfin-tech.com!
- Stay safe, stay masked!
