For this funding piece, we take a further leap into the online payments sector, cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, retail banks, AI, digital insurance, blockchain. Find out the latest names and the trends they set this week. Enjoy the selected materials! 

Klarna Raises $639M (€527M) in Funding; Valued at $45.6 Billion (€37.6Bn)(Finextra)

Klarna (Stockholm, Sweden), a global payments provider, retail bank, and shopping service, raised USD$639m (€527M) in equity funding. The round, which post-money valued Klarna at USD 45.6 billion, was led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 with participation from existing investors Adit Ventures, Honeycomb Asset Management and WestCap Group, Karna’s other investors include Sequoia Capital, SilverLake, Dragoneer, Permira, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Bestseller Group, Ant Group, Northzone, GIC – Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund – as well as funds and accounts managed by BlackRock and HMI. The company intends to use the funds for international expansion and global retail growth. Read more

MicroStrategy has raised $500 million (€412M) (Forbes)

MicroStrategy (Tysons Corner, VA, USA), a business analytic firm which owns more bitcoin than any other corporation in the world, has raised $500 million (€412M) in bonds to acquire more of the world’s largest cryptocurrency. MicroStrategy shares surged nearly 15% after the announcement, lifting year-to-date gains to nearly 40%. The company has yet to disclose when it will buy more bitcoin, but as of Monday morning, it owns about 92,079 tokens, worth nearly $3.8 billion (€3.14Bn). Read more

Advent invests $430 million (€354M) in Brazil payments firm Ebanx (Reuters)

Advent International (Boston, Massachusetts, USA), a global private equity investor, is investing $430 million (€354M) in the Brazilian payments company Ebanx, financing its growth in Latin America ahead of an initial public offering planned for the coming months. The company plans to use the proceeds from acquisitions to further expand operations in countries such as Mexico, Colombia and Argentina. Advent is also buying a stake from Ebanx’s existing investors.The companies did not disclose Ebanx’s valuation or the size of the minority stake acquired by Advent. Read more

Ledger lands $380 million (€313M) Series C (The Block)

Ledger (Paris, France), a producer of crypto hardware wallets, has closed a $380 million (€313M) Series C fundraise valuing the startup at more than $1.5 billion (€1.24Bn). The renowned macro investor Dan Tapiero led the raise. The proceeds of the Series C raise will go towards product innovation, with plans to give users access to new transactional services. Ledger is also planning to expand its enterprise capabilities and invest in upgrading its operating system. Read more

AI startup Eightfold valued at $2.1B (€1.7Bn) in SoftBank-led $220M (€181M) funding (Techcrunch)

Eightfold AI (Mountain View, CA, USA), a startup which uses deep learning and artificial intelligence to help companies find, recruit and retain workers, has raised $220 million (€181M) in a new round. The latest round brings the startup’s all-time raise to over $410 million (€338M). Eightfold will deploy the fresh capital to accelerate its expansion efforts and invest in hiring more data scientists and engineers. Read more

10x, a UK fintech, raises $187M (€154M)(Techcrunch)

10x Future Technologies (London, UK), a fintech company that helps larger, established banks build both next-generation services as well as tools to help their older services work more efficiently, has raised $187 million (€154M). 10x will be using the funds both to expand into new geographies like North America, as well as to continue building more technology for its flagship platform. Read more

Embroker secures $100m (€82M) Series C (Fintech Global)

Embroker (San Francisco, CA, USA), a digital insurance company, has raised $100m (€82M) from a Series C funding round led by FTV Capital. The round also saw participation from HSCM Bermuda, Gaingels, Tola Capital, Bee Partners, Canaan Partners and MassMutual Ventures. Embroker said it plans to use the new funding to expand the firm into a ‘full-stack InsurTech’ by building its own insurance carrier. Read more

Nesto has raised $76 million CAD (€51M) in Series B (Betakit.com)

Nesto (Monstreal, Canada), a mortgage management platform, has raised $76 million CAD (€51M) in Series B financing as it looks to simplify the mortgage buying process for more Canadians. The round was led by Michael Rowell and Michael Paulus of insurtech company Assurance IQ, which was sold to Prudential Financial in 2019. Two Power Corp-backed firms also participated in the round, Toronto’s Portage Ventures and Montréal’s Diagram Ventures. As did Breyer Capital, Marc Alloul and other undisclosed strategic investors. With the new capital, the company aims to build on its recent growth by expanding its team and bolstering its investments in new technology. Read more

Immersive Labs Raises $75M (€62M) in Series C Funding (Finextra)

Immersive Labs (Boston, MA, USA), a provider of a platform for organizations to measure and improve cybersecurity skills across technical and non-technical teams, closed $75m (€62M) Series C funding round. The round was led by new investors Insight Partners alongside Menlo Ventures, Citi Ventures and existing investor Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The company intends to use the funds to expand its international presence, tripling global headcount to 600 over the next two years and establishing operations in new regions throughout APAC and Europe. Read more

Bitwise Asset Management Closes $70M (€58M) Series B, Valued at More Than $500M (€412M)  (Finextra)

Bitwise Asset Management (San Francisco, CA, USA), a cryptocurrency index fund manager, completed a $70m Series B funding round. The round was led by CEO Hunter Horsley. The company, currently profitable, expects to use the funds to strengthen its balance sheet and accelerate the national buildout of its organization, team and product suite. Read more

Recorded Future Launches The Intelligence Fund (Finextra)

Recorded Future (Boston, MA, USA), a provider of intelligence for enterprise security, launched The Intelligence Fund, a dedicated pool of $20m (€16.5M). To date, the fund has invested in two companies including: Gemini Advisory, a fraud intelligence platform with a unique view into the state of the payment card and merchant fraud, preventing fraud, on average, up to 24 days before it occurs; and SecurityTrails, a provider of comprehensive domain and IP address intelligence for third-party risk assessment, attack surface reduction, and threat hunting. Read more

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