New week – new closed funding rounds! This week’s funding highlights cover personal finance, AI software, data, security, and many more! Take a look at some major investments of this week.
Cloud cybersecurity provider Wiz joins decacorn club
Cloud cybersecurity provider Wiz has joined the decacorn club after a $400m funding round brings its valuation to $10bn. Lightspeed Venture Partners, a venture capital firm aimed at multi-stage investments in the enterprise, consumer and health sectors, led the round. Other contributions came from existing Wiz backers Greenoaks Capital Partners and Index Ventures. With this new valuation, Wiz claims to be the largest cybersecurity unicorn and fastest SaaS company to achieve a $10bn valuation. Read more
Trade financing platform Marco lands $200m credit facility, $8m equity
Trade financing firm Marco has secured a $200 million credit facility from middle market lender MidCap Financial and asset-based private credit specialist Castlelake. The company has also raised $8.2 million in equity funding in a round led by Arcadia Funds. Marco says the combined funding will support its ambition to “close the $2 trillion global trade finance gap” that falls disproportionately on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The Miami-based firm claims to utilise proprietary risk models that process data in real time to assess risk and mitigate capital loss. The company says it is addressing the issue of providing liquidity and tools for trade-focused SMEs in the US and Latin America, even “during bear market cycles”. Read more
US fintech Finch lands $40m in Series B funding
San Francisco-based fintech start-up Finch has secured $40 million in a Series B funding round co-led by General Catalyst and Menlo Ventures. Additional investments in the round came from QED, PruVen and Altman Capital. According to the start-up, the employment system faces “significant” challenges due to a lack of data accessibility and an ecosystem that “lacks necessary connectivity” with records moved across more than 20,000 employment data systems. Read more
London-based InsurTech Flock nets $38m
Flock, a London-based InsurTech focused on commercial vehicle fleets, has secured $38m in its Series B funding round. Octopus Ventures served as the lead investor, with a commitment also coming from CommerzVentures. Existing investors Social Capital, Dig Ventures, Anthemis and Foresight Ventures also joined the round. With the funds, Flock hopes to expand into new segments of the commercial motor industry, as well as new geographies. Read more
US paytech Pagos lands $34m in Series A funding
US-based digital payments infrastructure firm Pagos has secured $34 million in a Series A funding round led by Arbor Ventures. The round also saw participation from existing investors Point 72 Ventures, Infinity Ventures and Underscore VC, who led the firm’s $10 million seed round in 2021. Founded in 2021, Pagos’ payment intelligence platform helps businesses turn disparate digital payments data into “clear, actionable” insights. The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform helps any company selling or billing online to optimise their payment infrastructure and maximise revenue without making any changes to its existing payments stack. Read more
Metomic raises USD 20 million in a Series A funding round
Data security software provider Metomic has raised USD 20 million in a Series A funding round in order to expand its operations in the US. Apart from expanding in the US, Metomic, which offers a data security solution focused exclusively on SaaS ecosystems, will also invest in research and development initiatives in order to protect sensitive data in SaaS applications. The company will also further develop its AI technology in a bid to ensure safer, more compliant data sharing across collaborative software-as-a-service (SaaS) ecosystems. The Series A funding round was led by Evolution Equity Partners with participation from Resonance and Connect Ventures. Read more
SME cybersecurity firm raises £12.75m
European VC Oxx led the Series B fundraise in CyberSmart, which will use the money to expand commercial operations internationally. CyberSmart, a cybersecurity specialist for SMEs, has closed a £12.75m Series B fundraise. The London-based firm is working to give every business, no matter how small, the tools to protect themselves easily and effectively. The round was led by Oxx, a leading European venture capital firm focused on growth round for SaaS startups. Other investors include British Patient Capital (the commercial subsidiary of the UK government’s British Business Bank), Legal & General Capital and Solano Partners. Read more
DeFi firm Brale scores $11.1m in funding haul
Brale, an Iowa-based firm that claims it enables decentralised and centralised finance to work hand-in-hand, has landed $11.1m in funding. The round was headed by New Enterprise Associates and saw participation from Matthew Prince – co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare – and Albert Wenger, who is the managing partner at USV. NEA’s Scott Sandell joined Brale’s Board of Directors. According to FinSME, Brale enables institutions to create and manage stablecoins on distributed protocols. Integrated natively with popular retail chains, its platform can create new stablecoins or extend an existing private project to additional blockchains. Read more
LegalTech raises £8.75m to scale AI model
London-based Robin AI, the generative AI startup, enables users to draft contracts up to 80% faster, saving up to 75% on legal fees. Robin AI, the generative AI startup, has raised £8.75m ($10.5m) led by Plural, with participation from Episode 1. Other investors in the round include angel investor Tom Blomfield and senior executives across the legal and private equity industries from Bridgepoint, Apollo, Clifford Chance and Barings. Read more
FinTech startup ZIPZERO raises £1m+ in seed funding
Consumer app enables users to receive cash rewards by sharing receipts from their everyday purchases to pay household utility bills. Consumer app ZIPZERO, which helps users monetise the value of their shopping data, has raised more than £1m in seed funding. The funding comes from a diverse pool of angel investors, including serial FinTech investor and founder of Global Processing Services Craig Dewar. Read more
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