Fintech Delio secures $8.3 million growth funding led by Octopus Ventures to connect private markets on a global scale 

Delio has raised a further $8.3m to enable financial institutions of all sizes to create greater investor access to alternative assets such as private equity, private debt, and real estate. The fintech, which digitizes the private markets strategies of leading banks, wealth managers, and other financial firms, received backing from Octopus Ventures, one of Europe’s most active venture capital investors. Additional investment from early-backers Maven Capital Partners brings the total equity funding raised by Delio to $15.5m.

Sure Valley Ventures launches £95 million the UK software venture capital fund with £50 investment from the British Business Bank’s enterprise capital fund programme

Sure Valley Ventures, the founder-led Venture Capital (VC) firm that invests in high growth software companies in sectors such as the Metaverse, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Cybersecurity, announced that it has completed an £85m first close of a £95m UK software technology fund. This includes a cornerstone £50m investment from the British Business Bank through its Enterprise Capital Funds (ECF) program, which aims to increase the supply of equity capital to high-potential, early-stage UK companies.

KYB “category creator” Detected raises $1.5 million in 4^th funding round

Today, Detected, the critical infrastructure component for global KYB compliance, announces it has raised an additional £1.5 million in just three weeks, adding to £2 million seeded in previous funding rounds. Since being founded in July 2020, Detected has grown significantly following three other successful funding rounds and a string of successful partnerships, including with VISA, stemming from its value in the payments stack. This funding round was led by Love Ventures with their FinTech Advisor John Lunn, a renowned veteran of the FinTech world. In 2006 John joined PayPal as one of the original team members in the UK and subsequently helped to launch PayPal Ventures. He is now CEO of Gr4vy, the cloud orchestration platform, and will play an advisory role to assist with the company’s growth.

BKwai raises £2.2 million in seed funding led by Octopus Ventures to drive data-driven infrastructure and construction

BKwai, a construction data company that helps engineers develop smarter, more sustainable built infrastructure,  announces it has received £2.2m in Seed funding. The round was led by Octopus Ventures, one of Europe’s largest and most active early-stage investors, with participation from Deeptech Labs and Cambridge Enterprise (the investment arm of the University of Cambridge). Global infrastructure in many countries is ageing and performing beyond its design life and intended capacity. It is an industry that has 2-8% profit margins and is going through a period of rapid digitization in the UK

nSure.AI real-time fraud prevention intelligence platform raises $18 million series A to revolutionize business in the virtual economy

nSure.ai, the world’s first fully automated chargeback guarantee platform, raised $18 million in Series A funding, led by MoreTech Ventures with additional investments by seed-round participants, including DisruptiveAI, Gryffin Ventures, and Moneta Seeds. The funding will allow the company to extend anti-fraud, chargeback-free guarantees while meeting the growing demand from various sectors who are lacking a sufficient fraud prevention system. As online marketplaces boom, fraudsters are taking advantage of outdated fraud-prevention systems that weren’t developed to manage the sales of FinTech products, crypto, NFTs, and other virtual goods.

Winklevoss Twins and Global Decacorn invest in $29 million series A of Singapore-based fintech Volopay as it prepares APAC and MENA expansion

Volopay, a Y Combinator-backed Singapore-based corporate cards, and payable management startup have successfully raised US$29 million in its Series A round through a mix of equity and debt. The investment round included participation from JAM Fund, Winklevoss Capital Management, Rapyd Ventures, Accial Capital, fintech veteran, and angel investor Jeffrey Cruttenden - CEO of Acorns along with Access Ventures, Antler Global, and VentureSouq. The strategic investment from leading blue-chip investors will fuel Volopay's foray into the APAC and MENA markets to tackle two of the most pressing problems that SMEs and startups face - high Forex (FX) charges incurred for international payments and the lack of a uniform platform to access all spend data. 

Crypto Asset Management Firm Babel Finance leads $2 million seed round for Custonomy to develop MPC Crypro Asset Custody solutions 

Custonomy, an award-winning digital asset custody service firm, has completed a seed round of US$2 million. Crypto Asset Management Firm Babel Finance, a prominent worldwide crypto financial services provider, led the seed funding round. Custonomy's next phase of expansion will be fueled by seed money. The funds will be used to further the company's ground-breaking, institutional-grade, ultra-secure corporate management systems for crypto asset management using multi-party computation technology (MPC). The emphasis will be on assisting businesses in providing best-in-class security solutions to protect crypto assets from cyber theft.

Payhawk becomes first-ever Bulgarian Unicorn after raising $100 million in A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, valuing the company at $1 billion 

Jayhawk, the payment and expense solution with offices in London, Sofia, Berlin, and Barcelona, has raisedan additional $100m to extend its Series B round to $215m. The Series B extension means that the company hits a valuation of $1bn, making Payhawk the first-ever Bulgarian company to achieve unicorn status. The company plans to become a catalyst for the Bulgarian startup ecosystem and continue to attract and retain the top 1% of talent in the market. Lightspeed Venture Partners -- a leading global venture capital firm with over $10.5bn under management and prior investments in companies like Affirm, Grafana, Faire, FTX, Personio, Snap, and others -- leads the funding extension, with Sprints Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, HubSpot Ventures, and Jigsaw VC also joining the round.

CommerzVentures closes €300 million third fund

CommerzVentures, the specialist fintech investor, announce their third €300m fund. The fund will go towards supporting early and growth-stage companies in the fintech and insurtech sectors, as well as the emerging Climate FinTech space, building on their position as Europe’s foremost VC in this space. The latest fund, which saw Commerzbank return as the sole LP, brings their combined total fund size to €550m. CommerzVentures’ third fund follows on from their first €100m fund, launched in 2014, and their second €150m fund in 2019, as well as successful investments in 28 companies to date.

Social investing app Shares raises $40 million in a Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures

After securing $40 million in Series A funding, London-based social and investing startup Shares is launchingits app. Series A was led by Peter Theil's Valar Ventures and brings Shares' total funding to $50 million in just nine months. Having built up a 60,000-strong waitlist, Shares is now available for Brits to download via the Apple Store and Google Play, promising to bring all the features users would expect from a social media app with a simple investment product. When buying or selling, users can share their views on the investment they are making with their close circles by sharing captions and GIFs.