Andreessen Horowitz completed one of the largest fundraising campaigns in VC Friday - a whopping $9B raise to invest across its various funds.
Invoice financing platform, BillFront, has secured $35 million in financing from a Series A funding round which included 4Finance, NIBC Bank and FinLeap; BillFront offers a working capital solution to media companies; uses advanced technology to evaluate a company's invoices for financing approval; the firm will use the new capital for company expansion and continued development of its technology. Source
HSBC looks to become the first major UK based bank to comply with open banking; the bank plans to launch a new app that centralizes information about customers’ accounts; the current plan is set for release in the first week of May and the app will be named Connected Money; HSBC’s UK head of retail banking and wealth management Stuart Haire said the new challenger banks have been have been making progress on customer insight; there is still healthy skepticism about how fast open banking will catch on as incumbents have been slow to comply. Source.
SumUp has raised a €590 million funding round that gives the company an enterprise value of €8 billion following a decade of rapid growth and global expansion.
Another busy news week in fintech with Apple causing quite a stir on the BNPL front. We also had big news from PayPal, the U.S. Senate, Custodia Bank, Checkout.com and more.
CEO Norris Koppel says it’s part of a broader push into credit and lending.
The UK's Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) has the potential to significantly change banking for consumers with access to open APIs; the article notes that banks that have only done the minimum to comply with PSD2 may run into issues if we ever see a PSD3; fully embracing PSD2 may save headaches for banks down the road; the trend of open APIs and data sharing is likely to make its way to the US; Japan is also leading the way in this area having explored domestic ACH on blockchain. Source
SEMA — which stands for Sports, Entertainment, Music and Arts — offers those in the sports and entertainment industries concierge financial services.
Alfa Finance Group has launched a new P2P lender in Latvia called DoFinance; the platform is available in all EU and EEA countries and will focus on consumer loans; it has over 150,000 registered clients and has originated over EUR16 million ($17 million) in loans. Source
To be onboarded to the platform, creators simply apply for access here to undergo Klarna's validation process.