Deals and Dollars: French digital business bank raises $554 million

This week saw a funding round of more than $550 million for a commercial digital banking provider, as well as a $120 million round for a Swiss-licensed cryptocurrency assets trade and custody services provider. Meanwhile, Toronto-based small business invoice funding fintech FundThrough announced a strategic acquisition of certain BlueVine business and personnel. Qonto Paris-based digital business bank Qonto this week raised $554 million in a series D funding round, catapulting its valuation to $5 billion. The company has now raised a total of $702.8 million in five rounds, according to Crunchbase. Launched in 2017, Qonto targets small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) as well as freelancers and the self-employed, automating the switch from traditional bank accounts and rolling in administrative and accounting functionality. The company will use the funding to accelerate European growth and is targeting 1 million SME and individual users within three years, compared with its current approximately 220,000 users in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Qonto noted it plans to invest $114 million in the latter three markets by 2024, and will pursue partnerships and acquisitions to build out its offerings. The bank said it will also increase its total headcount to 2,000 from 500 by 2025, with half of the new hires expected to be outside France. SEBA Bank Cryptocurrency assets banking platform SEBA Bank this week completed a "significantly oversubscribed" $120 million series C funding round. The Switzerland-based company provides trade and custody services for digital assets along with conventional securities. Founded in 2018, SEBA has raised a total of $245.6 million over three funding rounds, according to Crunchbase. The platform will use the funding to add to its headcount and expand into new markets, according to a release. SEBA noted it now operates in 25 markets and has focused on growth in the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. Setting it apart from other players in the space, SEBA noted it obtained the first Swiss institutional license to "custody collective investment schemes for digital assets." Boosted.ai Machine learning-driven investment platform provider Boosted.ai this week closed a $35 million series B funding round that included Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and others, bringing its total funding to $44.4 million in three rounds, according to Crunchbase. The Toronto-based company increased its revenue by 250% last year and will use the funding to double its headcount, according to a release. Portfolio managers use the platform to augment investment processes, source new ideas and manage risk, the company said. Boosted.ai was founded in 2017 and noted it has 40 asset management clients, including hedge funds and exchange-traded fund providers who manage asset totals between $10 million and $1 trillion. The company’s investor RBC is one of those clients. FundThrough acquires BlueVine's invoice factoring business Eyeing a bigger share of the approximately $4 trillion North American small- to large-business sales transactions market, invoice purchasing platform provider FundThrough this week announced its acquisition of a similar business segment of BlueVine , including that portion of BlueVine's personnel. Much of the Redwood, Calif.-based Bluevine's business is unsecured small and midsize business loans; that isn't part of the acquisition. FundThrough said it processes more than $120 million in invoice totals each month, with 80% of that business in the U.S. The deal will more than double the number of funding transactions it processes annually and double its U.S. client base, Deepak Ramachandran, chief technology officer of FundThrough, told Bank Automation News . [caption id="attachment_220893" align="alignright" width="450"] FundThrough's artificial intelligence (AI)-driven invoice funding service is embedded in accounting and accounts receivable-accounts payable software.[/caption] Founded in 2014, FundThrough calls itself "extremely cash efficient" since it has raised only $25 million since its inception. The company's business is mostly purchasing small business invoices in the $10,000-$10,000,000 range, Ramachandran said, while the BlueVine segment it's acquiring does much of its invoice factoring business in the middle of that range. There's little customer overlap between the two companies, he said. Centris deploys Scienaptic credit decisioning Omaha, Neb.-based Centris Federal Credit Union has selected the artificial intelligence-powered credit decision platform Scienaptic to enhance the $988 million credit union's underwriting capabilities by automating credit decisions, according to both companies. The Scienaptic platform will "enhance [members'] experience, reduce loan decisioning time, automate lending processes and minimize our risk while doing so," Rick Pratt, chief credit and risk officer of Centris, said in a release. New York-based Scienaptic was founded in 2014 and has raised a total of $9 million in four funding rounds, according to Crunchbase. Deals and Dollars is a weekly Bank Automation News column that features fintech funding rounds and the technology dealings of financial institutions. Submissions may be sent for consideration to editorial@royalmedia.com . Bank Automation Summit, taking place March 1-2 in Charlotte, is the first and only event to focus solely on automation in banking. The event will feature the brightest minds from across financial services on intelligent automation strategies and deployment. Learn more and register here for Bank Automation Summit 2022 .

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Deals and Dollars: French digital business bank raises $554 million

Swiss crypto assets banking platform pulls in $120 million

Listen: Weekly Wrap discusses findings in Microsoft Frontline Worker survey

‘DeFi’ decentralization promise is an illusion, BIS chief says

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