Velocity raises $38M to move business money with stablecoins
Velocity raises $38M to move business money with stablecoins

London fintech Velocity has raised a $38 million Series A to help businesses move money with stablecoins. The Velocity Series A, led by Dragonfly and FirstMark, brings the two-year-old company’s total funding to nearly $50 million. Velocity builds trea…

Stripe and Advent offer $60.50 a share for PayPal, valuing it above $53bn
Stripe and Advent offer $60.50 a share for PayPal, valuing it above $53bn

Stripe and Advent International have offered $60.50 a share in cash for PayPal, a bid that values the payments company at more than $53bn and arrives backed by about $50bn in committed financing from banks, according to Reuters. The buyers would hold e…

Kalshi builds a forward curve for computing power as exchanges race to turn GPUs into a tradable commodity
Kalshi builds a forward curve for computing power as exchanges race to turn GPUs into a tradable commodity

Kalshi, the prediction markets exchange, has built a forward curve that tracks the future price of computing power, joining a growing list of exchanges and index operators trying to turn GPU rental costs into a standardised financial instrument. The to…

India’s Udaan secures $160 million in new funding as it races to fix its balance sheet before an IPO
India’s Udaan secures $160 million in new funding as it races to fix its balance sheet before an IPO

Indian B2B ecommerce platform Udaan has secured $160 million in a funding round that combines fresh equity from a new investor, additional debt, and the conversion of existing convertible bonds into equity, according to Bloomberg. Lightspeed Venture Pa…

Flex raises $70m from Ryan Smith’s Halo fund to take its AI private bank global
Flex raises $70m from Ryan Smith’s Halo fund to take its AI private bank global

Six months ago, Flex raised $60m and called it a Series B. On Tuesday it said it had raised another $70m, and rather than move down the alphabet, it settled on a Series B1. The round was led by Halo, the investment firm set up last year by Qualtrics fo…

Moneybox is Europe’s newest unicorn, and it’s testing London’s new private market to prove it
Moneybox is Europe’s newest unicorn, and it’s testing London’s new private market to prove it

Moneybox is Europe’s newest unicorn, worth £800m, or $1.1bn. But no fundraise set that price. Staff did, by selling shares on London’s untested new private market. Moneybox, the British savings and investing app, is now a unicorn. It has put a value of…

Databento raises $97M to take on Bloomberg’s terminal
Databento raises $97M to take on Bloomberg’s terminal

Databento has raised $97M in Series B funding to build what it calls the market data platform for modern finance. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates, with DRW, Redpoint Ventures, and Tribe Capital joining. The company announced the raise on…

ECB tells Europe’s big banks to plan for AI cyber threats
ECB tells Europe’s big banks to plan for AI cyber threats

Europe’s banking regulator has a new fear: an AI model clever enough to break into the financial system. It wants every big bank to have a plan by October. The European Central Bank has a warning for the euro area’s largest banks. Frontier AI now poses…

Axos buys AI fintech Arc Technologies to bolt modern software onto a bank
Axos buys AI fintech Arc Technologies to bolt modern software onto a bank

Axos is buying Arc Technologies, an AI-native fintech that banks tech startups, and bolting its software onto a chartered bank. Axos Financial, a US digital bank with about $29bn in assets, has agreed to acquire Arc Technologies, the company announced….

Karina Portugal: learning to ask the right question
Karina Portugal: learning to ask the right question

Ten years ago, Karina Portugal was at advertising festivals like Cannes Lions, discussing campaigns and branding. Today, she sits across the table from some of the largest banks in Brazil, Europe, and the United States to discuss a much harder problem …