Consolidation ran through the day’s stories: Bilt agreed to buy sports loyalty platform LAVA for $300M, UMB signed for California’s El Dorado Savings Bank at about $506M, and Fourthline and Veridas closed their identity-verification merger. On the funding side, Hoxton Wealth took its first outside capital since 2018, a $135M commitment from Aspirity Partners, and Krungsri Finnovate joined Amity’s Series D. Grey won Nigerian central bank approval for inbound transfers.

The lead

Fourthline and Veridas complete their merger to create a European identity and fraud prevention group

What is new: Fourthline and Veridas closed their merger on 3 November, after announcing the agreement on 16 July.

Veridas · M&A

Why it matters

Two identity-verification vendors serving neobanks such as Revolut and N26 now sit in one company, so fintechs buying KYC face fewer independent suppliers and a larger one with an €85M ARR target.

Coverage note: our round capture increased in September 2026, so the Index currently overstates market activity.

Our news

• Sequoia Capital closes its London office and will cover Europe from the Bay Area — Sequoia Capital is closing its London office, and several people will leave the firm.

Venture capital

• Grey secures CBN approval to operate as an international money transfer operator in Nigeria — Grey, a cross-border payments company backed by Y Combinator, has received approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria to operate as an international money…

Grey · Payments

• UMB Financial agrees to buy El Dorado Savings Bank for about $506M — UMB Financial, based in Kansas City, Missouri, has agreed to acquire El Dorado Savings Bank, a federal savings bank in Placerville, California, founded in…

El Dorado Savings Bank · M&A

• Bilt acquires sports loyalty platform LAVA in a $300M deal — Bilt has acquired LAVA in a deal valued at $300 million.

Bilt · Payments

The rounds

10 today · 37 in the last 7 days

Company · Round · Lead investor · Amount

• Hoxton Wealth · strategic minority investment · Aspirity Partners I · $135M

• Krungsri Finnovate · Series D · EDBI · $100M

• Pliant · Unnamed round · Seaya Nova · $80M

• Lazarus AI · Unnamed round · — · $43M

• Guava · Pre-seed · Acrew Capital · $12.5M

• mamun · Seed · — · $3M

• Blue Skies Space · fund commitment · British Business Bank · £2M

• Crediflow AI · Seed · NPIF II – PXN Equity Finance · £1.5M

• Amity · Series D extension · — · Undisclosed

Quick hits

Payments

• US Toast added about 8,500 net new locations in the third quarter to roughly 189,000, with annual recurring run-rate up 24% to $2.5B, and said it will defend itself against the FTC lawsuit. — PYMNTS

Builders Fintech Funding Index

Number of the day 143.4 · This week 30 rounds · Baseline 20.9

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7,141 companies · 7,540 investors · 9,967 rounds

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5 rounds · $69M disclosed (USD rounds) · largest: Latitude $35M · 36 rounds in the last 7 days · Builders Fintech Funding Index 143.4 (W44, provisional)

Tokenisation ran through the day’s stories: tZERO plans to list through a $350M SPAC deal, Securitize extended its onchain stock offering to 25 equities, Mastercard signed an MoU with Tencent’s TenPay Global and OKX took its stablecoin card to most US states. Elsewhere, OpenAI’s funding target was cut to up to $20B and Mercado Bitcoin paused withdrawals after a drain of more than $40M.

Why it matters: A tokenisation specialist with ICE as an investor is heading to NYSE American, giving public markets a listed way to track onchain securities infrastructure alongside Securitize.

The lead: tZERO to go public through a $350M SPAC deal with FG Imperii Acquisition Corp

Rounds

• Latitude raises $35M Series A — led by Oak HC/FT, with NEA, Coinbase Ventures, Lightspeed Faction, OpenFX and Wilson Sonsini

• MetaComp raises $22M Pre-A — Singapore; led by Eastern Bell Capital, with Noah, Sky9 Capital, Freshwave Fund and Beingboom Capital

• LO:TECH raises $12M Series A — London-based capital markets firm; led by MMC

• Conlio raises €6.4M undisclosed — Berlin-based; led by Piton Capital, the London venture firm

• PropHub raises a strategic venture round, amount undisclosed — Brazil

Funds and debt

• Norrsken Evolve — €62M Pre-seed fund (final close)

• Evertrue Capital — $17M Fund I (final close)

• Robin Capital — €15M Fund II (final close)

News

• Revolut registered as a bank in New Zealand, its seventh banking licence and the first digital bank in the country — The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has registered Revolut as a bank.

• Mercado Bitcoin halts withdrawals after more than $40M is drained from its wallets — Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin suspended deposits and withdrawals on 2 November after wallets tied to the platform were drained across at least 10 blockchains.

• Securitize expands its onchain US stock offering to 25 equities — Securitize has added 13 US equities to Securitize Stocks, bringing the offering to 25 since the first wave launched on 8 October.

• OKX brings its Mastercard stablecoin card to most US states — OKX has launched its Mastercard-powered virtual OKX Card in most US states and select territories, letting eligible customers spend stablecoins anywhere Mastercard is accepted.

• Mastercard and Tencent’s TenPay Global sign an MoU on QR acceptance, remittances and agentic payments — Mastercard and Tencent’s TenPay Global have signed a memorandum of understanding for a proposed collaboration, announced on 2 November.

• OpenAI cuts its funding target to up to $20B at a $1.25T valuation, FT reports — OpenAI is now seeking up to $20 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation, about a third less than the earlier $30 billion target, the Financial Times reported.

• Abu Dhabi’s FSRA grants Animoca Brands a fund management permission — The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market has granted a Financial Services Permission to Animoca Asset Management (AD) Limited, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands.

• Novastart announcement — Novastart Lets 10 AI Agents Use a Computer at the Same Time — Without Taking Over Your Mouse

Quick hits

• CIBC signed a multi-year deal to run its Canadian retail core on Thought Machine’s Vault Core, with The Simplii Account the first product live on the platform. (Source)

• Chainalysis said an attacker accessed non-sensitive customer data including user IDs, full names, email addresses and role labels, and that the incident is unrelated to the Binance theft. (Source)

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The FTC and eight states sued Toast over fees and cancellation terms, the ECB picked Nexi and Deutsche Telekom to connect the digital euro platform, and Bahrain’s Mumtalakat and ARP Group proposed an AI-native wholesale bank with in-principle central bank approval. On the deal side, an LTVCo-led group bought card decline recovery firm Kipp and Toss’s parent agreed to buy Japan’s CHEER Securities.

The lead: FTC and eight states sue Toast over hidden fees, hard-to-cancel contracts and 24/7 support claims

Why it matters: The suit tests whether payments software vendors can bundle hardware, subscriptions and lending while keeping cancellation terms opaque, a risk for any fintech selling recurring contracts to small businesses.

Rounds:

• Kalshi raises $40B

• Disruptive raises $10B Flagship Fund

• Aven raises $304.2M asset-backed securities

• AP Ventures raises $300M Fund III (final close)

• Settle raises $100M debt facility

• B&Y Venture Partners raises $60M Fund III (close)

• Phase raises $45M

• Ravical raises $17M Seed

• Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company (AIUC) raises $15M Seed

• Luzern Risk raises $12M Series A

• Velocity (stablecoin infrastructure) raises $10M Pre-seed

• Northstar Security raises $7M Seed

News:

• Mastercard reports $9.8B Q3 net revenue, up 14%, with value-added services up 19%

• Toss Global agrees to buy CHEER Securities from Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings

• LTVCo-led investor group acquires card decline recovery platform Kipp

• Mumtalakat and ARP Group partner to set up an AI-native wholesale bank in Bahrain

• ECB selects Nexi and Deutsche Telekom as a digital euro network provider under a ten-year contract

• Finfra raises a Series A extension from ADB Ventures, the first investment of the NextFin Asia fund

• CoverGo raises $6M in first close of Series B1 led by Betatron Venture Group

• Uber pilots a 24/7 tokenized treasury with HSBC, Franklin Templeton, Tradeweb and Fireblocks

Quick hits:

• Thunes and UnionPay International enabled instant payouts to UnionPay cards in mainland China across 79 banks, with a limit of $10,000 per recipient cardholder per day. (Source)

• DCS DeCard became a Mastercard issuer in Hong Kong and launched DeCard Business Account, a platform for USD-funded corporate cards and company spend management for mid-market and enterprise firms. (Source)

• Apollo will take a minority stake in Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Capital, with Apollo and other strategic investors planning to commit a combined $5 billion at the initial close; closing is expected in the fourth quarter. (Source)

Full edition on the site: https://buildersinfintech.ai/daily/2026-11-02

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