Welcome to this edition of the weekly newsletter. The idea behind this is to gather all the information in the startup ecosystem in one place, with a special focus on the fintech market and the VC industry.
Builders is back with Season 3! In this episode, I sit down with Ashish Aggarwal , partner at PayPal Ventures. You can find the full episode here on YouTube, or here on Spotify and here on Apple Podcast.
Ashish started his career in IBM in India, but quickly moved to banking, specifically to Citi first, and then moving to London working at Deutsche Bank , with a focus on investment banking and of course fintech.
He joined PayPal Ventures in 2017 in the corporate finance team at first, moving then to the corporate venture of the US payment giant, investing globally with focus on AI, B2B SaaS, and fintech, at the Series A and B stages. Over time, he took care of multiple deals in fintech, from Paymob to Tink, from Aspire to Pliant, but also Tabby | تابي and Raisin. He currently sits as an observer on the board of Paymob, Stitch, PPRO, Codat, Pliant, Tabby, Mintoak, Single Interface.
With him, we talked about the journey from bankers to VC, the multiple deals he backed over time, his take on the fintech market today and the main trends he is expecting to see shaping the market in the upcoming future.
Coming back to us, I’ve been reading a very interesting study this week, the “Identity fraud report 2025-2026” from Sumsub. This is a very interesting study on how AI impacted on the world of frauds and KYC, with the rise and growth of fraud-as-a-service platforms that are directly impacting financial services all over the world. Here my main takeaways:
Identity fraud in 2025 varies sharply by sector. Online media retains one of the highest rates at 6.3%, driven by fake accounts, impersonation, and monetization scams, including a Tbilisi deepfake scheme that defrauded over 6,000 victims of £27 million. Dating platforms also record 6.3%, as romance scams evolve through AI-generated personas and deepfake selfies that accelerate emotional manipulation and off-platform requests.
Financial services show a lower 2.7% rate, down 2% year-over-year, yet face increasingly sophisticated synthetic identities that build credibility over time. The Boston Fed warned in April 2025 that generative AI is amplifying this threat.
In 2025, payment methods became the most fraud-exposed artifact, reaching a 6.6% rate and overtaking ID cards. This shift reflects a move from identity documents, often used as an entry point, toward financial rails where stolen card data, fake funding sources, and manipulated credentials enable direct monetization. Fraud-as-a-service kits amplify this trend by providing ready-made payment data and scripts. At the same time, AI-generated forgeries are rising: 2% of detected fake documents were produced with tools such as ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini, a small but rapidly growing share that has climbed steadily since April 2025.
First-party fraud occurs when individuals use their own real or fabricated data to deceive financial or digital platforms. Synthetic identities are becoming more complex and networked, supported by AI-generated documents and videos that strengthen credibility. Chargeback abuse remains a major cost driver as customers reverse payments after receiving goods, increasingly automated and paired with other schemes.
Application fraud is shifting toward higher-value products, using polished fake data to overcome tighter credit conditions. Deepfakes are evolving into real-time interactive tools capable of passing liveness checks. Money-mule activity is becoming more structured, mixing synthetic identities with mule accounts, with accounts selling for US$40–100.
Anyway we saw a lot of interesting news this week. Elon Musk announced X Money as part of X new messaging platform, Nubank is negotiating a naming deal on Inter Miami CF new stadium, Klarna introduces TapToPay in 14 european markets and Revolut launched Street Mode in the UK. But also, Stripe acquired Metronome, Rain acquired Fern Money, Kraken acquired Backed Finance AG and N26 integrated Wero. In the VC ecosystem new funds from Jolt Capital, Indico Capital Partners, Expedition Growth Capital, but also 6 Degrees Capital, Incore Invest and Propeller. In the Italian ecosystem we saw Bending Spoons acquiring Eventbrite for $500M and Pack raising a $5.8M series A. And finally, some very interesting founding rounds from fintech startups like Sokin, Nevis, Bitstack, Zazu, Renno, Finfactor, Ecair and many others.
But let’s take a closer look at the main news of the last seven days.
Rounds
Sokin raises $50M Series B as valuation climbs to $300M and revenue doubles
Auxilo Finserve Private Limited secures ₹225 Crore to scale student lending and institutional financing across India
MDR | Mercado de Recebíveis raises R$150M through proprietary FIDC as TPV climbs to R$1 Billion
Nevis emerges from stealth with $40M backing from Sequoia Capital, ICONIQ and Ribbit Capital to build AI for Wealth Management
Bitstack raises $15M Series A to accelerate bitcoin savings across Europe
Finfactor secures $15M Series A to expand Its full-stack BFSI technology platform
Kalshi raises $1B Series E reaching $11B valuation as prediction markets go mainstream
Zazu raises $1M Pre-Seed to build a Pan-African digital banking platform for SMEs
Renno launches with €1M Pre-Seed to reinvent payment infrastructure for Europe’s €850B renovation market
Shop Circle secures $100M credit facility to scale its AI-led acquisition platform
Alinia AI raises $7.5M Seed round to build real-time AI compliance infrastructure for finance
Ecair raises €11M to scale financing infrastructure for Europe’s energy transition
Creditas raises US$108M Series G as Brazil banking license deal closes
Nada Inc. raises $10M Series A to expand home equity investment platform
PayJoy secures $140M debt facility from Neuberger Berman to accelerate global expansion
PineAI raises $25M Series A to scale its autonomous AI agent for consumer chore automation
Flex raises $60M Series B to build an AI-native financial platform for mid-market business owners
Kamino raises $10M to scale AI-driven finance platform for mid-market CFOs
Fin raises $17M Series A to launch stablecoin-powered platform for high-value global payments
VC funds
Jolt Capital secures €600M first close for Deeptech Fund V
Indico Capital Partners launches €125M Fund to back southern Europe’s deep tech and AI startups
Expedition Growth Capital closes $375M fund to scale bootstrapped European SaaS leaders
6 Degrees Capital raises €154M Fund to accelerate early-stage enterprise, AI and fintech investments
Incore Invest secures €15M second closing, bringing Invest II to €40M for SaaS and fintech growth
Propeller launches $50M fund III to back AI infrastructure and AI-native software
ISAI reaches first closing of €75M for ISAI Venture IV to back early-stage french tech and AI startups
News on the market
Elon Musk reveals X Money as part of last messaging upgrade for the platform
Morocco has now its first fintech IPO, with CASHPLUS securing MAD 750M IPO subscription
Wise secures South African licence in first expansion to the African continent
HSBC signs agreement with Mistral AI to deploy foundational models across global operations
Nubank is negotiating $190M naming rights deal for Inter Miami CF’s new stadium
Sony Bank partners with Bastion to launch USD-backed stablecoin for global entertainment payments
Klarna introduces Tap to Pay across 14 European markets to expand in-store payments strategy
Revolut introduces “Street Mode” in the UK to counter rising phone snatching and transfer mugging
Stripe to acquire Metronome to expand its monetization infrastructure
Rain acquires Fern Money to build a unified global stablecoin infrastructure
Kraken acquires Backed Finance AG to accelerate global expansion of tokenized equities
BANCOMAT and Visa launch pilot to extend BANCOMAT Pay through Visa’s global network
Amazon and Flipkart expand into consumer lending as India’s credit market reaches $212B
N26 partners with EPI Company to integrate instant payments network Wero
MrBeast prepares entry in fintech with new “MrBeast Financial” platform
Italian market
Bending Spoons to acquire Eventbrite for $500M in all-cash deal
Pack raises €5.8M Series A to scale its AI-native people development platform across Europe
And here some useful resources for everyone involved in the ecosystem:
Events you don’t want to miss
FIBE | Berlin - 15th-16th April 2026 (Link here)
You have a cool event you want to mention or to sponsor? Feel free to send me a DM.
New funds
I recently spoke with Yotam Rosenbaum, one of the more active YC investors you’ve probably never heard of. Over the past few years he’s invested in more than 400 YC-backed startups, and earlier this year he launched a new fund, First Peak Ventures, built around a simple but increasingly relevant insight: if you want meaningful YC exposure today, you can’t start at Demo Day, you have to start before Demo Day.
For readers who follow YC closely, First Peak is a fund worth keeping an eye on. If you want to take a look at what they do, you can do so here.
Take also a look at the last edition of the newsletter, Weekly update #109.