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.
No episode of Builders has been released this week, but you can always recover the last one where I sit down with Ken Villum Klausen , CEO and founder of Lunar. You can find the full episodes here on YouTube, or here on Spotify and here on Apple Podcast.
Ken Villum Klausen is a Danish entrepreneur and fintech founder best known as the Founder and CEO of Lunar, a digital banking platform he launched in 2015 that recently raised $46M. Based in Copenhagen, he has spent more than a decade building Lunar with the ambition of rethinking banking from the ground up, focusing on transparency, simplicity, and technology driven user experiences.
Prior to Lunar, he founded and led Wallmob, a mobile commerce company that was later acquired by Visma, and previously held leadership roles at digital agency Inzeit. Earlier in his career, he worked for nearly five years at Bestseller, progressing from sales roles to Brand Manager and International Retail Manager. His background spans retail, e-commerce, online advertising, and financial technology.
Klausen has been recognised with several awards, including Berlingske Business Talent 100 and Founder of the Year in 2019, reflecting his influence on the Nordic fintech ecosystem and his role in challenging traditional banking models.
Coming back to us, this week I’ve been reading a very interesting report called “Stablecoin utility report 2026”, by BVNK in collaboration with Coinbase, YouGov and Artemis. The study involved a survey with more than 4,658 adults aged 18+ years across 15 countries, with all respondents either currently holding cryptocurrency including stablecoins in the last 12 months, or intend to acquire cryptocurrency including stablecoins in the next 12 months. Here my main takeaways:
Half of stablecoin holders have increased their positions over the past 12 months, with 49% reporting higher balances. Only 30% maintained the same level, while 15 percent reduced their holdings and 7% were unsure, resulting in a net 55% reporting some change. This momentum is recent, as 51% of crypto owners acquired stablecoins for the first time within the last two years, rising to 57% across Latin America, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa.
Forward demand remains strong. Among current crypto or stablecoin holders, 56% plan to acquire more stablecoins in the next year. Among non holders, 13% intend to enter the market, with intent twice as high in low and middle income economies compared to high income markets. Africa records the highest ownership rate at 79% and the strongest future intent at 76%. High income economies are catching up, with 48% expressing plans to own stablecoins.
Stablecoin ownership is concentrated among younger, entrepreneurial users and is increasingly global. More than half of current holders and prospective buyers are aged 18 to 34, while 41 percent fall between 35 and 44. Only a small share is over 55. Around six in ten current or recent owners are men, yet the gap narrows in low and middle income economies, where the split stands at 43 to 57, and in Africa it is nearly even at 51 to 49.
Income profile plays a decisive role. Those earning through business, entrepreneurship or active trading show the highest ownership and intent. Business owners and entrepreneurs account for 38% of current or recent holders, while 34 percent cite investments as their main income source. Freelancers, gig workers and online sellers are also well represented.
Macroeconomic context matters significantly. In low and middle income economies, 85% say their country’s economic situation influences their use of stablecoins and crypto, rising to 92% in Africa.
When it comes to managing stablecoins and crypto assets, exchange platforms remain the preferred option across markets. Overall, 46% of users choose exchanges as their primary method for managing stablecoins, making them the leading channel in both high income and low to middle income economies.
That said, users in low and middle income markets show a slightly stronger preference for alternative solutions such as payment apps with crypto features and mobile crypto wallet apps. Payment apps account for 23% of preferences overall, while mobile wallet apps represent 20%. Apps offered by a main banking provider or fintech attract 28% of users. Hardware wallets remain more niche, selected by 13% globally.
Only a small minority report no preference or select other options. Despite the growing diversity of access points, centralized exchange platforms continue to dominate as the primary infrastructure for stablecoin management worldwide.
Personal banking and fintech apps are well positioned to integrate stablecoin services, provided they move decisively. Across all markets, 77% of respondents say they would be likely to open a crypto or stablecoin wallet within their existing banking or fintech app, with 42% very likely and 35% quite likely.
The opportunity is even stronger in low and middle income economies, where net likelihood reaches 83 percent, including 51% who are very likely to adopt such a feature. Africa stands out, with 91% indicating they would likely open a cryptocurrency wallet through their personal banking app.
In high income economies, 67% say they are likely to do so, while 18% remain undecided and may require additional information before committing. Overall, the data suggests substantial latent demand for integrated crypto wallets within mainstream financial apps, offering banks and fintechs a clear strategic opening.
But let’s take a closer look at the main news of the last seven days. Klarna posted the first $1B revenue quarter, Revolut released a fast track product in Japan, Stripe owned Bridge secured a conditional approval for a US national trust bank and eBay released pay by bank in the UK with TrueLayer. But also, BLIK is considering going public, Visa made two acquisitions to expand in Argentina, Philippine fintech Maya is looking to go public at $1B valuation, and MESH partners with Adyen to scale UK and EU operations. Lots of new funds this week, Quantonation closed a $220M fund, OSS Ventures a first $40M closing for its new $75M fund and Thrive Capital $10B for its new Thrive X fund on AI. And finally, some very interesting funding rounds from fintech startups like Endl, Sphinx, Lupiya, Vestwell, Stable Money, Copla, Stacks and many others.
Let’s take a closer look:
Rounds
Indian fintech IDfy secures $53M series F to scale digital trust and compliance platform
Endl secures $1.5M pre seed to expand global payments infrastructure
Birch Hill Holdings secures $2.5M pre seed to build institutional onchain credit infrastructure
MADFU | مدفوع raises $25.5M to scale sharia compliant BNPL across Saudi Arabia
Didero raises $30M series A to deploy AI agents across enterprise procurement
Contents raises €5.9M, establishes Doha hub to scale enterprise AI workflows
Lupiya secures $11.25M Series A to scale digital banking across southern africa
Sphinx raises $7.1M seed to reinvent compliance operations for banks and fintechs
CASHIN | كاشـن secures SAR 60M Series A to digitize Saudi Arabia’s fuel infrastructure
Emirates NBD leads $31M investment in real estate platform Stake
Otto Money raises $1.3M pre seed to build AI wealth guidance for retail investors
Tether.io backs Dreamcash Inc to expand USDT0 perpetual markets on Hyperliquid
Rizon raises $2M pre seed to scale Visa powered dollar banking in 122 countries
SpendRule raises $2M to bring AI driven spend control to hospitals
Vestwell raises $385M Series E, doubles valuation to scale $50T savings opportunity
Solvento secures $25M from BBVA Spark to expand logistics liquidity in Mexico
MOGO Kenya secures KSh 800M to expand SME and asset financing
PRED raises $2.5M to build high speed sports prediction exchange on base
Kraken acquires token management platform Magna ahead of IPO
Stable Money secures $25M at $175M valuation to expand fixed income platform
Stacks raises $23M Series A to expand AI for enterprise finance
Copla secures €6M Series A to strengthen real time compliance across Europe
Listo raises $191.5M via FIDC to double down on Brazil’s automotive fintech market
Monark Markets raises $8.1M to build private market rails for retail investors
Jump raises $80M Series B as advisor tech platforms deepen integrations
Quido SRL raises €1.6M pre seed to bring AI into private capital workflows
VC funds
British Business Bank commits up to £45M to Redrice Ventures Fund II
Quantonation closes €220M fund to capitalize on $5B quantum funding boom
OSS Ventures secures €40M first close toward €75M fund to scale industrial software
News on the market
Binance expands Mastercard crypto card to several Commonwealth independent states
Nuveen, a TIAA company to acquire Schroders in £9.9B deal
Clear Street delays Nasdaq IPO after cutting target to $364M
OpenClaw creator 🦄 Peter Steinberger joins OpenAI to advance personal AI agents
Defrancq België becomes first belgian merchant to enable Wero invoice payments
Poland’s BLIK explores IPO at potential $2B valuation
Philippine fintech Maya weighs up to $1B US IPO
Stripe owned Bridge secures conditional approval for US national trust bank
eBay makes a strategic investment in TrueLayer, as they partner to launch pay by bank in the UK
Visa to acquire Prisma Medios de Pago and Newpay to expand payments infrastructure in Argentina
MESH partners with Adyen to scale UK and European operations
Visa and Mastercard advance agentic payments with DBS and Westpac pilots
Klarna posts first $1B revenue quarter as U.S. banking adoption surges
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)
Stablecon EMEA | Amsterdam - 19th-20th May (Link here)
You have a cool event you want to mention or to sponsor? Feel free to send me a DM.
Founders to watch in fintech
I also wanted to start shining a light on the most interesting fintech founders out there, so I thought to start sharing how I look for ideas to invest on. Every week, I will start sharing the most interesting founders in fintech, divided per area.
This week we take a look at the most interesting founders in fintech in Italy.
I usually use Spectre to scout for new ideas, the team is great and they also give me a free account once they learned I was a fan of the product. So if you wanna take a look at it, you can find it here.
New funds
I recently spoke with Marco Scotti from Raspberry Ventures. Thanks to their Y Combinator Alumni network, they unlock access to the top 10% of YC companies for Angel investors. Co-investing up to $3M across 15 - 25 companies in each YC batch, 4 batches a year, before Demo Day; and before the Silicon Valley VCs come in and take allocations in the best companies.
Their next batch YC W26m is closing in the upcoming weeks. You can take a look here if you are interested!
Take also a look at the last edition of the newsletter, Weekly update #119.