“£197bn of retail sales, or almost half of the UK’s annual retail sales in goods and services, are insurable. Amazon alone makes almost £1bn in insurance revenue, and most UK SMEs have never been offered the opportunity to distribute insurance.
Bolt Cover exists to help retailer make incremental revenue and customer LTV through embedded insurance, which projects to grow 25% per year through 2028 (Munich Re, 2023), especially in the UK market which is growing 8% per year (Statista, 2023)”
This week we feature a Q&A with Jamie Hamer of BoltCover: embedded insurance revenue engine for (online) retailers.
Deal Highlights
Here are the early stage financing rounds and new funds to watch this week:
Revenew offers an all-in-one solution for digital platforms and marketplaces (e.g. Amazon, Uber, AirBnB, Fiverr or Deliveroo) to help manage their payments, optimise their margins, streamline business operations, and improve the end-to-end customer experience driving growth and retention.
SatLayer allows users to earn rewards on their BTC by staking and liquid restaking. Similar to actively validated services, dApps and other providers on SaltLayer offer users the opportunity to lock their BTC for yield.
Swiss early stage VC Redalpine has closed its seventh fund of $200m — its largest early stage fund to date — and has opened a new office in London. The VC will write cheques of between €1-6m into 15-20 startups across AI, software, biotech, food, fintech, healthcare and energy.
Read on for more on the founders and investors in the news last week. If you are a startup, investor or corporate building or backing “what’s next in finance” and want to spread the word with our network of over 20k, reach out to Frank Schwab and Samarth Shekhar.
Q&A with Jamie Hamer of BoltCover: embedded insurance revenue engine for retailers
1. Tell us a bit about yourself / your co-founder(s)
I am a commercial entrepreneur with a significant exit (React News, now Europe’s largest paid commercial real estate news service). Tori Hutchinson worked with me there as an operational lead, and Richie Smith came onboard as a tech supplier who chose to invest into the business, work with us full-time and offer us engineering (and now full-time engineering employees) at cost.
Scaling Enterprise FinTech: with Samuel Falmagne of Akur8
This interview is part of the Scaling B2B FinTech series, launched in partnership with SixThirty Ventures.
1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your company.
I’m Samuel, CEO of Akur8. I started my career at IBM, where I spent 15 years in various international sales and sales management positions before joining Insurtech Shift Technology as Head of Sales. At Shift, I drove the internationalization of the company, including in the US. After 2 years at Shift, I decided to take on a genuine entrepreneurial adventure and joined Guillaume, our Chief Actuary, and co-founded Akur8.
Akur8 is a cloud-based B2B Insurtech, automating the rate-making process thanks to proprietary algorithms powered by Transparent-AI, while enabling to retain complete control over the process and the output.
http://www.fintechforum.de/scaling-enterprise-fintech-with-samuel-falmagne-of-akur8/
FINANCING ROUNDS
Peregrine Exploration raises $3.6 million from Polychain, Dragonfly for restaking-focused stablecoin protocol Level
Blockchain development and research company Peregrine Exploration raised $3.6 million in a funding round co-led by Polychain Capital and Dragonfly to develop a stablecoin protocol called Level.
Robot Ventures, Pier Two, EIV and Global Coin Research participated in the round, according to a press release. Angel investors Balaji Srinivasan, Jeff Feng, Julian Koh, Sidney Powell and others were also involved.
Level aims to be the first stablecoin protocol backed by restaked dollar tokens. These tokens are formed when someone stakes a dollar-denominated token (such as USDC or USDT) on a restaking protocol like EigenLayer in order to earn restaking yield. This yield is generated from the tokens being used to provide security for other blockchains. The Level platforms performs this restaking on the user’s behalf when they mint its stablecoin using other stablecoins.
EigenLayer, Symbiotic and Karak have all said they will support the use of any token for providing economic security, including dollar tokens, the press release noted.
Peregrine Exploration claims the project’s stablecoin will be launched in closed beta “in the coming weeks.” Its goal is to allow users to mint Level USD, earning Level XP points and yield from decentralized lending platform Aave on dollar-backed stablecoins such as USDT and USDC.
https://www.theblock.co/post/313461/peregrine-exploration-polychain-dragonfly-stablecoin-level
Lead investors: Polychain Capital and Dragonfly
Polychain Capital
Polychain invests in protocols and companies in the blockchain space, advancing the global adoption of cryptocurrencies.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/polychain-capital/about/
Dragonfly
A cross-border crypto venture fund. Global from day one.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/dragonfly-capital-partners/
Linker Finance Secures $3.7M Seed Round from Industry Leading Investors to Reimagine Digital Banking Solutions for Community Banks
PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Linker Finance, a platform that empowers community banks to take back control of their digital banking experience through a secure and holistic mobile and online digital banking platform, has successfully raised $3.7m in seed financing. The round is led by Ten One Ten Ventures and Chingona Ventures.
Additional participants included investments from Audaz Capital, Techstars, Commerce Ventures, Bank of Brodhead, and Angeles Investors, with support from angel investors including Edrizio de la Cruz, Ahmed Mirza, Michael Olson, and Roberto Medrano.
Jorge Garcia founded Linker Finance after experiencing firsthand the challenges of using community banks’ digital banking services while expanding one of his ventures. Despite the critical role community banks play in the U.S. economy — funding 80% of agriculture and 60% of small businesses — they struggle to compete with larger financial institutions and fintech companies in the technology aspect.
Lead investors: Ten One Ten Ventures and Chingona Ventures.
Ten One Ten Ventures
TenOneTen Ventures is a Los Angeles based early stage venture capital firm. We invest in entrepreneurs that apply data and technology to disrupt existing industries, or create new categories entirely.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/tenoneten-ventures/about/
Chingona Ventures
Investing in the next generation of badass founders.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/chingona-ventures/
Lux Capital made its first investment in Brazil, a $4M seed for AI fintech Magie
Brazil fintech Magie raised $4 million in a seed round led by Lux Capital, marking the firm’s first investment in Brazil. The company, which has raised $5.1 million in total, is creating an AI-powered financial assistant. The current product allows people to send money and pay bills through WhatsApp.
For co-founder Luiz Ramalho and Lux partner Brandon Reeves, Magie is a broader bet on Brazil’s burgeoning fintech scene, which has been fueled by the massive success of Nubank, the Brazilian neobank that had a blockbuster IPO in 2021.
Reeves, who’s been at the forefront of many of Lux’s international investments — particularly Sakana AI, the firm’s first Japanese bet — said he saw firsthand how quickly Brazilians were “generally early adopters of new financial products” on a recent trip to São Paulo.
He cited Pix, an instant payments platform that the country’s central bank rolled out in 2020; by 2023, almost 42 billion payments were sent using Pix, exceeding credit and debit charges combined, according to Abecs, a Brazilian association for financial services.
Lead investor: Lux Capital
Lux Capital is a venture capital firm investing in emerging science and technology at the outermost edges of what is possible. They partner with iconoclastic inventors who challenge the status quo and the laws of nature to bring their futuristic ideas to life. Over the past two decades, Lux has expanded from its New York City roots to Silicon Valley, and built a $5+ billion AUM firm of more than 30 full-time professionals, with a wide spectrum of technical backgrounds and the versatility to invest at any stage.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/lux-capital/
Revenew Emerges From Stealth With $4.55 Million Funding
Revenew, the new growth partner for the platform economy, has today announced it has secured $4.55 million in funding, following the success of its recent Seed round.
The raise was led by Fika Ventures, who invest in companies that leverage the power of data as a core component of their value proposition, and joined by Dash Fund and TTV Capital. The funding propels Revenew out of ‘stealth mode’ and is a testament to the conviction of these investors in the fintech company’s mission, team, and technology.
The infusion of capital also fuels Revenew’s mission to transform the platform economy by providing the clarity, control, and community needed to ensure platform businesses can prosper and grow.
At its core, Revenew is a growth partner for digital platforms and marketplaces. These are companies with complex business models like Amazon, Uber, AirBnB and often specific verticals like Fiverr or Deliveroo. Revenew offers an all-in-one solution to help such businesses manage their payments, optimise their margins, streamline business operations, and improve the end-to-end customer experience driving growth and retention. It does this through tools designed to provide new levels of visibility and control – such as detailed insights into payment profitability, automated reconciliation of PSP and payment network fees, and the ability to identify and help eliminate loss-making payments.
Revenew’s products and services work alongside existing payment service providers (PSPs) to establish profitable payment revenue streams, unlock new business opportunities, and understand the full lifecycle of a customer so they can grow. In other words, Revenew empowers their customers to master complexity and seize opportunities across their payments and business operations. Moreover, they can prosper with a data-driven strategy and sophisticated tools that turn typically tight margins into growth opportunities.
https://ffnews.com/newsarticle/funding/revenew-emerges-from-stealth-with-4-55-million-funding/
Lead investor: Fika Ventures
Fika Ventures is a Los Angeles based early-stage venture capital firm started in 2016 with over ~$350M in AUM. In 7 years, we’ve invested in transformative companies across enterprise/AI (BuildOps, Specright, Siro, Edge Impulse), fintech (Papaya, Pipe, Payabli), marketplaces (Upwards, Chowbus, Atticus), and health tech (Zentist, Noyo).
https://www.linkedin.com/company/fika-ventures/
Base DeFi protocol BSX raises $6.2 million ahead of token launch
BSX Exchange, a DeFi derivatives protocol built on the Ethereum ETH -1.33% Layer 2 network Base, has raised $6.2 million in pre-seed and seed funding rounds.
The latest seed round, worth $4 million, was led by Blockchain Capital, BSX said Wednesday. The pre-seed round, which raised $2.2 million a year ago, is being announced together with the seed round, BSX added.
Investors across the two rounds include Bankless Ventures, No Limit Holdings, Cadenza Ventures, Breed VC and Arthur Hayes’ family office Maelstrom. Its angel investors include Coinbase head of listings Zach Segal, Delphi founder Tommy Shaughnessy and CoinFund investor Isaiah Washington.
BSX is a decentralized derivatives trading platform on Base focused on crypto perpetuals. Since launching in April, BSX says it has facilitated over $4 billion in trading volume and recently crossed the $1 million revenue mark. With fresh funding in place, BSX plans to expand beyond derivatives trading.
The team plans to launch a spot aggregator next month, Henry said, adding that earn and staking products are also in the pipeline and set to launch in the coming months.
“BSX Earn includes a borrowing and lending protocol where traders can access capital to trade on Base and BSX,” Henry said. “The second product is BSX Vaults, which will allow traders to earn rewards by depositing funds into automatically managed trading vaults.”
https://www.theblock.co/post/312432/base-defi-protocol-bsx-funding-token-launch
Lead investor: Blockchain Capital
Blockchain Capital was founded in 2013 with the mission of helping entrepreneurs build world-class companies and projects based on blockchain technology – providing founders with the tools they need to succeed: capital, domain expertise, partnerships, recruiting and strategy. Blockchain Capital is one of the earliest and most active venture investors in the blockchain industry and has partnered with some of the best founders in crypto since its inception. The company invests in both equity and crypto assets and is a multi-stage investor. Blockchain Capital believes that blockchain technology holds the promise to disrupt legacy businesses and create whole new markets and business models, and invests in founders who want to leverage blockchain technology to change the world in profound ways.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockchain-capital-llc/
BTC re-staking platform SaötLayer secures $8m in pre-seed funding
SaltLayer, a Bitcoin-powered restaking platform built on the Babylon staking protocol, has completed an $8 million pre-seed funding round.
According to an announcement posted on X on Aug. 22, the Bitcoin btc-0.58%Bitcoin restaking platform received backing from several crypto-focused venture capital firms. Castle Island Ventures and web3 venture capital firm Hack VC co-led the pre-seed round. The protocol will use the financing to bring its restaking product to the growing Bitcoin market.
SatLayer allows users to earn rewards on their BTC by staking and liquid restaking. Babylon, which recently secured $70 million in a funding round led by Paradigm, powers the ecosystem. The platform allows proof-of-stake systems, including layer-2 chains, rollups, oracles and data availability layers, to leverage BTC in staking.
With SaltLayer, any decentralized application or infrastructure provider can join as Bitcoin Validated Services. Similar to actively validated services, dApps and other providers on SaltLayer offer users the opportunity to lock their BTC for yield.
…
Other venture capital firms that backed SaltLayer’s pre-seed round include Franklin Templeton Digital Assets, OKX Ventures, and Mirana Ventures.
https://crypto.news/btc-re-staking-platform-satlayer-secures-8m-in-pre-seed-funding/
Lead investor: Castle Island Ventures and Hack VC
Castle Island Ventures
Public blockchain and cryptoasset venture firm located in Boston, Massachusetts.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/castle-island-ventures/about/
Hack VC
Hack VC is a web3 venture capital firm. We partner on- and off-chain with hackers building the future of the internet.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/hackvc/
Amazon invests $20 million in Indian BNPL firm Axio
Indian buy now, pay later firm Axio has landed a $20 million equity investment from Amazon’s Smbhav Venture Fund.
Formed from a merger of Capital Float, Walnut and Walnut369. Axio enables e-commerce storefront to embed credit financing and money management tools at the checkout.
The firm, which claims nine million credit customers and 3000 merchants, provides the backbone for pay later services for Amazon in India, offering shoppers payment terms of between three and 12 months.
Axio co-founders, Sashank Rishyasringa and Gaurav Hinduja state: “This investment will enable us to further scale our loan book, enhance our checkout finance offering, and expand credit offerings to existing customers.”
“By combining product innovation with robust underwriting and risk controls, we aim to unlock access to credit for the next 200 million customers across India.”
Since its inception in 2013, Axio has raised $671 million in debt and $137 million in equity from a host of big name investors, including Creation, Elevation, Ribbit Capital, Sequoia and lightrock.
https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/44641/amazon-invests-20-million-in-indian-bnpl-firm-axio
Fast-growing immigrant-focused neobank Comun has secured $21.5M in new funding just months after its last raise
Comun, a digital bank focused on serving immigrants in the United States, has raised $21.5 million in a Series A funding round less than nine months after announcing a $4.5 million raise, TechCrunch is the first to report.
This is a crowded space, filled with a number of startups, including Tanda, Bloom Money, Majority, Welcome Tech, Maza and Pillar. So the fact that Comun was able to raise capital in back-to-back rounds in such a short amount of time is notable. PitchBook estimated its previous valuation, after its last raise, to be $62 million. CEO and co-founder Andres Santos said PitchBook’s valuation was “inaccurate” and that the company’s current valuation “has increased by more than 50%.”
The New York-based startup’s traction is what drew investors to double down. Comun grew monthly revenue by “50x” in the first six months of 2024, according to Santos. While that growth implies that its initial revenue was low, it does show a fast rate of adoption. He also said the company has grown in users and increased revenue per user by about 4x since the start of the year after launching new products.
Santos and his co-founder Abiel Gutierrez started Comun in late 2021 after facing financial exclusion in the U.S. when they migrated from Mexico. They set out to offer digital banking services, including instant payments and cash withdrawal at numerous locations, check deposits and early paychecks, to Latino immigrants.
…
Comun doesn’t charge fees for opening an account, and has no minimum balance, monthly or membership fees. It makes money from interchange fees and remittance fees, as well as interest on deposits and fees for facilitating instant transactions. However, it’s working to reduce its dependence on interchange revenue.
…
Redpoint Ventures led the startup’s Series A raise, which included participation from ANIMO Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, FJ Labs, RTP Global and South Park Commons.
nOps lands $30M to optimize AWS customers’ cloud spend
Companies don’t necessarily have to produce breakthrough technology to gain market traction. Undercutting rivals on price can be enough to make a dent in a competitive sector. So can leaning on connections to land customers in need of a timely solution to a problem.
A good example of the latter is nOps. Like countless other vendors, nOps sells software designed to “optimize” the budgets that businesses allocate to cloud products and services. But the firm has managed to expand faster — and bigger — than many of its rivals, perhaps in part because it serves AWS customers exclusively.
The company claims that its customer base grew 450% over the past 18 months and that it’s helping clients manage more than $1.5 billion in AWS cloud spend. That’s evidently impressed investors; this month, nOps closed a $30 million Series A funding round led by PE firm Headlight Partners, which brought nOps’ total raised to $40.5 million.
JT Giri, the founder and CEO of nOps, got his start in the cloud industry as a network engineer and DevOps consultant. In 2012, he decided to take those skills and co-found a consulting company, nClouds, focused on AWS solutions. In 2017, nOps launched as a spin-out from nClouds, and after Charles Thayne Capital acquired nClouds in 2022, Giri turned his attention to nOps full-time.
“There’s a growing issue in the cloud space,” Giri told TechCrunch. “As companies tighten budgets ahead of fiscal 2025 planning, a solution providing a comprehensive, automated view of cloud costs is critical.”
To Giri’s point, efficient cloud usage remains an aspiration, not a reality, for many companies, particularly as companies invest more in cloud-hosted AI projects. (Gartner projects that spending on cloud services will reach $675.4 billion in 2024, up from $561 billion in 2023.) In a 2024 Statista survey, 84% of organizations said that they found managing cloud spend to be a “significant” challenge thanks to blockers around governance, security and tech expertise….
Giri said, “nOps uses AI and machine learning to analyze compute needs and automatically optimize for efficiency, reliability and cost. For most of its products, nOps has a unique and flexible pricing structure where it doesn’t get paid until the client saves money; nOps receives a percentage of the cost saved.”
https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/27/nops-lands-30m-to-optimize-aws-customers-cloud-spend/
Bridge Fundraising for Stablecoin-Based Payments Network Totals $58M
Bridge, founded by Square and Coinbase alumni, recently raised $40 million in a round led by Sequoia and Ribbit.
Crypto startup Bridge, which wants to build a global stablecoin-based payments networks, recently raised $40 million in fresh funding, taking the total raised to $58 million, Fortune reported Friday.
The startup, which was founded by Square and Coinbase alumni Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, aims to “enable companies to use a stablecoin rail without thinking about it,” Abrams said in an interview, according to the report.
Stablecoins are crypto tokens pegged to the value of a traditional financial asset such as a fiat currency, usually the U.S. dollar. Building stablecoin provision into a business allows companies to dip a toe into the crypto economy without dealing with the volatility that can afflict bitcoin (BTC) and other tokens. However, they then face the challenge of linking to traditional financial systems and facilitating transfers across different tokens and blockchains.
Bridge, whose customers include SpaceX and Coinbase, aspires to become a Web3 version of payments processor Stripe, operating as a global payments system into which other developers can integrate seamlessly. Earlier this year, Stripe itself said it planned to add crypto payments through Circle’s USDC stablecoin.
Bridge did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for further comment.
N26-backer Redalpine closes seventh fund of $200m
The Swiss early stage VC has opened a new London office in a bid to “follow the deal flow”
Swiss early stage VC Redalpine has closed its seventh fund of $200m — its largest early stage fund to date — and has opened a new office in London.
The VC will write cheques of between €1-6m into 15-20 startups across AI, software, biotech, food, fintech, healthcare and energy. 50% of the fund will be reserved for follow-ons.
Since its founding in 2006, Redalpine has invested in 100 companies: including neobank N26, BNPL startup Klarna, tax-filing platform TaxFix and gen AI startup Mistral. The firm says its net annual returns to investors across all its active funds over the last 10 years is around 25% (the top quartile of VC funds between 2010 and 2020 had an average annual return ranging from 15-27%, according to research by Cambridge Associates.)
on.
https://sifted.eu/articles/redalpine-closes-seventh-fund-of-200m-news