Deals in brief

London-based startup Weavr has secured $40m in a Series A round. It will use the funding to expand its embedded finance offering to the States and across Europe. The startup is vying for a slice of a market expected to be worth $138bn by 2026. 

Venture capital giant Tiger Global led the round. It has been named as one of the three leading tech unicorn investors in the world by GlobalData and has previously invested in the likes of creator platform Patreon, UK challenger bank Revolut and British fintech decacorn Checkout.com. 

Mubadala Capital, LocalGlobe, QED Investors, Anthemis and Seedcamp also backed Weavr’s Series A. The cash injection brings the grand total raised by the embedded finance startup to $55m.

Beyond Identity has secured a $100m Series C funding round, but it’s not the only cybersecurity startup raising money at the moment; a wave of digital defence providers have been securing record cash injections during the pandemic. The identity and access management market will be worth $24.76bn by 2026, according to Fortune Business Insights. 

Beyond Identity’s new raise sees the grand total invested into the company jump to $205m. Evolution Equity Partners led the round, following the closure of the venture capital firm’s second $400m cybersecurity fund in October 2021. It has previously invested in fraud detection startup Quantexa and digital asset protection company Unbound Security. New Enterprise Associates, Potentum Partners, Expanding Capital and HBAM also participated in the round.  

US-based Beyond Identity will use the cash injection to fund research capabilities and expand into Asia Pacific and Latin America.

Dutch startup in3 has its work cut out for it. The company has just picked up a $11.1m Series A investment round with which it aims to overcome stiff competition in the increasingly crowded buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) sector. Swedish BNPL giant Klarna is aggressively expanding its services across Europe and in the States. However, in3 CEO Hans Langenhuizen believes his Eindhoven-headquartered venture has one big trick up its sleeve. 

“We don’t want to put people in debt, that’s why we don’t make money out of late fees for example,” he tells Verdict. 

The question of late fees and accusations of predatory practices from BNPL providers have haunted the credit industry for years. Consumer advocacy groups, such as British Citizens Advice, have warned that people using the industry’s instalments services are at risk of living beyond their means and, consequently, of being targeted by debt collectors. It remains to be seen if in3 can make a dent in Klarna's market dominance.

Cybersecurity startup BlueVoyant has secured $250m in a Series D round. The company is only the latest to reap the benefits of the booming demand for digital defences. 

In February, US-based Beyond Identity raised $100m and Phosphorus Cybersecurity secured $38m in a Series A round. 

These cash injections mark an ongoing trend where investors are putting more money into cybersecurity startups.  

The number of financing, M&A and public float deals reached a fever pitch at the height of the pandemic. Back in 2017, GlobalData recorded 641 deals worth $103.29bn in total.

Jump forward to 2021 and the number of deals had jumped to 1,383 deals worth $220.93bn in total.

Italian BNPL startup Scalapay secured $497m in a Series B funding round in February, bringing the grand total raised by the fintech to over $700m. This followed from a $155m funding round in September 2021. The company was founded in 2019. 

While declining to provide any exact figures, CEO and co-founder Simone Mancini told Verdict that Scalapay’s “latest valuation puts the company well into unicorn territory.” 

Chinese tech giant Tencent and international investment firm Willoughby Capital co-led the raise. Venture capital giant Tiger Global backed the company’s Series A round and returned for the Series B, having invested in embedded finance startup Weavr earlier this week.  

Other investors backing the Series B included Gangwal, Moore Capital, Deimos and Fasanara Capital. Goldman Sachs advised Scalapay as a placement agent for the round.

RELEX Solutions has raised a €500m funding round by tapping into investors’ appetite for supply chain tech companies, especially ones enabling corporates to boost their sustainability capabilities.  

The Finnish tech venture automates supply chain management and slashes inefficiencies. It will use the new cash injection to recruit developers and experts to its technical team. Growth equity investor Blackstone Growth led the raise, which valued RELEX Solutions at €5bn. The company has previously raised over €200m in funding. 

The news comes as venture capitalists have invested almost $7bn into the supply chain technology sector since 2018, according to data from analytics firm GlobalData.

Philippines-based payment processing startup PayMongo has raised $31m through a Series B funding round to bolster its team and offerings, reported Forbes. 

The round saw investments from new investors JAM Fund, ICCP SBI Venture Partners and Kaya Founders as well as existing investors Global Founders Capital and SOMA Capital. 

PayMongo, which is backed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Stripe and Y Combinator among others, has raised around $46m to date. 

This includes its $12m in a Series A financing round in last August and $2.7m seed funding round in 2019. 

The fresh capital will be leveraged by PayMongo to expand its design, product, and engineering teams and develop strategic partnerships in key financial institutions and players, BusinessWorld reported.