Fintech funding round-up: 4 April 2018
This first fintech funding round-up of the month features DriveWealth, Starta Ventures and BitPay.
US wealthtech firm DriveWealth has closed a $21 million Series B investment. The fundraising round was led by Raptor Group Holdings, SBI Holdings and Point72 Ventures. DriveWealth’s existing investors, including Route 66 Ventures, also participated in the round.
DriveWealth provides a suite of APIs; and says its cloud-based infrastructure offers online brokers, digital advisors and mobile online financial services companies access to the US securities market. There were no details on how the funding will be used.
Starta Ventures has unveiled a hybrid venture fund that will allow people to co-invest in blockchain start-ups via smart contract security tokens. The size of the new fund is $20 million and Starta Ventures says it will invest up to 30% in firms at the pre-initial coin offering (ICO) stage.
According to the company, the fund is targeted at investors with check sizes starting at $1 million, with an investment period of four to five years. The company says its Starta Capital Fund II is the first Russian fund with a “no management fee” model and architecture open to new investors. As for the specifics, the fund will operate in a hybrid mode, so investors can join the fund as a limited partnership (LP), “the traditional model in the venture industry”, and take an equity participation in individual transactions via the use of smart contract security tokens that align with individual companies’ equity.
BitPay, a blockchain payments provider, has closed its $40 million extended Series B funding round, which brings its total raised capital to over $70 million. New investors in BitPay include Menlo Ventures, Capital Nine, G Squared, Nimble Ventures (an affiliate of Passport Capital) and Delta-v Capital.
Stephen Pair, BitPay CEO, says it had a “record 2017 as we processed over $1 billion in Bitcoin payments” and its goals include “key hires in engineering and regulatory licensing, as well as expansion into emerging markets in Asia”. Founded in 2011, the firm has offices in North America, Europe, and South America.
