Sifted - Fintech’s introspective moment

Good morning there,

Fintech founders, VCs and bankers descended upon the Londoner Hotel in the UK capital’s Leicester Square for Accel’s Fintech Summit yesterday; panels featured some of the biggest companies in the sector such as Monzo, Qonto and Soldo.

Rather than waxing lyrical on hypergrowth, for the most part, fintech dialled down some of the more boisterous rhetoric I’ve encountered at previous fintech conferences — read on for my take on the event.

Elsewhere today:

• Resurge Growth Partners is raising €120m to turn around VC orphans
• CFO tech stack: early-stage market map

— Tom Matsuda, reporter

/A message from our sponsor HSBC Innovation Banking

💸 London-based Resurge Growth Partners is launching a €120m investment vehicle to scoop up and turn around VC orphans — portfolio companies whose growth has stagnated and are no longer attractive to VCs, but which aren’t mature enough for private equity buyers.

• Resurge is branding what it’s doing as “venture equity” — somewhere between PE and traditional VC, says cofounder Oren Peleg. 
• The firm has raised almost half of its €120m target from one family office and GP commitments from Peleg and his cofounder Eyal Malinger, a former partner at Beringea. The rest of the money will be raised on an ad-hoc basis from investors for individual deals. 
• It'll fund and buy out companies making at least €7m-8m in revenues, and will write cheques between €10m-25m. 
• One common theme among the deals it’s currently evaluating: venture debt. “Some founders probably took on venture debt without really understanding what they're committing to or believing that they can keep growing and refinancing, and some of these venture debt terms are really draconian,” Peleg says.

👀 Goldman Sachs and other investors in Northvolt are seeking shares in the Swedish battery maker’s factory in Quebec as collateral for proposed bridge funding of around $300m, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter.

• As Sifted previously reported, Investissement Quebec — the Quebec government’s investment arm — is a major lender in the factory based in the Canadian city. Northvolt is in urgent need of capital and Goldman Sachs, which owns a 19% stake in the company, has asked Investissement Quebec to approve Northvolt pledging equity in its Canadian subsidiary as security, per the Bloomberg report.

Fintech’s introspective moment

Calculated, considered and cautious aren’t words I would’ve associated with fintech when I first started covering the sector in 2021. That year, $16bn was invested into European fintech and there were 32 new additions to the sector’s unicorn stable; there was expectation that there would be a steady stream of companies debuting on the public market in the years that followed. 

But at Accel’s Fintech Summit in London yesterday, the fintechs gracing the stage showed restraint in their words — to quote the internet trend du jour, the sector is in its “very demure, very mindful” era.

On stage, for instance, the CEOs of Monzo, Trade Republic and Qonto stressed they were in no rush to IPO. “I think it feels like it would be the natural thing [to do] at the right time,” said Monzo’s TS Anil. “But there’s no urgency to get there.” 

Trade Republic’s Christian Hecker also hinted the Berlin-based startup has reined in its ambitious hiring plans that characterised the pre-downturn era. He said it now prioritises being as lean as possible — and admitted making “hiring mistakes” in bringing in some senior executives who didn’t end up making an impact on the business. 

And during a panel on fintechs focusing on the SME segment, Carlo Gualandri, CEO of expense management platform Soldo, urged caution when expanding to new countries. 

“Opening in a market that is not your native market is a very hard thing,” he said. “Just saying I’m going to put the flag down and send an expeditionary force to France because — of course — France is just waiting for me is a recipe for disaster.” 

Even AI and its encroachment onto fintech — which some other conferences like Money 20/20 can’t seem to get enough of — was met with greater scepticism by some speakers. 

“I need to admit I’m a bit more sceptical on all things AI,” said Hecker on stage. “Especially within the organisation I’m seeing more of a flight to the bottom where people are using AI and they don’t learn the craftsmanship of the job anymore.” 

A healthy dose of caution is perhaps necessary after the heady days of the post-pandemic boom. But what will be the next trend to revive investor excitement in fintech’s early-stage startups, I wonder?  Readers, I’d love to hear your thoughts too.

That’s not to say there aren’t new fintechs emerging. I’ve covered startups founded by former Revolut and Checkout.com alumni that have emerged from stealth this year — both with B2B business models, which investors I speak to wax lyrical about.

Yet, the numbers don’t lie — there has yet to be a noticeable flurry of funding into B2B fintech. Last quarter, the climate tech, healthtech, deeptech and B2B SaaS verticals all outperformed fintech in deal count and funding. 

Secondaries are also the talk of the town at the moment, with Revolut, Monzo and, most recently, Moneybox, opting to raise funding through share sales. 

While that might help fill more mature companies’ liquidity needs, it’s got me wondering where that leaves fledgling startups that are yet to make their mark on fintech. 

— Tom Matsuda, reporter

• Startups developing CFO software — which include tools to help the executives pull data from reports, create more accurate budgets and improve forecasting analysis — have raised $971.1m this year in Europe, according to Dealroom.
• That figure is already more than was raised in 2023. The top deals in 2024 are SaaS company Pigment’s $145m Series D and audit platform Datasnipper’s $100m Series B.
• And new startups are arriving at a steady clip — Sifted spotlights 104 European pre-seed to Series A startups in our latest Intelligence briefing.

You can find all of Sifted’s Intelligence briefings here, available for Pro subscribers. If you're interested in subscribing to Sifted Pro? Find out more here.

Join us for an exclusive breakfast in Barcelona

As part of Norrsken's Impact Week, connect with fellow early-stage founders over coffee and a light breakfast in central Barcelona, featuring insights from Sifted's senior reporter, Freya Pratty, Talia Rafaeli, partner at Kompas VC, Alejandro, founder of Mitiga Solutions and Clara Moya of Asabys.

London-based Moneybox, a saving and investing platform, raised £70m in funding from Amundi and Apis Partners LLP.

• The round was made up mostly of secondaries, with existing investors selling 10-15% of their current shares.
• The round gives Moneybox a valuation of £550m, an increase of 84% from its Series D in March 2022. 
• Amundi purchased £8m worth of secondary shares.

Rome-based Cyber Guru, a cybersecurity awareness training platform, raised $25m in Series B funding. Riverside Acceleration Capital led the round and was joined by investors including EduCapital, Adara Ventures and P101 Ventures.

Lisbon-based Sensei, which provides autonomous retail technology, raised €15m in Series A funding. BlueCrow Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Lince Capital, Explorer Investments, Kamay Ventures (Coca-Cola and Arcor’s investment arm), Metro AG and Techstars Ventures.

• Sensei plans to use the funding to open 1,000 autonomous stores by 2026 across central and northern Europe, as well as in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Brazil. It plans to grow headcount by 30% in the next six months. 

Berlin-based Dunia Innovations, which combines AI algorithms with a proprietary self-driving lab to accelerate the discovery of new advanced materials, raised €10.6m in funding. Elaia and Redalpine led the round and were joined by investors including EIC, Pace Ventures, Kindred Capital, Deep Science Ventures and Anglo American.

Norwich, UK-based Ikarovec, which is developing gene therapies for chronic eye diseases, raised £5m in seed funding. LifeArc Ventures and Parkwalk Advisors led the round and were joined by investors including UKI2S.

Paris-based Fungiball, a fantasy tennis platform, raised €2.2m in pre-seed funding from investors including Adrien Dassault, Stephan Altmuller, Cliff Capital and Bpifrance.

Stavanger, Norway-based Starflow, a hardware platform designed to optimise the flow of energy between solar panels, EV chargers, batteries, and home energy systems, raised €1.7m in pre-seed funding. Skyfall Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Sondo Capital and Trond Riiber Knudsen.

Munich, Germany-based Exomatter, an R&D platform for new materials discovery, raised €1.7m in pre-seed funding. Vanagon Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Bayern Kapital, 212 Next, Zaka VC and Bloomhaus Ventures.

Pescara, Italy-based i-Foria, which has developed a way to recycle absorbent hygiene products like nappies, raised €1.7m in funding from investors including Tech4Planet and MITO Tech.

Amsterdam-based Tur.ai, which automates critical business processes empowering non-technical teams to capture, manage and optimise workflows without IT support, raised $1.45m in seed funding. Presto Tech Horizons led the round.

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