The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | Aug 25th

By Puja Sharma

The Monday Roundup sets the scene for the week’s biggest news stories, industry deals, and upcoming events. For Prime subscribers only.

Growing demand for credit via UPI

FinTech startup Kiwi has raised $24 million in a funding round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India, with participation from existing investors like Nexus Venture Partners and Omidyar Network. The funds will be used to launch credit lines on UPI, building on Kiwi’s existing RuPay credit card offerings in partnership with Yes Bank and AU Small Finance Bank. Founded in 2022, Kiwi has issued 200,000 credit cards and processes over 5 million transactions monthly. The company aims to tap into the growing demand for credit via UPI, which it believes could significantly reshape consumer behaviour in India’s digital payments space.

Wonderlend Hubs has partnered with InsureMO to make embedded insurance a natural extension of every digital customer journey. The collaboration will empower lenders, FinTech platforms, and digital financial institutions to integrate protection products ranging from credit line insurance to personal accident cover and device protection directly into the moments when customers engage with their financial services.

At the core of Wonderlend Hubs’ proposition are its no-code platforms: InCrediHub, which enables financial institutions to innovate and scale credit origination and assessment, and IncentiHub, which supports banks, insurers, and finance companies in incentive automation management. By integrating InsureMO’s middleware capabilities, these platforms will allow businesses to design, launch, and manage insurance offerings through pre-configured APIs and no-code tools, embedding them seamlessly into credit and onboarding processes without disrupting user experience.

This innovation not only shortens turnaround times from loan disbursal to policy issuance but also expands access to insurance for underserved and new-to-credit segments. Customers benefit from contextual, relevant protection at the point of need, while institutions can enhance trust and customer stickiness.

Where tech meets expertise

Verdata has raised $8 million in Series A funding, led by Continental Investors with participation from 1st & Main Growth Partners, Front Porch Venture Partners, Overline Venture Capital, and a consortium of industry leaders.

The investment underscores Verdata’s pivotal role in reshaping how businesses assess and manage trust, risk, and compliance in a rapidly evolving digital economy. Leveraging its expansive network of over 20 million U.S. businesses, Verdata delivers actionable intelligence on business identity, financial resilience, service reliability, and regulatory compliance.

Purpose-built for today’s interconnected financial ecosystem, Verdata’s solutions empower organisations to seamlessly verify business identities, mitigate fraud risk, safeguard brand integrity, and optimise compliance processes. By enabling smarter prioritisation of high-impact workflows, the platform supports confident decision-making and sustainable revenue growth across diverse sectors, including SMB lending, point-of-sale financing, commercial insurance, and embedded finance.

Agora has partnered with Verivest to advance embedded software infrastructure with Verivest’s proven capabilities in fund administration to deliver a fully integrated, modernised solution for investment managers and their investors.

In a complex investment landscape where speed, transparency, and scalability are paramount, this partnership sets a new benchmark for how technology and operational expertise converge to serve the evolving needs of the industry.

The partnership marks a significant expansion of Agora’s ecosystem of integrated fund administration partners. By embedding Verivest into its network, Agora strengthens its role as the technology backbone of modern investment management. The platform is designed to deliver a seamless, compliant, and scalable experience for general partners (GPs) and their investors—empowering firms to integrate operations, investor services, payments, and accounting into a single, future-ready system.

What is the Buzz

Ortec Finance has raised alarms over a potential financial crisis facing U.S. university endowments, particularly Harvard’s, due to proposed federal policy changes. Their analysis suggests Harvard’s $53 billion endowment could shrink to $43 billion by 2040—or $29 billion when adjusted for inflation—under aggressive scenarios involving tax hikes, reduced research funding, and limits on international student enrollment. Liquidity is a major concern, as over 70% of top-endowment assets are tied up in illiquid investments like private equity. Harvard’s public equity holdings have dropped from 31% to 14% since 2018, while private assets surged to 71%, reducing its ability to meet annual payouts. The university’s liquid assets now cover only five years of payouts, down from nine in 2018. Ortec urges institutions to use scenario analysis and stress testing to prepare for uncertain financial futures and reassess investment strategies to balance long-term growth with short-term liquidity needs.