The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | April 11th

By Gaia Lamperti

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

Kicking off with big rounds

E-commerce financing fintech Ritmo has closed a $200 million debt funding round led by US-based i80 Group and Europe’s Avellinia Capital. It is one of the largest funding rounds for any e-commerce finance business in Europe and Latin America. Madrid-based Ritmo provides working capital financing and automated BNPL solutions for e-commerce businesses to help them overcome supply chain challenges, manage cash flow better and scale faster.

Crypto platform Binance.US has raised more than $200 million in its first-ever funding round, valuing the company at $4.5 billion. The round saw participation from RRE Ventures, Foundation Capital, Original Capital, VanEck and Circle Ventures, among others. As part of Binance.US’ commitment to “an inclusive vision for crypto”, the round also includes support from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)-focused firms Gaingels and Gold House. The digital asset exchange currently supports more than 85 cryptocurrencies and more than 190 trading pairs.

Going green

CarbonPay, a sustainable fintech platform, has launched its corporate prepaid offering, CarbonPay Business Ctrl to offer the planet’s most impactful payment cards and make everyday climate action simpler. CarbonPay’s prepaid cards are valid in US and UK and they help offset their carbon footprint automatically with every transaction; for every £1 / $1.50 spent, CarbonPay offsets 1kg of CO2 at no extra cost. “The fight against climate change can’t be solved by a handful of people, it requires systemic change and for everyone to take action,” said Rory Spurway, CEO and Founder.

Swiss banking giant UBS has joined the Green Software Foundation as a steering member, joining Goldman Sachs and tech giants Microsoft, Accenture, GitHub and ThoughtWorks. Formed last year, the nonprofit is working to build a trusted ecosystem of people, standards, tooling and leading practices for building green software. The foundation says its aim is to help the software industry contribute to the information and communications technology sector’s broader targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.

Where is the buzz

The European Commission has launched the EU Digital Finance Platform, a website designed to build dialogue between FinTech players and supervisors. The platform went live last week and it is tasked with the objectives to overcome fragmentation and support the scaling up of digital financial services across the Single Market.

“In phase 2 the platform will host a Data Hub to be used by the industry and supervisory authorities to enhance their toolkit and their capacities in testing innovations,” said Verena Ross, Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority. “We look forward to working on the Data Hub with the Commission and making the Digital Platform a tool that will be recognised and used by FinTech in Europe.”