The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | Dec 10th
By Gaia Lamperti
The Weekly Wrap is published every Friday and recaps the week’s main stories and deals, as well as upcoming events and announcements. For Prime subscribers only.
The Big Story
Monzo has closed a stellar funding round securing $475 million at a valuation of $4.5 billion, a 200% increase since the last time it had raised in 2020. The announcement marks a new chapter for the UK neobank, after a difficult 2020 which has seen the company suffer heavy financial losses and undergo investigation by regulators for its money-laundering measures.
“This investment means we’ll grow further and faster as we continue on our journey to reinvent banking, and become the one app that sits at the centre of our customers’ financial lives,” said TS Anil, Monzo’s CEO, in a statement to Reuters.
This past year Monzo saw its business grow fast reaching the benchmark of 5 million customers and launching new products like the BNPL feature Flex. With the new money injection, Monzo will now focus on growing its userbase, lending and boosting revenues and a public debut could be in the pipeline soon.
Deals of the week
- Pleo triples its valuation to $4.7b with a $200 million Series C funding round extension
- Mambu raises €235 million at €4.9 billion valuation in EQT Growth led Series E funding round
- LoanKuber raises INR 130 million in a Pre-Series A funding round
- TradeDepot raises $110 million to extend ‘Buy-Now-Pay-Later’ to retailers across Africa
- Enfuce raises €45 million, led by Vitruvian Partners to transform card issuing
- LenDenClub raises $10 million in Series A funding
- Xen Capital raises $7.5 million to scale alternative investment platform
Be on the lookout for
After the official pilot launch of its digital wallet Novi, Meta (formerly Facebook) now wants to bring it on WhatsApp, using a stablecoin to enable participants to send and receive money from within chats. The pilot will be extended to WhatsApp for a small number of US users, using the Pax Dollar for transactions, with Coinbase acting as the custody partner.
“We often hear that people use WhatsApp to coordinate sending money to loved ones, and Novi enables people to do that securely, instantly and with no fees. Payments will appear directly in people’s chat,” wrote on Twitter Stephane Kasriel, who is taking over as Novi head from departing David Marcus.
Events and appointments
- You cannot miss the third edition of IBS Intelligence’s Global FinTech Innovation Awards 2021 which will announce the winners of the prestigious competition across categories in the industry. Join us by registering here to attend and celebrate the coolest in FinTech!
IBSi FinTech Journal

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