The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | February 17th

By Puja Sharma

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

According to Pitchbook data compiled for KPMG Canada, investment in Canada’s financial technology (FinTech) industry dropped 81.4% to US$1.3 billion in 2022 from a record high of US$7 billion in 2021. Mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and venture capital are all types of investments.

Deal volume, meanwhile, retreated 22.1% to 169 transactions, down from 217 in 2021. The number of deals made in the fourth quarter slowed to just 27 worth US$154.8 million, from 52 worth US$956 million in Q4 2021. There were no fintech IPOs in Canada in 2022.

“It’s not surprising to see a decline given the market rout, and the fact that fintech investments hit such feverish heights in 2021. But to put things into perspective: last year’s activity was still stronger than 2020, and we also saw the second highest number of deals ever, so clearly, investors were still finding many attractively priced opportunities,” said Geoff Rush, financial services industry leader at KPMG Canada.

Deals of the week

• LoanKuber raises $2m led by Inflection Point Ventures
• Comun raises $4.5m to promote financial inclusion for Latinos
• Aspire closes $100m Series C funding round
• Mastercard partners with Copal to launch a family payments app in Egypt
• HALA acquires UAE’s payment start-up, Paymennt.com
• Lentra forays into Southeast Asia; aims to reach $100m in ARR by 2024
• NatWest to buy 85% stake in workplace savings FinTech Cushon
• United Arab Bank joins FinTech blockchain platform UAE Trade Connect
• FinTech Yatra to offer $100m capital to start-ups with 25 VCs
• Fierce come out of stealth with $10m seed funding
• UK FinTech kennek raises $4.5m to empower alternative lenders
• Carbonplace secures $45m in funding; appoints new CEO

Be on the lookout for

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