The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | April 22nd

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

Today marks Earth Day, the 42nd year celebrating this annual event, to be precise. Created in 1970, Earth Day is designated to demonstrate support and encourage activism for environmental protection, on an individual, company and policy level.

The worsening of the climate crisis and recent landmark events  – such as COP26 in November 2021 – have brought the attention to environmental practices to record levels.

The financial services industry, in particular, has the prime opportunity to influence customer behaviour for the better.”Companies have an incredible scope of applications that can be deployed using blockchain technology to combat the effects of climate change,” Jan Stockhausen, Chief Legal Architect at decentralised insurance company Etherisc, said. “These may include tracking supply chains to reduce consumption, pollution and emissions, automating and authenticating rewards programs for reforestation initiatives, and even validating the authenticity of carbon credits.”

New generations like Millennials and Gen Z are bringing this to the top of the agenda. “And it’s not just a change in sentiment we’re seeing, but a tangible shift in investor behaviour.,”commented Matt Cooper, Chief Commercial Officer at investment crowdfunding platform Crowdcube. “Our data shows that cleantech and sustainability investments by retail investors surged by 445% in the three years to December 2021 and already in Q1 of 2022, we’ve seen a 44% increase in the funding raised compared to where we were at the same point last year.”

A recent survey suggests that Millennials are twice as likely to invest in a fund or stock if social responsibility is a component of the value creation narrative. Further, it found up to two-thirds of Millennials view their investment decisions as an important component of their social and environmental principles.

The sooner financial services relay their intention to embed ESG criteria in their corporate practice, fund allocation and investment portfolios, the better will they be in acquiring this important client base.

Deals of the week

• CoinDCX is now India’s most valuable crypto company after a $135 million Series D funding
• Wagestream announced the close of a $175 million Series C funding round
• FOODICS raises $170 million in Series C round in MENA
• RITMO closed a $200 million debt funding round led by i80 Group and Avellinia Capital
• SEON announced raising $94 million in a Series B funding round
• Stenn completes a $50 million equity funding round with a valuation of $900m
• Flow Your Money raised €3.5 million in a seed investment round led by Eleven Ventures

Be on the lookout for

Commission-free investing platform Robinhood is expanding into the UK after agreeing to buy London-based crypto firm Ziglu. The financial terms of the deal are not disclosed yet but the deal would renew the push for international expansion and aggressive goals to open up a crypto platform to customers around the world.