Investors across the globe continue to be passionate about fintech, but funding this week was a bit slow, with no big funding rounds to speak of as yet. However, this week saw some lucky startups receive venture funding, and others in e-commerce and crowdlending also raised some capital.
Here are the top three fintech funding rounds of the week:
After presenting at FinovateFall in New York City, this Chicago-based wealth management company raised $9 million in venture funding, departing from stealth mode with the round. M1 is an automated investment app which utilizes pie charts to show where a user’s money is going, and users have complete control over the “pies”—they can add or remove slices to create charts around a particular topic or industry, while removing investments in areas irrelevant to their personal interests. The app makes trades for the user, will automatically rebalance the user’s portfolio, and does not charge a commission for the trades.
B2B company Shippo raised $7 million in a Series A on September 9 in a round with three investors, with Union Square Ventures leading the round. The company aims to be the “Twilio” for e-commerce shipping, and uses its custom shipping API which according to the company is particularly useful for small businesses, who usually are not eligible for the same kind of bulk discounts as larger competitors. Shippo’s API enables these business to have access to more affordable rates, and also offers a web interface as well as the API for its customer’s convenience.
Paris-based crowdlending platform Unilend raised $2.87 million in venture funding, bringing the company’s total equity up to $11.37 million. Styarted three years ago in France, the startup manages a “sector agnostic” lending platform for SMEs, enabling users to borrow from an insular community of credit institutions and other lenders.
To learn more about venture capital and other fintech trends, join us at Bank Innovation Israel, November 1-3. Register here.