This week, Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) players and digital banks stayed on investor radars and valuations for companies continued to skyrocket.

Other notable funding rounds included an ID verification player and a banking app looking to go public via a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) listing.

Here are the highlights of some of the more notable rounds:

Klarna

Klarna, one of the top BNPL fintechs, announced on Thursday a new equity funding round of $639 million, giving the company a post-money valuation of $45.6 billion and making it the highest-valued private fintech in Europe. The round was led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 with additional participation from existing investors Adit Ventures, Honeycomb Asset Management and WestCap Group.

Klarna is looking to the U.S. public markets for their IPO, according to a Sunday Times article, rejecting earlier indications that the company would list in the UK. As of press time, Klarna did not provide additional details on the possible IPO.

“Consumers continue to reject interest- and fee-laden revolving credit and are moving toward debit while simultaneously seeking retail experiences that better meet their needs. Klarna’s more transparent and convenient alternatives align with evolving global consumer preferences and drive worldwide growth,” Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO at the firm, told Bank Automation News.

BNPL fintechs continues to attract significant funding given investors know that the companies have only scratched the surface of the ecommerce space and are just starting to move into the insource space, Ginger Schmeltzer, senior analyst for Aite Group’s Retail Banking & Payments practice, told BAN. While major players like Klarna and rivals Afterpay and Affirm have a large share of the market, about 20 other BNPL fintechs are vying for spots in the sector, Schmeltzer said

“The funding will help us to continue to grow globally, and at pace,” a spokesperson for Klarna told BAN. “We are now over 4000 people in 17 countries and are committed to having people on the ground on the markets we serve.”

Other investors included Sequoia Capital, SilverLake, Dragoneer, Permira, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Bestseller Group, Ant Group, Northzone, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, as well as funds and accounts managed by BlackRock and HMI.

Trulioo

Trulioo, a global identity verification fintech, announced on Monday a $394 million Series D round for a $1.75 billion valuation. The Series D round was led by TCV, with participation from existing investors Amex Ventures, Citi Ventures, Blumberg Capital, and Mouro Capital.

Steve Munford, Trulioo president and CEO, told BAN that the global pandemic pushed identity verification technology to the forefront and that “any organization that has a stake in safely onboarding users and enabling them to securely transact online needs to be both incredibly strategic and judicious about how they approach identity verification as bad actors continue to grow more and more sophisticated.”

Mumford noted that the funding will be devoted to building up the fintech’s engineering capabilities and investing in product innovation, focusing on artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

Trulioo’s headcount now exceeds 250, and the company plans to aggressively add team members across all functions of the company. “We’ll be hiring for roles for our Vancouver HQ as well as our newly established offices in Austin, San Diego and Dublin,” he told BAN.

Nubank

São Paulo, Brazil-based Nubank raised two G Series extensions, including $250 million led by Sands Capital and $500 million led by Berkshire Hathaway, taking the valuation to $30 billion, according to a company announcement on Tuesday. Nubank, the world’s largest digital bank, noted the Series G extension grew to $1.15 billion, making it “the largest investment round ever carried out by a private technology company in Latin America.”

“Around 50% of the population in Latin America still does not have a bank account,” founder and CEO David Vélez noted in the announcement. “ Credit card penetration is, on average, 21%, while in the United States this number is over 70%.  This new funding will help us to keep democratizing access to financial services across the region.” The funding will be devoted to international expansion and new product offerings.

Dave

On Monday, Dave, a banking app, announced plans to go public via a merger with VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings III (NYSE: VPCC), a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by Victory Park Capital (VPC). VPCC went public in March 2021 but the merger is still pending. VPC, a prior investor in Dave, recently provided a $100 million credit facility to the fintech in January 2021. Dave was trading at $9.95 a share at 3:17 pm EST.

Institutional investors also committed $210 million in a PIPE led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from Wellington Management and Corbin Capital Partners Transaction, bringing Dave’s expected pro forma, fully-diluted equity value to approximately $4 billion, according to the press release. “The public listing enables Dave’s accelerated growth into new products and continued rapid scale of its banking platform,” the statement noted.

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