This week, we highlight the fintech innovators shaping the future of finance. @Samarth Shekhar takes us through Deal Highlights, featuring startups making bold moves: Deduction, Asseta AI, and Deblock, each raising substantial funds to tackle pressing challenges—from AI-powered tax solutions to next-generation crypto banking.
In a fresh perspective, @Frank Schwab examines why traditional banks are struggling to keep up with modern expectations, illustrating how outdated processes risk losing customers in the medium to long term.
Our Q&A features Giuseppe Ettorre, Co-Founder & CEO of Alomana, who shares how his multi-agent AI platform delivers measurable impact for enterprises, proving that tailored AI agents are not just a promise but a powerful tool for the next generation of financial institutions.
Finally, we summarize the week’s funding rounds, celebrating the entrepreneurs and investors whose vision and resources are fueling the next wave of transformative fintech solutions.
Building the AI Banker – A Q&A with Giuseppe Ettorre, Co-Founder & CEO of Alomana
Giuseppe Ettorre is the Co-Founder and CEO of Alomana, a startup transforming how financial institutions adopt artificial intelligence. With experience in data and statistics teams at Bloomberg and the European Central Bank, Giuseppe has dedicated his career to solving complex problems with innovative solutions.
Alomana was born from a clear idea: banks, asset managers, and large enterprises need highly customized AI agents—agents that can reason, collaborate, and adapt to unique workflows—rather than relying on generic copilots. Their multi-agent platform not only delivers tailored automation but also provides ROI transparency, enabling organizations to measure the tangible impact of AI on time, cost, and accuracy.
In this interview, Giuseppe shares the vision behind Alomana, the challenges enterprises face when scaling AI, and how his team is building “the AI Banker” for the next generation of financial institutions.
1- Tell us a bit about yourself, and how you got the idea for Alomana.
I’m Giuseppe Ettorre, co-founder and CEO of Alomana. Prior launching our company, I have worked in the data and statistics teams of Bloomberg, European Central Bank. During that time, I contributed to several solutions now used by millions of organizations and market operators worldwide. Today, financial decision-making still relies on fragmented documents and data, manual work, and siloed teams. And because every institution works differently, the needs are highly custom.
That’s where the idea for Alomana came from: creating a kind of “company brain”, AI agents that don’t just chat, but can adapt, reason, collaborate, and take on complex workflows the way a trusted banker or advisor would.
Read more from the interview here: Building the AI Banker with Alomana
Deal Highlights
by @Samarth Shekhar
Large market, big pain point, and a great starting point for offering downstream financial services. Interestingly, their co-founder grew up in the U.K. “where tax filing is largely automated, and relatively accessible to most.”
Deduction Raises $2.8M To Launch “Taylor, CPAI,” an AI Agent Aiming To Fix America’s Tax Bottleneck… The round was led by One Way Ventures and Creator Ventures, with participation from Alpine VC, Intuition, Charley Moore, founder of Rocket Lawyer, and angels from OpenAI and Robinhood. The startup has a bold pitch: an autonomous AI tax accountant for everyday Americans, backed by human CPAs, that aims to bring white-glove accounting to the masses…The accounting profession is staring down a workforce crisis: three in four CPAs are approaching retirement age, while enrollment in accounting programs keeps shrinking… Americans routinely pay $1,000 to $10,000 to file complex returns.
Their starting point may seem like a niche, but this is an interesting and growing segment to start in, with the potential to move up to Enterprise scale in adjacent segments.
Asseta AI Raises $4.2M To Build Accounting Software for Family Offices. Nyca Partners and Motive Ventures co-led the financing…The startup’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) is up about 1,500 percent year over year, and family offices are now managing more than $10 billion in assets on the platform, according to Palmiter…. New York-based Asseta AI operates under the premise that family offices are overlooked from a tech perspective. And the options they do have, Palmiter claims, are often designed more for hedge funds and private equity firms. Simply put, the company’s mission is to become the “Palantir for Billionaires”.
Will be interesting to see a new player on the block (pun intended), expanding into Germany with neobanks like N26, Vivid, Revolut, investment players with banking licenses like Trade Republic, Scalable Capital and Raisin.
Crypto banking start-up Deblock raises €30m Series A to launch in Germany. Deblock combines traditional euro banking with crypto wallets, attracting over 300,000 customers since launching in France in April 2024… Founded by former Revolut and Ledger executives Aaron Beck, Adriana Restrepo, Jean Meyer, and Mario Eguiluz, Deblock combines traditional euro accounts and crypto wallets through a platform featuring payment and investment services, and access to decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols… Deblock says it will use the proceeds from the Series A to expand its platform throughout Europe, starting with Germany.
Read on for more on the founders and investors in the news last week. If you are building or backing “what’s next in finance” and want to spread the word with our network of 20K+, reach out to Samarth Shekhar or Frank Schwab.
Why traditional banks will lose their customers in the medium to long term
By @Frank Schwab
This discussion is as old as the internet itself. The new banks will replace the old ones.
This week, another piece of evidence was added at the breakfast table that reinforced my conviction that this is exactly what will happen in the end. It was about the termination of savings agreements at Sparda-Bank Baden-Württemberg. While it is more or less easy to take out a savings agreement online, terminating it proves to be quite tricky. You have to laboriously search for a termination PDF, print it out, sign it physically, scan it, and then send it by email. That’s not how it works.
FUNDING ROUNDS
Deduction Raises $2.8M To Launch “Taylor, CPAI,” an AI Agent Aiming To Fix America’s Tax Bottleneck
The IRS just confirmed that Direct File — the agency’s short-lived attempt to offer a fast, free, government-run filing option — will not return for the 2026 season, reducing government options for tax filers. Meanwhile, the CPA workforce is shrinking, widening the gap between what taxpayers need and what the system can deliver. That creates both a problem for consumers, and an opening for new AI-native solutions.
Aiming to fill this gap is Deduction, a New York-based startup which today announced that it has emerged from stealth with $2.8 million in pre-seed funding to scale “Taylor, CPAI,” the first AI tax accountant built for U.S. consumers.
Kaaj Raises $3.8M to Expand Access to Capital for Small Businesses With New Agentic AI Credit Intelligence Platform
Kaaj, an agentic AI credit intelligence platform that simplifies small business lending, today announced it has raised $3.8 million in seed funding led by Kindred Ventures, with participation from Better Tomorrow Ventures and others.
Founded in 2024, Kaaj’s mission is to expand access to affordable capital for all small businesses. Using agentic AI workflows to help lenders analyze end-to-end loan packages and create decision-ready analysis for small business lending, Kaaj reduces lender costs and accelerates decision-making.
Kaaj’s founding team combines deep AI expertise and risk experience. Utsav Shah, co-founder and CEO, spent a decade at Uber and Cruise, building AI-powered decision-making systems at scale. Shivi Sharma, co-founder and President, is an expert in credit and fraud risk, formerly of American Express, Uber, and Varo Bank.
Asseta AI Raises $4.2M To Build Accounting Software for Family Offices
Asseta AI, an accounting software platform designed specifically for family offices, has raised $4.2 million in seed funding, the startup tells This Week in Fintech exclusively. Nyca Partners and Motive Ventures co-led the financing.
CEO Dean Palmiter and CTO Daniel Kennedy founded Asseta AI in January 2023. The idea took shape after years of firsthand experience working with large ERP systems such as NetSuite and Sage Intacct.
New York-based Asseta AI operates under the premise that family offices are overlooked from a tech perspective. And the options they do have, Palmiter claims, are often designed more for hedge funds and private equity firms. Simply put, the company’s mission is to become the “Palantir for Billionaires,” helping the wealthiest families in the United States manage their wealth.
Condukt raises $10m to power perpetual KYB automation
Condukt, the next-generation compliance platform for financial services, has raised US$10m in a seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and MMC Ventures, with additional participation from Cocoa Ventures.
The new capital will support Condukt’s mission to modernise know-your-business (KYB) processes and reposition compliance as a driver of growth, operational efficiency and trust, rather than a cost centre.
Founded in May 2023, Condukt is designed to help regulated companies manage compliance more effectively. Despite operating in stealth until now, the company already supports leading FinTech firms including Wise, Tide, Mollie, Rakuten, Shift4, Flatpay and myPOS.
The platform introduces a proprietary real-time data layer that continuously synchronises with client operations. This agentic system automates manual compliance workflows, replaces static datasets and monitors business changes as they occur to enable continuous KYB oversight.
https://fintech.global/2025/11/19/condukt-raises-10m-to-power-perpetual-kyb-automation/
Crypto banking start-up Deblock raises €30m Series A to launch in Germany
Deblock combines traditional euro banking with crypto wallets, attracting over 300,000 customers since launching in France in April 2024.
French crypto banking start-up Deblock has raised €30 million in Series A funding, with the round led by Speedinvest. CommerzVentures and Latitude also participated as co-investors, alongside existing backers Shapers, Headline, Chalfen Ventures, and Kraken Ventures.
Founded by former Revolut and Ledger executives Aaron Beck, Adriana Restrepo, Jean Meyer, and Mario Eguiluz, Deblock combines traditional euro accounts and crypto wallets through a platform featuring payment and investment services, and access to decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols.
AI accounting startup Maxima raises $41 million in Kleiner Perkins-backed round
Artificial intelligence startup Maxima has raised about $41 million from investors including Redpoint Ventures and Kleiner Perkins as it looks to automate accounting for businesses, the company said on Tuesday.
The $143 million valuation after Seed and Series A funding for the one-year-old San Mateo, California-based startup shows strong investor demand for firms building AI-driven enterprise software.
The fundraise was joined by Audacious Ventures and Joe Montana, NFL Super Bowl Champion and Liquid 2 Managing Partner, among others.
Maxima argues its AI platform can better automate tasks such as reconciliation and journal entry than dominant legacy providers such as SAP and Blackline, and thus save costs as well as time.
Numeric Raises $51M Series B, Expanding From Close Management to Comprehensive Finance Platform
The San Francisco-based company launches cash management product as part of broader platform expansion
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Numeric, the AI accounting automation platform, has raised a $51 million Series B round led by IVP, with participation from Menlo Ventures, Founders Fund, Alkeon, 8VC, Socii Capital, Access Industries, Friends & Family Capital, Long Journey Ventures and Fifth Down, as well as Marc Huffman, Former CEO of BlackLine, and Ron Gill, Former CFO of NetSuite. This investment, which brings Numeric’s total funding raised to $89 million, will allow Numeric to expand from close management into a broader compound startup model – delivering a unified data platform for enterprise finance teams.
Goldman Sachs leads $100m Series D for insurtech Federato
The funding, which brings Federato’s total raised to $180 million, will accelerate development of the company’s AI-native platform that spans the entire insurance policy lifecycle.
Californian insurtech Federato has secured $100 million in Series D funding as the insurer sector increasingly moves away from legacy systems towards a “generation of software in tune with the AI transformation surrounding all of us”, according to a company statement.
The round was led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, which has invested $13 billion in companies since its inception in 2003, and drew support from previous backers Emergence Capital, Caffeinated Capital, StepStone Group, and Pear VC.
Danish startup Flatpay joins the club of European fintech unicorns to track
Flatpay, which facilitates card payments for SMBs, has joined the ranks of European fintech unicorns — or startups valued at more than $1 billion — a milestone that has driven some of the region’s biggest exits. These include competitors like Adyen, a Dutch payment processing giant that remains far ahead in scale. However, Flatpay’s fresh funding could help it narrow the gap.
Flatpay’s bet is that it can challenge larger players by charging small merchants a flat transaction rate to use its card terminals and point-of-sales systems. This focus on a segment that accounts for 99% of European businesses has driven rapid traction: The startup now claims around 60,000 customers, up from 7,000 in April 2024.
UK proptech Keyzy scales rent-to-own model with £130m funding
The capital will enable Keyzy to grow from its current 28 rent-to-own portfolio to over 250 properties across Greater London by 2027.
London-based proptech firm Keyzy has secured asset-backed funding from French real estate private equity firm Crayon Partners to acquire over £130 million worth of real estate over the next 18 months.
The partnership represents what Keyzy describes as the first OpCo-PropCo structure of its kind in Europe, creating a framework that enables the company to bring on additional capital partners to its rent-to-own portfolio.
Founded in 2021 by Simon Groll and Jeremy Matallah, Keyzy allows renters to convert up to 100% of their rent payments into a deposit via fixed-term leases with pre-agreed purchase prices.
Kraken Secures $800 Million Capital Led by Jane Street and Citadel Securities at $20 Billion Valuation
Kraken closed an $800 million funding round on Tuesday with a $200 million investment from Citadel Securities, valuing the crypto exchange at $20 billion. This marks one of crypto’s largest capital raises and underscores tightening links between digital asset platforms and traditional finance leaders.
This substantial funding fuels Kraken’s expansion and product growth across trading, payments, and tokenized assets, showcasing Wall Street’s increased trust in regulated crypto infrastructure.
Institutional Investors Propel Historic Funding Round
Kraken’s latest funding round drew strong interest from leading institutional investors. Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital, HSG, Oppenheimer Alternative Investment Management, and Tribe Capital led the raise, as detailed in the company’s announcement. Additionally, Kraken Co-CEO Arjun Sethi’s family office joined in the investment.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kraken-ipo-plans-heat-funding-021142636.html
Ramp Reaches $32 Billion Valuation, Doubling Revenue and Customers in Past Year
Part of $300M Raise and Employee Tender Offer
NEW YORK, Nov. 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Ramp, the leading financial operations platform, is now valued at $32B following a $300 million primary financing round and an employee tender offer. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the financing, with continued support from existing investors including: Founders Fund, D1 Capital Partners, Coatue, GIC, Avenir Growth, Thrive Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, T. Rowe Price, Khosla Ventures, ICONIQ, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Soma Capital, Emerson Collective, 8VC, Lux Capital, Definition Capital, 137 Ventures, General Catalyst, Box Group, Kultura Capital, Pinegrove Venture Partners, Anti Fund, and Stripes. New investors in the company include: Alpha Wave Global, Bessemer Venture Partners, Robinhood Ventures, 1789 Capital, Epicenter Capital, and Coral Capital.
As we wrap up this week’s edition, we celebrate the visionaries—entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators—driving meaningful change in finance. From the AI breakthroughs of Deduction and Asseta AI, to the crypto banking expansion of Deblock, and the insights shared by Giuseppe Ettorre, this week reminds us that the future of financial services is being built today.
Stay curious, stay inspired, and keep watching the space where bold ideas and decisive action converge.