Some of the most important shifts in financial services start quietly: an insurer that decides drones deserve to be understood rather than excluded, a founder who sees music royalties as an asset class within everyone’s reach, a broker who gets ten hours of her week back.
This week, we begin with Simon Ritterband of Moonrock Insurance, who shares how specialist underwriting is turning insurance from a regulatory hurdle into an enabler of emerging aviation. Samarth Shekhar then guides us through this week’s deal highlights, from MoneyStack, ANote, Froots and FRANK to Rosella, Outmarket, F2, Bluevine, Mona, Jeeves, Ascerta and OpenMetal. These are the startups opening new customer segments and new ways to scale financial services through B2B partnerships.
Frank Schwab turns to the bank of tomorrow and the rise of the “bionic banker”, where automation and human judgement work side by side. We close with our Venture Financing roundup of the companies that raised capital last week to keep building, and to keep inspiring those of us who follow them.
Grab a coffee, settle in, and read on.
A Q&A with Simon Ritterband from Moonrock Insurance on Enabling Innovation in Emerging Aviation
In the rapidly evolving world of Advanced Air Mobility, innovation often moves faster than the systems designed to protect it. While the horizon is filled with autonomous drones and eVTOL aircraft, traditional insurance has frequently remained grounded by legacy models.
Enter Simon Ritterband and the team at Moonrock Insurance. Founded on the realization that emerging aviation technologies required a new breed of underwriting, Moonrock has transformed insurance from a regulatory hurdle into a strategic enabler for the drone industry.
Based in the heart of London, Simon has steered Moonrock to become a global leader, bridging the gap between cutting-edge robotics and A+ rated financial security. In this Q&A, we sit down with Simon to discuss the complexities of low-altitude airspace and how Moonrock is de-risking the future of flight.
1. Tell us about yourself / your co‑founder(s)
I’m Simon Ritterband, Founder and Managing Director of Moonrock Insurance, a specialist insurance MGA focused exclusively on drones, UAVs, and emerging aviation aircraft.
Moonrock was founded to address a gap I saw first‑hand in aviation insurance: traditional insurers struggled to assess and support new aerial technologies because they lacked technical understanding, data, and risk appetite. Rather than treating these technologies as an exception, we built a business designed to underwrite them from day one.
Over the past decade, Moonrock has grown into one of the leading drone insurers, working with operators, OEMs, brokers, and regulators globally. We combine deep sector expertise with strong A+ rated capacity. We position insurance as an enabler of innovation, not a blocker.
Read more from the interview: Moonrock on Enabling the Future of Low-Altitude Aviation
B2B FinTech @Scale Deal Highlights: MoneyStack, ANote, Froots, Frank, Rosella, Outmarket, F2, Bluevine, Mona, Jeeves, Ascerta & OpenMetal.
Samarth Shekhar highlights startups that can help scale financial services by unlocking new customer segments or product offerings via B2B partnerships.
MoneyStack puts financial counsellors inside behavioural health programmes, starting with gambling addiction, a problem affecting roughly 2–4 million US adults with gambling disorder plus another 5–9 million with sub-clinical problems.
ANote lets investors buy a share of future music royalties (100k+ songs, €28M+ transacted), a niche that has drawn at least $20bn of investment since 2019, within the global alternatives market that Preqin expects to reach $32tn by 2030.
Froots pairs software with personal advice for about 9,000 accounts and €250M- roughly €28k per account – roughly between Trade Republic (~€15k per user) and Scalable Capital (~€60k per client), €500k–$1M that private banks typically require.
Frank (350+ Portuguese brokerages, ~10 admin hours saved per broker per week) and Rosella (a brokerage running its own AI across 100+ carrier portals) are taking two paths to help brokers scale- one by selling the tool and one by becoming the broker, in markets of ca. 420,000+ European brokers and ~37,000 independent US agencies.
Outmarket raised $34.5M in a SignalFire-led Series B only months after a $17M Series A in May (10,000+ users, reported $335M valuation), confirming that AI layered over agency systems for policy review, proposals and coverage-gap detection is scaling fast, with carriers next.
F2‘s AI agents screen, underwrite and monitor private credit for funds and banks (clients include Bain Capital and Live Oak Bank)- Golub Capital’s $5M strategic investment in the vendor it will run on its own data.
Business banking: Bluevine (175k SMBs, $2.1bn deposits) is a digital acquisition channel a bank is buying. Mona uses AI plus human coaching to help small businesses find capital, and Jeeves ($110M) offers enterprises a stablecoin-native stack with payouts to 190 countries.
Ascerta ties AI spend to business outcomes, while OpenMetal‘s acquisition of Economize (cloud and AI cost monitoring) show AI cost optimisation becoming both a funded category and a consolidation target as enterprise AI bills rise.
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.
In 2023, Juniper Research estimated that AI chatbots will handle 90% of customer interactions by 2027.
by Frank Schwab
Workforce transformation is therefore not simply an automation program; it changes where banks create value and how work must be designed.
The traditional model organized people around routine tasks, while the emerging bionic banker combines automation with human judgment, personalized advice, and relationship-building.
The executive dilemma is to capture the efficiency of automation without hollowing out the creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and emotional intelligence that complex banking decisions require.
VENTURE FINANCING
Grep AI: AI agents that automate high-stakes knowledge work you can’t afford…
Grep AI is the fastest way to create, optimize, and deploy agents for high-stakes, research-intensive knowledge work you can’t afford to get wrong. Our agents are used by both prosumers and global enterprises such as Airwallex, IG, Worldpay, and Citizens Bank. … Founded in 2023 by AJ Asver, Grep AI has 6 employees based in San Francisco. Batch: Fall 2026. Primary Partner: Garry Tan.
Legal entity Parcha Labs, Inc., which raised a $5M pre-seed in Aug 2023. This week’s $0.5M PitchBook line is an accelerator entry consistent with the YC batch; no separate funding announcement exists.
Source: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/grep-ai
MoneyStack Raises New Funding to Bring Financial Crisis Care Into Behavioral Health Treatment, Starting With Gambling Addiction
PITTSBURGH, September 29, 2026–(BUSINESS WIRE)–MoneyStack, the financial counseling platform built for behavioral healthcare, today announced it has raised $1,000,000 in new funding led by Cistern Capital, with participation from the American Heart Association’s Social Impact Funds, O’Shaughnessy Ventures, Sidecut Ventures, Gaingels and angel investors. The round brings MoneyStack’s total funding to date to nearly $2 million. “MoneyStack started with a gap I experienced firsthand between the financial support people need and what they’re often offered,” said Alex De Marco, founder and CEO of MoneyStack. … MoneyStack contracts with behavioral health providers, state agencies and other third-party payers to integrate specialized financial counseling into existing care programs.
Luxembourg’s ANote Music raises €2 million to transform music royalties into an accessible asset class
ANote Music, a Luxembourg-based marketplace for buying, selling and earning music royalties, today announced the closing of a €2 million funding round. Marzio F. Schena, CEO and co-founder of ANote Music, commented, “Music royalties have been one of the most resilient income streams in finance, and one of the hardest for ordinary investors to reach. We built ANote to close that gap: fair, transparent valuations for the rights holders who sell, and recurring royalty income for the people who buy.” … The company states that, similar to a stock exchange, it allows music rights holders of songs to auction a portion of their future royalties in an open market. … ANote Music currently has more than 100k songs across 36 listed catalogues, 52k user accounts, and over €28 million in cumulative transaction value.
Froots raises €2.25m for wealth-management growth
Vienna-based wealth manager Froots has raised €2.25m in a capital increase, with most existing investors participating and new backers joining the cap table, according to Trend. The financing takes Froots’ investor base to 40. Froots manages about €250m across 9,000 accounts, Trend reports. The company was founded in 2020 and offers managed portfolios that combine software with personal advice. … Chief executive David Mayer-Heinisch told Trend that Froots chose “evergreen” investors rather than conventional venture capital because their horizon resembles that of customers, whose average investment horizon is 18 years.
Source: https://www.eu.vc/p/froots-raises-2-25m-for-wealth-management-growth
FRANK raises €2.9M to cut paperwork for insurance brokers
Portuguese insurtech FRANK has raised €2.9 million in a funding round led by Armilar and Start Ventures to further develop its AI-powered platform for insurance brokers and prepare for international expansion. … FRANK has developed what it calls an AI Operator, a virtual assistant designed to replicate human actions across insurance brokerage systems and portals. The platform connects with communication channels including email and WhatsApp, reads documents, identifies the process being handled, and flags missing information to the broker. FRANK began commercialising its platform less than 12 months ago and is now used by more than 350 insurance agencies and brokerages, representing over 1,500 users across Portugal. The company says its technology handles 70,000 back-office tasks each month, while brokers using the platform report saving an average of around ten hours of administrative work per broker per week.
Source: https://tech.eu/2026/10/01/frank-raises-eur29m-to-cut-paperwork-for-insurance-brokers/
Mona Raises $3.5M to Expand Its AI Platform for Small Business Capital Access and Financial Coaching
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Mona today announced an oversubscribed $3.5M round to expand its AI platform for small business capital access and financial coaching. The round was led by Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners, with participation from Alumni Ventures, Wisdom Ventures, angels including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and others. Mona is also backed by the Mastercard Strive USA Innovation Fund. Mona was founded by Andrew Leon Hanna and Anny Dow, who met at Stanford and whose families’ stories as immigrant small business owners inspired the company’s mission. … Mona is also partnering with Mastercard Strive USA … Through the partnership, Mona will collaborate with small business support organizations to expand its reach.
Rosella raises AUD $3.7 million for AI insurance brokerage
Rosella has raised AUD $3.7 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by Peak XV Partners and Intact Private Capital. The Sydney- and Austin-based startup is building a commercial insurance brokerage that uses artificial intelligence to automate work still handled manually across much of the industry. Its system can submit client information across more than 100 carrier portals, compare policies, identify coverage gaps, and support sales staff during client calls. Rather than selling software on its own, Rosella is positioning itself as a brokerage with its own technology stack. … “The holy grail is not chatbots,” Stuart said.
Source: https://cfotech.com.au/story/rosella-raises-aud-3-7-million-for-ai-insurance-brokerage
Walapay Raises $4.6M Seed Round to Put Global Payments on Local Terms
NEW YORK, October 01, 2026–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Walapay, global payments infrastructure for account issuance, collections, FX, and payouts, today announced a $4.6 million seed round led by Generative Ventures, with participation from Commerce Ventures, Polygon, Verda Ventures, NGC Ventures, FGV Capital, AAF, Jsquare, Knollwood, Big Brain Holdings and others. Most global payment platforms stop at the correspondent bank, leaving the last mile to third-party licenses and aggregator partners. A single cross-border payment can pass through four or five banks and PSPs before it settles, each adding fees, delays, and points of failure. Walapay collapses that chain into one platform it owns end to end. … “We believe next-generation payment rails will become first-class financial infrastructure, but the banking system isn’t going away anytime soon,” said Tom Borgers, Co-Founder and CEO of Walapay.
Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/walapay-raises-4-6m-seed-150000173.html
PERPTools disclosed a total of 8 million USD in funding over two rounds, planning for the TGE in the fourth quarter
According to disclosures obtained by Finbold, the AI perpetual trading platform PERPTools, developed by DEXTools, has raised a total of $8 million through two rounds of token financing, including $3 million in the pre-seed round and $5 million in the seed round. Investors include BigBrain Holdings, NEAR, Animoca Brands, Sfermion, and Shima Capital.
Source: https://www.chaincatcher.com/en/article/2293511
Paris-based Marble raises €6.5 million to automate fraud and AML compliance with its no-code, open-source platform
Marble, a Paris-based open-source platform for fraud detection and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance, has raised €6.5 million in Series A funding. The Series A round brings Marble’s total funding to €9 million, with TSIC listed among its existing investors. … Founded in 2021 by Arnaud Schwartz and Pascal Delange, both former Shine executives, Marble targets FRAML, the combined fraud and AML workload, with a solution tailored for FinTech companies and financial institutions. … Marble has designed a no-code platform that lets compliance and risk teams build their own transaction monitoring rules without waiting for a vendor or IT department. … More than 100 institutions now run Marble in production.
Trade press: Smartfin led, with ADNEXUS, Passion, 42Capital and Hexa. Smartfin partner Saumitra Dubey: “Marble makes automation the default, on the customer’s own infrastructure.”
Raven Raises at $90M Valuation From CMCC Global and Coinbase Ventures for Prediction Markets
SOFIA, Bulgaria, October 3, 2026 (EZ Newswire) — Raven Trading (“Raven”) has closed a strategic round from CMCC Global and Coinbase Ventures at a $90 million pre-money valuation. Raven trades on more than 10 prediction-market venues, including Kalshi and Polymarket, and has quoted more than 3,000 contracts since entering the market in the second quarter of 2025. … “Retail brought the first wave of volume to prediction markets. Institutions are bringing the second. Both need reliable liquidity across a lot of venues and a lot of contracts, and that’s what we build at Raven,” said Kostov. … It is backed by CMCC Global, Coinbase Ventures, Hack VC, and Wintermute Ventures.
Ascerta raises $18M to help enterprises maximize AI ROI
Today, the company formerly known as Pay-i announced its new name alongside an $18 million Series A led by Dell Technologies Capital, with participation from Hitachi Ventures, BGV, Wipro Ventures and earlier investors. The round brings total funding to $22.9 million and will help Ascerta scale what it calls Enterprise AI Management, giving companies a single view of AI cost, adoption and business value across the organization. The company emerged from stealth as Pay-i in May 2025 with a $4.9 million seed round focused on AI cost management.
F2 Gets Investment From Golub, Signs Deal to Provide AI Platform
F2 AI Inc., an artificial intelligence developer specializing in credit, is receiving a $5 million investment from private credit manager Golub Capital LLC, the latest example of a financial institution investing directly in a technology that is reshaping finance. As part of the equity investment, New York-based Golub will gain access to F2’s suite of AI agents, which will help it screen investments in private credit, perform due diligence, underwrite deals and monitor portfolios, using Golub’s data. The firms didn’t disclose the valuation implied by Golub’s investment.
Outmarket AI raises $34.5 million in SignalFire-led Series B
Outmarket AI, an AI platform for the insurance industry, has raised $34.5 million in a Series B funding round led by SignalFire. Fika Ventures, Permanent Capital Ventures, TTV Capital and Dash Fund also participated in the round. The funding follows Outmarket’s $17 million Series A round in May and brings the company’s total funding to $56.5 million, at a reported $335 million valuation. … The company’s platform connects directly with agency management systems to automate complex processes across commercial, benefits, personal lines and specialty insurance. “We didn’t set out to raise again this soon, but the industry told us what it wants,” said Vishal Sankhla, CEO and co-founder of Outmarket AI.
Jeeves bags $110m to scale stablecoin banking platform
Jeeves, the stablecoin-native banking platform for global enterprises, today announced $110 million in equity funding and the launch of its proprietary stablecoin wallet with payouts to 190 countries. CoinFund led the financing, with AllianceBernstein, Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, CRV, GIC, Global PayTech Ventures, ParaFi, Vista, Wintermute, Y Combinator and additional backers joining the round. … Annualised total volume across its card and payments products now exceeds $5bn. Jeeves will also open a Madrid office. Jeeves founder and CEO Dileep Thazhmon said, “The enterprises that choose Jeeves are global by default, requiring corporate cards, accounts payable, treasury payments, and financial automation that span continents, and every one of them is tired of legacy infrastructure that wasn’t built for that.”
Source: https://fintech.global/2026/09/30/jeeves-bags-110m-to-scale-stablecoin-banking-platform/
OpenMetal Acquires Economize, Launches Labs to Help Businesses Optimize Their Cloud and AI Infrastructure
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., Sept. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — OpenMetal today announced it has acquired Economize, a cloud cost management platform. The acquisition launches OpenMetal Labs, which builds custom infrastructure and cost solutions for complex business needs. … “We started Economize to give teams transparency into public cloud spend. With OpenMetal, we can help them act on it, building the right mix of public and private cloud for their workloads and balancing cost and performance as they scale,” said Anirudh Murali, Co-Founder and CEO of Economize.
Not fintech/insurtech; included under the M&A-in-scope rule.
Azimut stock reports agreement to acquire Beanstox
Azimut Group signed an agreement to acquire investment app Beanstox and enter the U.S. direct-to-consumer market. Closing is expected in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory review and other conditions. … a regulatory release filed under AZIMUT HOLDING on September 29, 2026, said the Azimut Group had signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Beanstox Inc. The transaction is intended to establish the group in the U.S. direct-to-consumer market through a digital wealth platform offering an automated investment advisory app. … Beanstox’s current management team is expected to continue leading the business.
Citadel Securities is buying a minority stake in Wolfe Research for trading flow
Citadel Securities is taking a minority stake in Wolfe Research to win additional trading business and add an equity research capability, according to Bloomberg. Under the arrangement, Citadel Securities will handle trade execution for Wolfe Research’s clients and sell Wolfe’s research products to its own customer base. Citadel Securities is Wolfe Research’s first outside investor, according to Bloomberg. Founder and Managing Partner Ed Wolfe said his firm has no interest in merging with a bank. … In 2020, Wolfe Research linked up with Nomura Group, folding the independent research shop into the Japanese bank’s trading and investment-banking operations.
Source: https://qz.com/citadel-securities-minority-stake-wolfe-research-trading-100226
Parafin Is Joining Stripe
SAN FRANCISCO, September 30, 2026–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today, Parafin announced it has reached an agreement to be acquired by Stripe. Together, the companies plan to make it faster and easier for small and medium-sized businesses to get the financing they need to thrive. … Parafin built the infrastructure to let any platform embed financing directly into its product with just one integration. … Parafin has funded over $3B to over 60,000 SMBs across the US, and has expanded from its first cash advance in 2021 to a full suite of products comprising flexible and term loans, business-to-business pay-over-time, and credit cards.
Source: https://www.financialcontent.com/article/bizwire-2026-9-30-parafin-is-joining-stripe
Barclays bets on youth finance with GoHenry deal
Barclays agrees to acquire GoHenry, the UK youth banking app. Barclays intends to retain the GoHenry brand and its standalone app following the acquisition. The transaction is projected to reduce Barclays’ CET1 ratio by around 5 basis points upon completion, based on its CET1 ratio as at 31 March 2026, though it is not expected to affect financial guidance or targets for either Barclays Group or Barclays UK for 2026 or 2028. … Founded in 2012, GoHenry has grown into one of the most recognisable names in UK youth banking, having supported more than 2 million young people in developing money management skills.
Source: https://fintech.global/2026/06/12/barclays-bets-on-youth-finance-with-gohenry-deal/
Valley National Bancorp to Acquire Bluevine Inc., Accelerating its Digital Small Business Growth Strategy and Meaningfully Enhancing its Core Funding Capabilities
Valley National Bancorp (“Valley”) (NASDAQ: VLY) and Bluevine Inc. (“Bluevine”) announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement whereby Valley will acquire Bluevine, a leading nationwide digital banking platform for small businesses. … Under the terms of the proposed transaction, Valley will acquire Bluevine for total consideration of approximately $340 million, adding $2.1 billion of low-cost, digitally sourced deposits and roughly 180 technology professionals. The transaction adds a nationwide digital acquisition channel to complement Valley’s long-standing relationship-led banking model. … The deal is expected to close in early 2027 and be 8% accretive to 2028 EPS.
Source: https://www.bluevine.com/newsroom/valley-national-bancorp-bluevine-reach-acquisition-agreement
Exclusive-Bridgepoint, Astorg consider £2 billion-plus Fenergo sale, sources say
LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) – Bridgepoint and Astorg are considering selling Fenergo as dealmaking in the sector picks up, three people familiar with the matter said, with one saying the Irish fintech could be valued at more than £2 billion ($2.7 billion). The private equity firms have held discussions with potential buyers and are expected to appoint an investment bank later this year in a potential transaction that could attract strategic bidders, the sources told Reuters. A sales process could be launched early in 2027, with a decision yet to be taken, said two of the sources.
Why Stripe’s $53 billion PayPal bid is a high-stakes play to own the future of digital payments
A potential $53 billion acquisition of PayPal (PYPL) by payments rival Stripe has reignited debate over what holds the keys to the next generation of digital payments. … Digital asset industry commentators see the underlying infrastructure consolidation as the most significant angle in the acquisition if it comes to pass. “The name on the front of the wallet means far less than whose infrastructure clears the payment behind it,” Torab Torabi, CEO of stablecoin infrastructure firm Movement Labs, told CoinDesk.
EquiDeFi Positions Itself as Infrastructure Powering Modern Private Investing
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., February 16, 2026 (Newswire.com) – EquiDeFi, a financial technology software company, announced its continued focus on providing secure digital infrastructure for private capital markets, helping issuers and investors manage the operational and compliance demands of private securities transactions. Rather than acting as a broker, dealer, or investment advisor, EquiDeFi operates as a technology provider that supports the administrative workflows behind private offerings.
Behind every funding round is a founder who saw a gap and decided to close it. This week’s stories show what happens when that conviction meets the right partners, the right capital and the right moment.
Thank you for reading, and for being part of a network of more than 20,000 people who believe finance can be more open, more intelligent and more human. If you are building or backing the next chapter, we would love to hear from you.
See you in the next edition.