Every week, the signal gets clearer.
The financial world is being rebuilt — not with press releases, but with code, compliance rails, AI agents, and a new generation of founders who refuse to accept that complexity is inevitable. This edition is a case in point.
Inside, you’ll find our Q&A with Gabriel Ferraz, co-founder and CEO of CREEM — a builder who crossed continents and industries to solve the exact problem he lived himself: getting paid globally without losing your mind to tax compliance. His story is a portrait of what it means to build with conviction in the age of AI.
Samarth Shekhar zeroes in on five deals that tell a bigger story this week: portable business identity becoming core infrastructure with Palm, a brave CAC bet in life insurance from Eleos Life, and a fascinating three-way race to own the autonomous finance stack for SMBs — Round, Wamo, and Pipe each taking a different route to the same destination. His analysis cuts through to what actually matters.
Frank Schwab takes us deeper into the strategic earthquake already underway in legacy banking and enterprise SaaS: what happens when coding stops being a bottleneck? The answer is more disruptive than most incumbents are ready to admit.
And rounding it all out — the funding rounds worth tracking, the M&A moves worth noting, and the capital flows pointing to where the industry is heading next.
Pull up a chair. There’s a lot worth reading this week.
A Q&A with Gabriel Ferraz from CREEM on Simplifying Global Compliance for the AI Era
There’s a particular kind of founder who builds not because they spotted a market gap on a slide deck, but because they lived the problem themselves — and couldn’t stop thinking about it. Gabriel Ferraz and Alec Erasmus, co-founders of CREEM, are exactly that kind of builder.
Gabriel’s path to Tallinn, Estonia reads like a map of the modern internet economy: he left Computer Science studies in Brazil to dive headfirst into crypto during its earliest days, founded Brazil’s first crypto-focused development agency, and spent years moving through fintech and financial markets across London, Berlin, and Stockholm. Alec, his co-founder and CTO, came from the same blockchain and crypto world — two engineers who understood, from the inside, just how broken global payments infrastructure was for small software teams.
What they built together is CREEM: a Merchant of Record platform that quietly handles everything a software founder dreads — tax compliance across 30+ jurisdictions, currency conversion, subscriptions, payouts, affiliate programs — so that a two-person team building an AI tool can simply get paid, without needing a finance department. The product is elegant in its ambition: one integration, sell anywhere.
They recently crossed $2M in ARR with fewer than five full-time employees. We sat down with Gabriel to understand how they got there — and where the wave is going next.
1. Tell us about yourself / your co-founder(s).
I’m Gabriel Ferraz, Co-Founder & CEO of CREEM.I’m a product engineer turned CEO, based in Tallinn, Estonia. I built CREEM because I lived the problem firsthand: selling software globally is a nightmare of tax compliance, currency handling, and regulatory overhead. My path here wasn’t traditional. I left Computer Science studies to dive into crypto during its early stages, founding Brazil’s first crypto-focused development agency. That led to Fintech and financial markets: Forex, Commodities, Ethereum identity infrastructure, and crypto payments. From Technical Leadership to Product Direction, across London, Berlin, Stockholm, and now Estonia.
Read more from the interview: Simplifying Global Monetization for AI and SaaS Builders
Deal Highlights
Great signal that portable, up-to-date business identity is becoming core infrastructure. Amex, with its millions of SMB relationships and data across payments, lending and merchant services, can be a great distribution channel (and data network multiplier) for Palm. It also provides credibility as Palm looks to sell into banks and other FinTechs, helping it build out the two-sided network.
Palm secures Amex Ventures investment for business identity…business identity data (of 35 million businesses in the US) is scattered across government registries, banks and software platforms, meaning that every time a business applies for credit, onboards to a financial platform or submits a regulatory filing, it must re-submit the same information from scratch. Palm connects to authoritative data sources across all 50 US states and the Internal Revenue Service, bringing together verification, compliance automation and ongoing monitoring into one service. When a business completes compliance obligations — such as annual reports, registered agent updates or regulatory filings — Palm refreshes the business’s identity record across its network at the same time.
(Life) Insurance is notorious for its high customer acquisition costs. With this deal, Eleos is taking a brave shot at solving CAC in a high-trust, high-cost category. It is an interesting shift from an embedded-only distribution that helped them succeed in the UK, to a hybrid approach that gives them direct national brand presence in the US market – and potentially accelerate growth.
Eleos Life secures $3m media-for-equity investment for US growth… InsurTech Eleos Life has secured $3m in capital from Mercurius Media Capital (MMC), a US-based media-for-equity venture fund, to accelerate brand awareness and customer acquisition across the United States. Eleos launched its US business in 2025 and is focused on simplifying life insurance through fully digital applications for term life and disability cover that take minutes to complete and do not require a medical exam. The partnership also reflects the scale of the opportunity in the US life insurance market, where many Americans remain uninsured or underinsured despite growing demand for financial protection.
Interesting to see Wamo, Round and Pipel taking different routes to creating the “autonomous finance and financing stack” for SMBs. Wamo starts with banking- accounts, cards, and now embedded lending- owning the balance sheet and layering in AI to deliver a more integrated, data-driven financial experience. Round starts with workflows—automating treasury, payments, and payroll using AI agents that execute finance operations continuously.
Both are likely to expand into a hybrid approach combining the banking layer (where the money lives – and where payments, lending etc. are originated, with higher monetization levers) with the decision layer (when money moves, how cash is allocated etc. as well as where users are active almost daily- executing payments, managing treasury etc.)
Pipe, on the other hand, is about scalable distribution- it doesn’t rely on owning the customer or owning the bank – it aims to become the default embedded capital layer across platforms. Watch this space!
Round raises $6m seed to automate finance teams with AI… Round’s platform sits between banks, ERPs and payment rails, combining financial infrastructure with AI-driven automation to handle treasury management, accounts payable, payments, FX and now payroll. Finance teams configure the rules — approval thresholds, payment schedules and cash minimums — and the platform executes them automatically, with all transactions logged against a full audit trail.
Wamo raises €10m Series A to expand across Europe… Wamo holds a licence from the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority and operates a multi-currency business account platform serving more than 15,000 customers across Europe. Its offering spans cards, invoicing and expense management, all brought together within a single platform tailored to the needs of SMEs.
Pipe raises $16m to scale small business financing… Since relaunching, Pipe Capital has issued more than 15,000 advances to small businesses across the globe, with total originations exceeding $300m. Pipe’s flagship product allows small businesses to access tailored capital options in just a few clicks, embedded directly within the tools they already use to run their operations.
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.
The Death of the Coding Bottleneck: Why Legacy SaaS is Shaking
by Frank Schwab
Coding is no longer a bottleneck. It’s a force multiplier. For decades, banks were held hostage by two things:
– The scarcity of high-end engineering talent.
– The slow, rigid release cycles of “Big Tech” vendors.
That era is over.
The latest AI models are doing something revolutionary: They aren’t just helping juniors; they are turning good programmers into elite, high-velocity architects. When coding efficiency jumps by 40% or more, the strategic “Make or Buy” equation flips upside down.
Read more: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/frankschwab_fintech-bankingstrategy-ai-share-7449903948574007297–nVh
FUNDING ROUNDS
Palm secures Amex Ventures investment for business identity
Palm, a portable business identity infrastructure platform serving the 35 million businesses across the United States, has received a strategic investment from Amex Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of American Express.
The funding will go towards Palm’s ongoing product development, partner integrations, and the broader rollout of its API-driven identity network across financial services and vertical software-as-a-service platforms.
The investment addresses a long-standing structural problem in how business identity is managed. At present, business identity data is scattered across government registries, banks and software platforms, meaning that every time a business applies for credit, onboards to a financial platform or submits a regulatory filing, it must re-submit the same information from scratch. Palm aims to eliminate that duplication by building a single, continuously updated identity record that travels with a business.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/14/palm-secures-amex-ventures-investment-for-business-identity/
Synctera snaps up Cable in embedded finance compliance deal
Synctera has acquired Cable, a compliance control testing and verification specialist, in a move designed to strengthen regulatory oversight across the fintech ecosystem.
The deal brings Cable’s automated control-testing capabilities under Synctera’s roof, giving sponsor banks a continuous, independent means of verifying that their FinTech partners are adhering to regulations and agreed procedures. Cable will remain available as a standalone product, and its team will continue developing the platform within Synctera.
Banks currently using Cable include Midland States Bank, Grasshopper, and Mercury. The platform sits alongside existing compliance infrastructure, independently validating whether controls are functioning as designed — covering KYC processes, transaction monitoring rules, AML policies, and other critical compliance workflows. Rather than relying on periodic spot checks or manual audits, Cable delivers real-time assurance by continuously testing systems, data, and outputs across FinTech partners and service providers.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/17/synctera-snaps-up-cable-in-embedded-finance-compliance-deal/
Insurteam raises $1.3m to expand MGA ops in Europe
Switzerland-based InsurTech firm Insurteam, a travel insurance automation specialist, has closed a $1.3m funding round to accelerate its European expansion, according to VentureLab.
The capital will be used to extend Insurteam’s Managing General Agent (MGA) operations across the continent. As a former Venture Leaders Fintech participant, the company intends to use the funding to bring insurance products to market that fully incorporate its proprietary technology, with particular emphasis on underwriting performance and the customer experience.
Insurteam’s platform combines artificial intelligence, data analytics, and multichannel communication to automate both sales and claims management within the travel insurance sector. Its technology is capable of reducing claim management costs for insurers by as much as 80% and cutting processing times from several weeks down to just minutes, easing the workload on assistance teams in the process.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/13/insurteam-raises-1-3m-to-expand-mga-ops-in-europe/
SolvaPay raises €2.4m for agentic payment layer
SolvaPay, a Stockholm-based AI payments platform, has closed a €2.4m ($2.8m) pre-seed funding round to develop what it describes as the world’s first payment infrastructure purpose-built for the agentic economy.
The round was led by European FinTech venture capital firm Redstone and Silicon Valley-based MS&AD Ventures, with additional participation from Antler and Greens Ventures, both of which are existing backers of Lovable.
The capital will be directed towards accelerating the development of SolvaPay’s machine-native payment rails and agentic revenue infrastructure.
SolvaPay argues that the existing financial infrastructure is fundamentally ill-suited to support this shift, pointing to fragmented digital ecosystems that prevent AI agents from freely negotiating and transacting across platforms. Its platform is designed to remove those barriers, allowing autonomous
https://fintech.global/2026/04/15/solvapay-raises-e2-4m-for-agentic-payment-layer/
Ralio raises $2.5m in Europe’s biggest agentic payments round
Ralio, a trust infrastructure provider sitting between AI agents and payment rails, has announced a $2.5m pre-seed funding round, marking what it describes as the largest agentic payments raise in Europe to date.
The round was led by SVV (Sure Valley Ventures), with contributions from Seed X, Love Ventures, Plug and Play, rule30, Adeline Arts and Science, Endurance Ventures, Campus Fund, and FinTech investor Alan Morgan.
Early backer Antler also continued its support following its initial investment. The round was reportedly three times oversubscribed within just three months of the company being founded.
Ralio’s infrastructure is designed to address a gap it says currently exists in the payments ecosystem: AI agents are already being deployed to handle procurement, payroll, and treasury functions on behalf of businesses, yet the payments infrastructure that supports them lacks safeguards.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/14/ralio-raises-2-5m-in-europes-biggest-agentic-payments-round/
Eleos Life secures $3m media-for-equity investment for US growth
InsurTech Eleos Life has secured $3m in capital from Mercurius Media Capital (MMC), a US-based media-for-equity venture fund, to accelerate brand awareness and customer acquisition across the United States.
The investment will give Eleos access to national advertising inventory across television, digital and cinema channels, allowing the company to expand its presence without using traditional venture funding to finance marketing campaigns.
MMC operates a media-for-equity model, providing advertising inventory through partners including Sinclair Broadcast Group, TelevisaUnivision and Atmosphere TV in exchange for equity stakes in portfolio companies.
Eleos launched its US business in 2025 and is focused on simplifying life insurance through fully digital applications for term life and disability cover that take minutes to complete and do not require a medical exam.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/13/eleos-life-secures-3m-media-for-equity-investment-for-us-growth/
UniCredit takes €4m stake in BlockInvest
UniCredit, a pan-European banking group, has completed a strategic €4m investment in BlockInvest, a blockchain infrastructure company, acquiring approximately a 16% stake in the firm.
The deal sees UniCredit take a minority position in BlockInvest as part of a broader effort to advance the adoption of on-chain financial solutions across its key markets. The two organisations have an established working relationship, having previously collaborated on a number of transactions that set operational benchmarks in Italy under the country’s FinTech Law — including the country’s first natively digital minibond and, more recently, the first tokenised structured note on a public blockchain for the wealth segment.
The investment comes as the tokenisation of real-world assets (RWA) continues to reshape how financial instruments are issued and managed.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/16/unicredit-takes-e4m-stake-in-blockinvest/
Round raises $6m seed to automate finance teams with AI
Round, a London-based AI-powered finance automation platform serving high-growth European companies including Cleo and PostHog, has closed a $6m seed funding round and unveiled two new products: an Agentic Workflow Builder and Autonomous Payroll module.
The round was led by Alstin Capital, with Backed VC and Love Ventures also participating. Approximately 10% of Round’s existing customers contributed to the raise alongside new angel investors, among them Paul Forster, co-founder of Indeed. Existing backer Passion Capital — an early investor in Monzo, Tide and GoCardless — also reinvested.
Round’s platform sits between banks, ERPs and payment rails, combining financial infrastructure with AI-driven automation to handle treasury management, accounts payable, payments, FX and now payroll.
Finance teams configure the rules — approval thresholds, payment schedules and cash minimums — and the platform executes them automatically, with all transactions logged against a full audit trail.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/13/round-raises-6m-seed-to-automate-finance-teams-with-ai/
Wamo raises €10m Series A to expand across Europe
Wamo, a European financial operating platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has secured €10m in Series A funding to drive expansion into Italy and the Nordics, bolster its product suite, and roll out artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools across its business account offering.
The round was led by TCEE Fund IV, advised by 3TS Capital Partners. WealthTech investor Oleka Capital and a number of existing backers also contributed to the raise.
Wamo holds a licence from the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority and operates a multi-currency business account platform serving more than 15,000 customers across Europe. Its offering spans cards, invoicing and expense management, all brought together within a single platform tailored to the needs of SMEs
https://fintech.global/2026/04/14/wamo-raises-e10m-series-a-to-expand-across-europe/
Common Wealth raises $12m CAD to expand retirement access
Common Wealth, which claims to be Canada’s fastest-growing group retirement provider, has closed a $12m CAD equity financing round to broaden retirement plan access for Canadian workers.
The round drew participation from both new and returning investors, including the Broadbent group, Good & Well, AgeTech Capital, Deokali Capital, Eventi Capital Partners, and Flow Capital, alongside a number of prominent Canadian families and individuals.
Notable participants include Michael Jantzi, former CEO of Sustainalytics; Richard Rooney, OOnt, co-founder and former CIO of Burgundy Asset Management; Jim Keohane, former CEO of the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan; Alan Broadbent, CM, former chair of Sustainalytics; Vernon Lobo, founder and managing partner of Mosaic Venture Partners; and Scott Lamacraft, executive chair of ATB Cormark Capital Markets.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/14/common-wealth-raises-12m-cad-to-expand-retirement-access/
Haast raises $12m Series A to automate compliance
Haast, an AI-powered enterprise compliance engine founded in 2023, has closed a $12m Series A funding round that brings its total US capital raised to $17.05m.
The round was led by Peak XV Partners, with DST Global Partners, Airtree, Aura Ventures, and Black Sheep Capital also participating. Proceeds will be directed towards scaling its agentic workflows, accelerating product development, and broadening the company’s global enterprise presence.
Haast argues that as AI adoption accelerates across marketing, product, and go-to-market functions, corporate content volumes have surged by between 8x and 10x, leaving legal and compliance teams unable to keep pace.
The company’s own research indicates that compliance and legal professionals spend 70% of their time on manual, repetitive, or otherwise automatable tasks, creating significant delays across organisations.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/13/haast-raises-12m-series-a-to-automate-compliance/
Paxos Labs raises $12m to launch Amplify digital asset stack
Paxos Labs, the digital assets financial utility stack incubated within Paxos, has closed a $12m strategic funding round and announced the launch of its Amplify platform, which enables companies to transform digital asset holdings into active financial products via a single integration.
The round was led by Blockchain Capital, an early backer of Paxos, with additional participation from Robot Ventures, Maelstrom and Uniswap.
The capital will be used to accelerate development of the Amplify suite across three integrated modules: Earn, which provides institutional-grade yield on digital assets; Borrow, which facilitates digital asset-backed lending; and Mint, which supports branded stablecoin issuance. All three modules are now live.
Platforms integrate once and can activate further capabilities as their needs evolve.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/16/paxos-labs-raises-12m-to-launch-amplify-digital-asset-stack/
Pipe raises $16m to scale small business financing
Pipe, a FinTech providing embedded financial solutions tailored to small businesses, has secured $16m in a new funding round co-led by Fin Capital and MaC Venture Capital.
The raise marks Pipe’s first equity funding since the company relaunched its embedded financing product in 2024. As part of the deal, Marlon Nichols, general managing partner at MaC Venture Capital, has joined Pipe’s board of directors.
Since relaunching, Pipe Capital has issued more than 15,000 advances to small businesses across the globe, with total originations exceeding $300m.
The fresh capital is earmarked to accelerate strategic growth as Pipe works towards profitability and expands its partner network.
New partnerships, including one with AI-powered point-of-sale provider Epos Now, are broadening access to working capital for brick-and-mortar small and medium-sized businesses across the US, Canada and the UK
https://fintech.global/2026/04/13/pipe-raises-16m-to-scale-small-business-financing/
spektr targets KYC bottleneck with $20m Series A raise
spektr, a Copenhagen-based AI infrastructure company focused on financial services compliance, has closed a $20m Series A funding round led by NEA, with follow-on support from Northzone, Seedcamp, and PSV Tech.
The capital will be deployed to scale spektr’s AI agent platform and drive adoption among financial institutions worldwide. The round addresses a persistent challenge in the compliance sector: despite significant investment in compliance technology over the years, KYC and KYB processes remain heavily manual, with analysts routinely spending hours collating corporate documents, mapping ownership structures, verifying business activity, and writing risk rationales across multiple sources.
Spektr’s solution is a platform of purpose-built AI agents that replicate the analytical work typically carried out by compliance professionals
https://fintech.global/2026/04/16/spektr-targets-kyc-bottleneck-with-20m-series-a-raise/
Sompo partners with Zego in $28m funding round
UK digital motor InsurTech Zego has secured $28m (approximately £20.6m) in a new funding round, with Japanese insurance giant Sompo Holdings joining existing investors as part of a wider strategic partnership between the two firms.
The two companies will use the tie-up to jointly explore and develop telematics-based insurance products tailored to the Japanese market. Sompo Holdings participated in the funding round alongside Zego’s existing backers.
The collaboration is underpinned by a mutual belief that data-led, usage-based insurance can produce meaningfully better outcomes for policyholders. Both companies see the approach as a way to reward safer drivers, advance road safety, and introduce more personalised and equitable pricing models.
The deal brings Sompo Group’s local insurance expertise and market knowledge together with Zego’s technology platform and AI capabilities to push forward the next generation of telematics insurance.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/16/sompo-partners-with-zego-in-28m-funding-round/
Wealth.com raises $65m Series B for AI wealth planning
Wealth.com, an AI-powered platform modernising estate and tax planning for wealth management firms, has closed an oversubscribed $65m Series B funding round.
The raise attracted new investors including Titanium Ventures, Pruven Capital, The K Fund and Dynasty Financial Partners, alongside existing backers Charles Schwab, GV (Google Ventures), Citi Ventures, 53 Stations, Anthos Capital and Alumni Ventures.
The round follows GV’s lead investment in Wealth.com’s Series A in September 2024 and a minority strategic investment from Charles Schwab in April 2025.
Wealth.com has recorded at least 3x revenue growth annually over each of the past four years, with AI-powered workflows on the platform growing 664% year-on-year. In 2025, the company obtained approvals from the three largest broker-dealers in the United States, opening access to more than 50,000 financial advisors, and has agreements with three of the top five domestic banks. The platform now serves advisory firms collectively managing in excess of $15 trillion in client assets.
https://fintech.global/2026/04/16/wealth-com-raises-65m-series-b-for-ai-wealth-planning/
MerQube closes Series C with 7Ridge and Deutsche Börse
MerQube, a US-based index technology provider specialising in rules-based investment strategies, has completed a Series C funding round backed by 7RIDGE and Deutsche Börse Group, though the amount raised has not been disclosed.
The two new investors join an existing roster that includes Allianz Life Ventures, Citi, Intel Capital, J.P. Morgan, Laurion Capital Management, and UBS.
7RIDGE is a private markets asset manager focused on transformative financial technologies, while Deutsche Börse Group is a global financial market infrastructure provider.
MerQube intends to use the capital to strengthen its position in options-based structured ETFs and expand its Garage platform. The firm also plans to deepen its technology capabilities and broaden its reach across wealth and asset management clients in the US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific
https://fintech.global/2026/04/13/merqube-closes-series-c-with-7ridge-and-deutsche-borse/
M&A
OpenAI has bought AI personal finance startup Hiro
OpenAI has acquired personal finance startup Hiro Finance, founder Ethan Bloch announced on Monday and OpenAI confirmed to TechCrunch. The startup was backed by A-list fintech VC firm Ribbit, as well as General Catalyst and Restive.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, nor did Hiro ever disclose how much money it raised. Since Hiro said it will be shutting down its operations on April 20 and deleting all data from its servers on May 13, we’re going to call this an acqui-hire.
Bloch said in his post that Hiro employees are coming with him to OpenAI. He didn’t specify how many employees that includes, but LinkedIn lists about 10 people associated with the company. Bloch declined to offer further comment.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/13/openai-has-bought-ai-personal-finance-startup-hiro/
FUNDS
Collide Capital Secures $95M Fund II to Expand Early-Stage Investments
Collide Capital closes oversubscribed $95M Fund II, bringing AUM to over $170M.
Collide expands leadership programmes with Collide Campus undergraduate and MBA initiatives.
Funding will support fintech, supply chain, and future of work startups globally.
Fund II Strengthens Early-Stage Investment Strategy
Collide Capital, an early-stage venture business organization, has fully concluded a shutdown on its Fund II worth $95 million. The firm is overcommitted with the fund signifying a quickened step from the original $66 million Firm 1 started up back in 2022.
Founded in 2021 by Brian Hollins and Aaron Samuels, Collide will invest in fintech, supply chain and future-of-work start-up companies with its second fund to write cheques at an early stage from $1m to $3m. Collide has already invested in five companies, including Art Lab, Jelou, Ocho, Prefix, and Sytrex.
https://ventureburn.com/collide-capital-95m-fund-ii/
The common thread running through everything in this edition isn’t technology — it’s urgency.
Founders are moving faster. Capital is concentrating around infrastructure. Identity, compliance, payments, and automation are no longer back-office problems — they are the product. Whether it’s a two-person team in Tallinn collecting payments across 30 jurisdictions, or three SMB fintech platforms racing to own the autonomous finance stack, the message is consistent: the builders who saw this early are already ahead.
We’ll keep watching, connecting, and distilling the signal from the noise. Because the next wave doesn’t wait — and neither should you.
Until next week.