Awaken Intelligence, an AI enhanced Software Developer, Raises £681K+ via Crowdcube

In November 2021, pan-European crowdfunding rules became actionable after approval by the European Union in 2020. Under the new rules, or European Crowdfunding Service Providers Regulation (ECSPR), a platform may raise up to €5 million from investors in all member states. This opens up investment crowdfunding to over 300 million EU citizens. The industry has heralded the new rules as a transformative event – a change in policy that took around 9 years of advocacy from industry insiders. At the same time, ECSPR is foundational to the concept of European monetary union – the ability for goods and capital to flow seamlessly across the EU.

Fagura, a Fintech that aims to become the “first community digital bank in CEE for anyone to borrow, invest and transfer money,” has raised over €786,000 on Seedrs. According to the offering page, 287 investors backed the firm, which easily topped its €400,000 initial funding goal. Investors received equity at a pre-money valuation of €5 million. Fagura is approved for secondary transactions of its shares and is a Seedrs nominee firm.

Injective, a blockchain specifically designed for building financial applications, announced a new $150 million ecosystem initiative “to further accelerate the adoption of interoperable infrastructure and DeFi.”. Injective claims it is the first fully decentralized smart contracts platform “optimized for building finance applications.” Injective was “created using the Cosmos SDK...

Tado°, the European firm focused on intelligent home climate management, announces the completion of a new funding round of EUR 43 million and its plans to become profitable in 2023. In this investment round Trill Impact Ventures, Bayern Kapital, Kiko Ventures, and Swisscanto join as new investors. Since its...

Eventus, a global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance and market risk solutions, announced today that cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Deribit has “selected the firm’s Validus platform to provide market abuse monitoring on the exchange.”. Headquartered in Panama City, Panama, Deribit claims it is among the largest cryptocurrency options...

Merchant commerce omnichannel company, Pine Labs announced that it has acquired a proprietary enterprise platform from Bengaluru-based Saluto Wellness Private Limited. This acquisition will “boost the capabilities of Pine Labs’ Issuing Business under the Qwikcilver brand, enabling it to strengthen its offerings across employee rewards and recognition, customer loyalty programs, and channel partner programs for medium and large enterprises.”

Bitpanda, the European digital asset platform, is pleased to announce the launch of Bitpanda Technology Solutions, the “scalable” Investing-as a-service infrastructure available in Europe and globally. Already serving 20+ million customers with its initial White Label API, Bitpanda Technologies Solution is now “adding features, asset classes, and several...

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE), a global provider of data, technology, and market infrastructure, announced the launch of ICE Digital Trade Documents (ICE DTD) for the energy industry, a configurable solution “digitizing post-trade and shipping processes for physically delivered commodities including oil, gas and petrochemicals.”. The launch follows “a...

Tranch, a buy now pay later (BNPL) platform for SaaS sellers and services providers, has raised $100 million in seed equity and debt funding “to bring payment flexibility to a wider pool of B2B customers.”. The investment round was “led by Soma Capital (New York-based backers of Deel, Razor...

The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has issued updated guidance for firms engaged in the crypt or “virtual asset” sector. NYDFS created a path for regulating digital asset firms fairly early on in the emergence of crypto. The announcement issued yesterday aims to provide guidance that protects consumers in the case of insolvency.

In a report titled, Monitoring the Currents of the Crypto Market, Matías Andrade and Kyle Waters from Coinmetrics noted that the digital asset market is “experiencing a surge in activity as we kick off the new year. The update from Coinmetrics points out that Bitcoin is “up 36%...

Digital asset exchange Luno will reportedly be cutting 35% of Its staff. Luno’s management stated that the upcoming job cuts will impact company workers in all supported regions. Luno is part of the Digital Currency Group (DCG) and reports having over ten million customers globally. Luno further noted that...

Open Ecosystem RegTech provider, Konsentus, establishes its MENA regional base in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia “to provide open data infrastructure and technology services to regulators and financial services providers in the Kingdom and surrounding territories.”. The team is “led by Managing Director MENA, Konsentus, Saleh Alhammad, who has...

QuickNode, a company that claims to provide the “most performant, scalable, reliable blockchain node infrastructure on earth,” has raised $60 million in a Series B round. Nontable Fintech VC QED Investors participated in funding the Miami-based firm, which was led by 10T. The firm was valued at $800 million.

UAE-based Alaan, the spend management platform for Middle Eastern businesses, announced that it has raised $4.5 million pre-Series A funding, “backed by Presight Capital, Y Combinator, and angel investors.”. Together with the $2.5 million seed round last year, Alaan has “raised a total of $7 million in equity.”

Wise (formerly dba as Transferwise) (LSE:WISE) has announced 15 new partners, in four different markets, to start 2023. In total, Wise now claims 60 partners globally. Wise shares that almost 10 million new customers gained access to Wise, via the Wise Platform, in 2022 alone. The four new markets include:...

We recently caught up with Girts Straujums, CEO of WeavePay, a UK-based payment platform that helps businesses go borderless. Girts Straujums talked about the issues facing Fintech platforms and how certain customer needs are still not being met. Straujums also shared the main reasons why banks in Europe and the UK reject small and medium-sized businesses. Straujums also touched on what he thinks are the most complicated payment problems that need to be solved.

Smart Pension, which claims to be one of the UK’s leading workplace pension providers, announces the launch of three new fully sustainable lifestyle strategies “with different growth fund options: the Smart Sustainable Growth Core Fund, Smart Sustainable Growth Fund (the Smart Pension default fund) and Smart Sustainable Growth Plus Fund.”

Milo, a financial technology company that is reimagining the way crypto and global consumers access financial solutions, announced the launch of its new crypto loan product. This launch means that digital asset-holders will now have the opportunity “to use their cryptocurrency as collateral to access loans, ranging in value from USD $10K – $200K and larger on a case-by-case basis.”

Sandbar, a provider of anti-money laundering, fraud, and counter-terrorism risk detection software, announced the availability of its product and a $4.8 million seed investment led by Lachy Groom and Abstract Ventures. Other participating investors “include BoxGroup, as well as more than 45 angel investors including founders and executives from Ramp,...