After some late-night snooping, I can reveal more details about embattled UK fintech Railsr's fire sale — including an eye-watering 99.8% discount and the events that led to its emergency quest for cash. Scroll on for that.
Also today... |
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Revealed: Railsr was sold at a 99.8% discount to its last valuation
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Earlier this month, embattled UK fintech Railsr finally reached a rescue deal with a consortium of investors led by D Squared Capital, the terms of which were undisclosed. But new documents reveal that the deal was worth £413,904 — an eye-watering 99.8% discount on the $250m valuation Railsr was assigned when it completed a downround in October last year. The fire sale put an end to a months-long struggle to find a buyer for the embedded finance provider, after takeover talks with Nigerian fintech Flutterwave collapsed last year. Railsr declined to comment. Sifted has contacted the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for comment. I'll be revealing more about what's next for Railsr next week. |
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Discover real business use cases for innovative insurance providers and learn how to leverage ChatGPT in Supercharge's new whitepaper. |
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European fintech’s most active angel investors
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Several familiar faces sit on the list of Europe’s most prolific fintech angel investors — including the founders of Monzo, Checkout.com and GoCardless. But there are also some new angelic additions who've entered the game in the last year.
Here's who they are, and what they've been backing. |
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On May 25 I'll be chatting to DACH experts from Billie, Bitpanda, Scalable Capital, millia.io and hotjar, to name a few. Join me as I ask: can startups change the world? Where should future founders start looking to make an impact? How do you build out a B2B arm of your startup? |
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Fighting financial crime is still top of the fintech agenda
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Fraudsters are getting smarter, and as they do a new generation of startups selling financial crime prevention products need to make sure their tech keeps up. There's pressure to create products that can handle real-time data analysis, and that are primed for new, AI-powered tricksters. We get into the who, the what and the why in Sifted's latest Pro Briefing on financial crime and compliance, including: - An early-stage market map of startups you need to know
- The trends to watch, including crime-busting AI and metaverse cops
- The sector's most active investors by deal count
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💰 Raisin bags €60m Series E -
New investor, London-based investment manager M&G, invested in the Berlin-based savings manager through its private assets investing vehicle Catalyst. There was another "global financial services investor" that Raisin wouldn't disclose, and existing investor Goldman Sachs also participated in the round. The fintech said it plans to use the fresh cash for product development and expansion — including in the US, which it entered in 2020.
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👀 EQT Ventures bags a new fintech partner -
Kaushik Subramanian will be based in London. Having most recently worked at Stripe, where he led several product initiatives, he says he'll spend the majority of his time on fintech.
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💀 Block is called out for dodgy dealings -
Last week, US-based short seller Hindenburg Research shorted Jack Dorsey's payments group Block and accused it of exaggerating its user numbers and enabling fraudulent transactions. After a two-year investigation into the payments giant, it also said it had found that Block has become a favourite among criminals to process transactions, thanks to its "wild west" approach to customers.
It's not the first time Sifted has heard of these kinds of tales in the payments sector. Do you know of any European peers that could be operating in a similar way? As always, I'm all ears.
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Amy O'Brien
Fintech reporter
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