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Numida secures $16.7 million CAD in Serena Ventures-led round to equip more African SMEs with working capital (BETAKIT)
Serena Ventures, the venture fund of four-time Olympic tennis champion Serena Williams’, led the $7.3 million equity portion of the round, with participation from Breega, 4Di Capital, Launch Africa, Soma Capital, Y Combinator, and existing investor MFS Africa, which is following on. Numida also received a $5 million debt facility from Lendable Asset Management.
Exclusive: TripActions has filed confidentially for an IPO, targeting a $12 billion valuation, a rare exception in the frozen IPO market (INSIDER)
Founded in 2015 by Ariel Cohen and Ilan Twig, the Palo Alto-based company helps businesses manage travel, company cards and expenses for employees. Customers include Lyft, Shopify, Unilever, Adobe, Netflix, Rivian, Thomson Reuters, Heineken, Notion, Canva, Carta, Loom, Databricks, and Patreon.
HelloSafe secures $4.2 million to expand its financial comparison solution across Canada (BETAKIT)
This funding will be allocated towards increasing the size of HelloSafe’s teams, improving the user experience on its platforms, and expanding into new product categories in Canada, according to HelloSafe.
Led by co-founders Oleksiy Lysogub (CEO and CTO) and Pauline Laurore (CMO), HelloSafe develops insurance, investment, savings, and credit product comparison solutions for individuals and businesses.
Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky Steps Down (THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)
Alex Mashinsky, chief executive and co-founder of bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network LLC, is stepping down, following a resignation request from its creditors.
New reporting from the Financial Times indicates that Mashinsky withdrew $10 million from the crypto lender just weeks before the company froze customer accounts as it spiralled towards bankruptcy.
Alberta Innovates’ broad scope gives us the perspective to solve some of industry’s biggest challenges, while stimulating the start-up community to build new technology, drive new ideas, and support the development and growth of small and medium enterprises. We’re investing in entrepreneurs and innovators to help them commercialize and scale, including those who are disrupting, improving, and automating financial services.
Our programs connect you with coaching, community, and capital to streamline your innovation journey and to bring transformative technologies to the people who need them today.
Canadian tech must embrace Indigenous reconciliation (BETAKIT)
While Canada is often viewed globally as a thriving hub of innovation, investment, technology, and education within the digital economy, Indigenous communities and practitioners are largely missing from the conversations and spaces about the future ‘smart’ and decentralized technologies.
EQT acquires Billtrust, a company automating the invoice-to-cash process, for $1.7B (TECHCRUNCH)
Shareholders will receive $9.50 per share in cash upon Billtrust’s transition to a private company, a 64% premium above the September 27 closing price of $5.77. The company’s stock has remained relatively steady in recent years, hitting a high of around $19 a share in February 2021 before bottoming out at $4.51 in June.
Important financial metrics every early-stage founder should know (BETAKIT)
Ali Ladha, a virtual CFO for startups & SMBs through his company Vertical CPA, talks about these problems regularly on his Twitter and YouTube channels. In viral tweet threads and various YouTube videos, Ladha explains the financial metrics every business owner should know, how to calculate them, and how they connect to operational decisions.
Bankrupt crypto lender Voyager to sell assets to Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX for $1.4 billion (CNBC)
After several rounds of bidding, FTX’s U.S. subsidiary was selected as the highest bidder for Voyager’s assets, the companies said in a statement late Monday. The bid was valued at roughly $1.4 billion, a figure that includes $1.3 billion for the fair market value of Voyager’s digital assets, plus a $111 million “additional consideration” in anticipated incremental value.
Toronto-Waterloo rises, Calgary and Montréal ecosystems to watch in Startup Genome’s global FinTech rankings (BETAKIT)
According to Startup Genome, Toronto-Waterloo’s rise was fuelled partly by the increased venture investment it saw last year in both Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo, including Wealthsimple’s $750 million May 2021 funding round. This report comes after Toronto fell from 14th to 17th in Startup Genome’s overall ecosystem rankings.
Satispay becomes Italy’s second unicorn after Lee Fixel leads €320m Series D (SIFTED)
Mobile payments provider Satispay has become Italy’s second unicorn created since the dotcom boom, after raising a mammoth €320m Series D round from big-name international investors.
It brings the total amount raised by Satispay to date to €450m, and its valuation to over €1bn (and, crucially, $1bn).
How finance teams can prepare for an IPO (BETAKIT)
In a webinar presented by Sage Intacct, Michael Lister, Leader, InsightsOfficer, at PwC, and David Appel, Head of Software and SaaS at Sage Intacct, shared the seven steps startup finance teams need to take when preparing to go public.
The Crypto World Is on Edge After a String of Hacks (THE NEW YORK TIMES)
More than $2 billion in digital currency has been stolen in hacks this year, shaking faith in the experimental field of decentralized finance, known as DeFi.
WonderFi-owned Bitbuy takes aim at Wealthsimple with stock trading launch (BETAKIT)
Bitbuy’s expansion into stock trading is delivered through a partnership with Canaccord Genuity Group and AlpacaDB, a United States company that offers stock and crypto trading APIs The product is expected to become available in the first quarter of next year, and will allow users to invest in around 3000 listed securities, as well as 8000 over-the-counter stocks and exchange-traded funds.
Sifu Resurfaces with New Money Market Protocol (THE DEFIANT)
Now, Sifu has rolled out a new money market protocol called UwU Lend. The project, which went live on Sept. 21, was forked from lending giant Aave, and has attracted $55.5M in total value locked (TVL) in the two days since its launch, according to DeFi Llama.