Circle Co-founder and Mercury Raised Millions
Hey Digital Banking Fanatic!
Sean Neville, co-founder of stablecoin giant Circle and current board member, has secured $30 million in a Series A led by Acrew Capital and the crypto arm of Andreessen Horowitz.
His startup, Catena Labs, is building tools that allow AI agents to safely conduct financial transactions.
Exactly one year ago, I covered when Neville secured $18 million in funding, a round that even Tom Brady participated in.
Catena Labs also announced that it’s applying for a national trust bank charter in New York from the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, as the company seeks regulatory backing to process payments and hold customers’ money.
While Catena Labs is still in early stages, the market it's building for is already maturing fast. Case in point: Mercury just raised $200M at a $5.2B valuation.
Mercury's numbers really caught my eye: four years of profitability, $650M in annualized revenue, and 300,000+ businesses on the platform, including roughly 1 in 3 early-stage U.S. startups.
Scroll down to see what else is shaping the Digital Banking landscape. 👇 See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
NEWS
🇺🇸 Circle cofounder raises $30 million for Series A ‘AI-native bank’ Catena Labs to develop infrastructure for AI-driven financial transactions. The startup is also applying for a US national trust bank charter as it builds tools that allow AI agents to securely manage payments and financial activities within user-defined controls and safeguards.
🇺🇸 FinTech firm Mercury hits $5.2 billion valuation after funding round, up 49% in 14 months. The fundraising comes weeks after Mercury received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to become a federally regulated bank, which would allow it to offer lending, join Zelle, and reduce reliance on partner banks.
🇩🇪 Chase launches in Germany. Chase is introducing a free savings account with an attractive interest rate of 4% for the first 4 months, so that people in Germany can make more of their money. Customers can flexibly manage their savings via an intuitive mobile app and access personal support if needed.
🌍 N26 strengthens management team with two senior appointments. Aytac Aydin will join as Chief Operating Officer, overseeing technology, operations, and legal functions, while Daniel Lappas will expand his role as Chief Product and Business Officer to align product development with commercial strategy across the bank’s 24 markets.
🇨🇦 National Bank of Canada partners with Sardine to strengthen digital banking security and fraud operations efficiency. Under the agreement, the bank will deploy Sardine’s device intelligence and real-time risk scoring across its retail, commercial, and wealth solutions.
🇧🇷 PPRO partners with Nubank to enable NuPay, unlocking access to Brazil’s digital banking ecosystem. NuPay is a payment method exclusively available to Nubank customers, enabling seamless authorisation through a single click or biometric scan directly within the institution’s secure app environment.
🇺🇿 EDB extends $70m loan to Uzum to support the Uzbek FinTech sector. The funding will help scale Uzum’s digital payments, consumer finance, and SME financial products, and will also mark the bank’s first investment in Uzbekistan since the country joined the institution.
🇺🇸 Regtech Eisen raises $18.5 million to streamline Escheatment. The company helps financial institutions manage abandoned asset reporting, tax compliance, and audit processes more efficiently in a sector where billions of dollars in unclaimed consumer funds remain unrecovered.
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