Deal Overview: Goldman Sachs is selling its digital investment advisory unit, Marcus Invest, to robo-advisor Betterment. The agreement involves transferring the unit’s digital investment accounts and assets under management to Betterment, with completion expected around 29 June. Background of Marcus: Marcus was launched in October 2016 as Goldman Sachs’ digital consumer banking and lending platform, offering services such as deposits, credit cards, and savings accounts. Since 2022, Marcus has operated under Goldman Sachs’ asset and wealth management division as part of the bank’s strateg ..read more

Acquisition Details: Thunes, a B2B payments infrastructure firm, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tilia. Tilia, founded in 2019, offers acceptance and pay-out services for various sectors, including in-app purchases, creator economies, online games, and virtual worlds. Strategic Expansion into US Gaming Market: The acquisition of Tilia aims to fuel Thunes’ expansion into the US online gaming market. Thunes plans to leverage Tilia’s technology to offer acceptance services for major card networks such as American Express, JCB, MasterCard, UnionPay, and Visa to its customers ..read more

Funding Details: Pomelo, a San Francisco-based fintech, has raised $35 million in a Series A equity funding round. Additionally, the company secured an additional $75 million for its warehouse facility. Investors: The Series A round was supported by Vy Capital and existing backers A* Capital and Founders Fund. Total Funds Raised: With this latest funding, Pomelo has raised a total of $55 million in equity capital and $125 million for its warehouse facility. Previously, the company raised $70 million in a seed funding round in 2022, consisting of $20 million in venture capital and a $5 ..read more

Payflows Series A Funding: Fintech start-up Payflows has emerged from stealth mode with €25 million in Series A funding to support its enterprise financial automation platform. Platform Features: Payflows’ platform is designed to automate financial functions for scale-ups in the mid to upper end of growth. It covers various financial operations, including accounts processing, procurement, payments, cashflows, customer and supplier insights, and other tasks typically managed by CFOs. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Model: The platform is delivered via Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and is i ..read more

AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing business, wants to become the go-to place companies host and fine-tune their custom generative AI models. Today, AWS announced the launch of Custom Model Import (in preview), a new feature in Bedrock, AWS’ enterprise-focused suite of generative AI services. The feature lets organizations import and access their in-house generative AI models as fully managed APIs. Companies’ proprietary models, once imported, benefit from the same infrastructure as other generative AI models in Bedrock’s library (e.g., Meta’s Llama 3 or Anthropic’s Claude 3). They’ll also get tool ..read more

New CEO Appointment: Kneip, a Luxembourg-based fund data management and reporting solutions provider, has appointed Elisa Alonso Sanz as its new CEO, effective from 1 July. Background of Elisa Alonso Sanz: Sanz joins Kneip from ABN Amro Investment Solutions (AAIS), where she served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the investment solutions arm for nearly four years. She brings extensive experience from her previous roles, including Chief Risk Officer at ABN Amro’s private banking unit and leadership positions at financial services firms such as State Street, Nomura, EY, Euroclear ..read more

Banking Licence Approval: UK challenger Revolut has received a banking license from Mexico’s National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) to operate a neobanking subsidiary in the country. Strategic Expansion: Mexico has been cited by Revolut as a “key region for international expansion”, with efforts to obtain approval initiated in 2021 with the hiring of former RappiPay executive Juan Miguel Guerra to lead the entry into the market. Regulatory Milestones: Initially granted a money transmitter licence in December 2022, Revolut secured the banking licence by meeting the CNBV’s ca ..read more

Acquisition Details: UK fintech Gresham Technologies is set to be acquired by Alliance Bidco Ltd (Bidco), a company indirectly owned by US-based private equity firm STG Partners, in a deal worth £146.7 million. Agreed Deal: The acquisition comprises a cash offer and a permitted dividend, totaling 163.75 pence per Gresham share, representing a premium of approximately 26.9% on the closing share price from Monday. Expected Closure: The acquisition is anticipated to be completed by the third quarter of 2024, subject to approval by Gresham’s shareholders. Merger Plans: Bidco intends to ..read more

Funding Details: Parafin, an embedded finance fintech, has secured a $125 million warehouse facility from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Trinity Capital. Company Background: Founded in 2020 by former Robinhood employees Sahill Poddar, Ralph Furman, and Vineet Goel, Parafin offers an embedded financial infrastructure to enable companies like payment processors and marketplaces to provide growth capital to small businesses on their platforms. Underwriting Model: Parafin utilizes a machine learning-driven underwriting model to evaluate a firm’s sales performance and determine eligibility ..read more

Plenty of large corporations want to join the AI revolution, but many feel it’s too early to be locked into one foundational model. That means there’s a market for a layer between companies and large language models (LLMs) — something companies can use to pick LLMs easily without needing to commit for all time to one platform. That’s the market Langdock is targeting with its chat interface that sits between LLMs and a company. Based out of Germany, the startup has recently raised a $3 million seed round led by General Catalyst and its European seed-stage partner, La Famiglia. “Companies don’t ..read more