Didit Raises $6 Million for AI-Based Identity Verification

Didit Raises $6 Million for AI-Based Identity Verification
  • Spain-based Didit raised an additional $6 million in Seed funding to expand its programmable identity and fraud infrastructure globally, bringing its total funding to $7.5 million.
  • Didit offers developers API-first tools to verify users, businesses, and online interactions, using AI to analyze more than 200 signals including biometric liveness, deepfakes, and behavioral activity.
  • The funding highlights growing demand for identity and fraud tools built for the AI era, as businesses face rising threats from generative AI, synthetic identities, and automated fraud attacks.

Spain-based Didit just brought in an additional $6 million for its identity verification network, boosting its total Seed funding to $7.5 million.

Investors in today’s round include Y Combinator, Pioneer Fund, Orange Collective, Founders Future, Phosphor Capital, SaaSholic, and Rebel Fund, alongside angel investors Tomer London, Taro Fukuyama, and others. Didit will use the investment to scale globally, expand its open infrastructure toward fully programmable identity and fraud coverage, and recruit new employees.

Didit was founded in 2023 to build a programmable identity infrastructure for the internet. The platform offers a developer-first way to verify people, businesses, and automated digital interactions like logging into an account, approving a transaction, or granting permissions.

The platform connects to a network of global government data sources and leverages AI to analyze more than 200 data points, such as document authenticity, biometric liveness, injection attack detection, deepfake analysis, and behavioral signals from every interaction. The company, which counts more than 1,500 customers, serves organizations across more than 220 countries and territories.

Didit reports plenty of demand for its identity verification network, saying that it is an untapped market. The company reports that 80% of its customers had not previously used an identity verification provider.

“No one was building for what was actually happening,” said Didit Founder and CEO Alberto Rosas. “Fraud kept getting smarter, regulators kept getting stricter, and millions of new businesses suddenly needed to verify their users—but every existing provider couldn’t catch the new fraud, had painful onboarding, and hid pricing behind a sales call. So we built the opposite: one API for identity and fraud, public per-module pricing, and an integration so simple that any developer can ship it in five minutes—or any AI coding agent like Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor can ship it in a single prompt.”

Didit differentiates itself from other identity verification providers, viewing itself as programmable identity infrastructure. “What we’re really building is the trust layer for the internet,” added Rosas. In the long term, the company wants to be an identity wallet that allows people to verify once and reuse their identity everywhere.

The funding comes as identity verification providers face a rapidly changing threat landscape driven by generative AI, deepfakes, synthetic identities, and automated fraud attacks. At the same time, developers increasingly expect identity tools to be API-first, priced transparently, and easy to integrate into digital onboarding and transaction workflows.


Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

If you’re in the US, you may be pouring an extra cup of caffeine after an activity-filled long weekend. While you were away, however, the rest of the fintech world kept moving. This week, we’ll continue to add more announcements as the week progresses.


Payments

Marqeta expands account and money movement offering in Europe, building on strong regional momentum.

PlayHQ partners with Gr4vy to power payments across global markets.

Mastercard renews its partnership with CIB, the largest private sector bank in Egypt.

ClearBank Europe launches Digital Asset Rails to unlock programmable liquidity for cross-border flows.

Business financial management

Coupa acquires Tonkean to accelerate agentic intake and orchestration for global trade.

Fraud and identity

INETCO surpasses 100 billion annual transactions as demand for payment fraud protection soars.

Nigerian cybersecurity and compliance company SmartComply launches in the UK.

Agentic AI

Agentic finance startup Catena Labs raises $30 million in Series A funding.

Wealth management

FIS and InvestCloud team up to launch AI-powered wealth management solution.

DeFi and stablecoins

Coinbase re-launches direct deposit option.

Mastercard granted New York State Department of Financial Services BitLicense.

Digital banking

Monzo offers a new telco plan offering discounts every year


Photo by Donald Tong

The Consumer Credit Stack Is Being Rebuilt in Real Time

The Consumer Credit Stack Is Being Rebuilt in Real Time

With new enabling technologies like stablecoins and AI moving quickly and classic fintechs like Mint.com and Dwolla making their exits, it feels like fintech is entering a new era. This is especially true in lending, where new capabilities are enabling faster, more efficient, and in many cases more customer friendly tools than we had five years ago.

Looking back at the dawn of the decade, most lending innovation focused on digitizing the application process, facilitating the onboarding process, and turning loans faster. While some of those elements are still in place today, lending has changed with better intelligence, different distribution, and new infrastructure layers underneath credit itself.

Here’s a look at what’s changed:

Underwriting is becoming continuous instead of episodic

We used to think of the FICO score as the gold standard in underwriting. Today, however, underwriting is no longer done as a snapshot in time. Instead, lenders are using cash flow underwriting to get a view of the borrower’s creditworthiness over time by considering their account balance, overdraft occurrences, loan repayments, and other risk indicators.

Cash flow underwriting is becoming increasingly common, especially as consumers become more comfortable with open banking and the concept of sharing their financial data across platforms.

Embedded lending changed consumer expectations

Embedded lending itself is not new. Uber, for example, began experimenting with vehicle financing for drivers as early as 2014. What’s changed is how targeted, contextual, and embedded these lending experiences have become.

Today, financing is increasingly surfaced directly within the software platforms, marketplaces, and operational tools where consumers and businesses already spend their time. Point-of-sale platform Toast, for example, uses merchants’ daily sales data to underwrite loans and proactively surface financing offers within the Toast platform itself.

As consumers and businesses become more accustomed to contextual lending experiences like these and embedded buy now, pay later options they are relying less on traditional bank websites or standalone loan marketplaces to search for credit products.

The interface layer Is shifting

In addition to competition from software platforms and merchant ecosystems, a third distribution channel is beginning to emerge in lending: large language models (LLMs).

Consumers are increasingly turning to platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini for both information and guidance and decision-making, including financial decisions. As these tools become more integrated into consumers’ daily lives, many borrowers may begin consulting an AI assistant before visiting a bank website or browsing a loan marketplace. Instead of searching manually for financing products, consumers may increasingly ask an LLM to help evaluate their situation and recommend the most suitable lending option.

That shift becomes even more significant as financial data aggregation moves into these environments. Through Plaid’s partnership with OpenAI, for example, ChatGPT can now aggregate and contextualize a consumer’s financial accounts, giving the platform a much richer understanding of cash flow, spending behavior, obligations, and financial goals.

As a result, the lender may still technically originate and hold the loan, but the customer relationship shifts to the interface layer. In this emerging model, the LLM becomes the discovery engine, recommendation layer, and engagement channel sitting between the consumer and the financial institution.

What scales vs. what doesn’t

Looking back at the lending technologies demoed on the Finovate stage five years ago, there is a noticeable divide between the ideas that generated excitement in the moment and the solutions that ultimately achieved scale.

Many of the products that struggled to move beyond the demo phase shared a common challenge: they required consumers to significantly alter their existing behaviors, communication methods, or digital environments. Metaverse-based banking and lending experiences, for example, were fun to watch on stage, but they never aligned with how most consumers wanted to interact with financial products in everyday life. In many cases, they required users to adopt entirely new platforms, devices, or behaviors before their value could even be realized.

By contrast, the lending solutions that have scaled most successfully are the ones that meet consumers where they already are. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is perhaps the clearest example. Rather than requiring consumers to seek out financing separately, BNPL options are surfaced directly at checkout within the shopping experience itself. As a result, installment financing has become an expected feature for many higher-ticket purchases rather than a niche alternative payment method.

What credit looks like by 2030

Five years from now, much of today’s lending ecosystem will still look familiar. Regulated financial institutions will continue to originate loans, underwriting will remain central to managing risk, and compliance will remain a critical consideration not only for lenders, but also for fintech partners, platforms, and emerging distribution channels.

What may look very different, however, is the interface layer between the consumer and the lender.

Consumers may interact less directly with banks and more through AI assistants, software platforms, wallets, and embedded ecosystems that help evaluate financing options on their behalf. As LLMs become more integrated into everyday decision-making, they may fundamentally reshape how consumers discover, compare, and select credit products. In that environment, traditional loan marketplaces could become far less relevant as financing recommendations are surfaced contextually and conversationally through AI-driven interfaces rather than through manual product searches.


Photo by Silvio Pelegrin

54 New FinovateSpring Demo Videos Are Now Live and Free to Watch

54 New FinovateSpring Demo Videos Are Now Live and Free to Watch

FinovateSpring 2026 may be over, but the demos are just getting started. All 54 videos from the demo stage are now available to watch for free on Finovate.com and the Finovate YouTube channel.

This year’s demos showcased how fintechs are rethinking everything from AI-powered banking and embedded finance to fraud prevention, lending, payments, customer experience, digital identity, and wealth management. Earlier this month in San Diego, fintechs took the stage to deliver Finovate’s signature live, seven-minute demos in front of an audience of financial institutions, investors, analysts, and industry leaders.

Whether you attended FinovateSpring and want to revisit your favorite presentations or missed the event and want to catch up on the latest fintech innovation, the full demo lineup is now available on demand.

And stay tuned, because there’s more content on the way.

Recorded keynote presentations, panel discussions, fireside chats, and additional conference sessions will be added to the Finovate YouTube channel in the coming weeks, offering even more insight into the trends shaping financial services in 2026.

Watch the FinovateSpring 2026 demos now.

Subscribe to the Finovate YouTube channel.

equipifi Raises $34 Million to Build Flexible Payments Infrastructure

equipifi Raises $34 Million to Build Flexible Payments Infrastructure
  • Embedded BNPL provider equipifi has raised $34 million in Series B funding to help banks and credit unions offer pay-over-time options directly within their own platforms.
  • equipifi’s infrastructure enables consumers to access BNPL through their existing banking app and debit card without opening a new account, filling out an application, or using a third-party provider.
  • equipifi’s growth reflects a broader shift in BNPL from a standalone fintech product into embedded financial infrastructure.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) infrastructure company equipifi has raised $34 million in Series B funding. The new round boosts the Arizona-based company’s total funding to $49 million.

The investment was led by Left Lane, with participation from existing investors Curql, PHX Ventures, New Stack Ventures, SixThirty Fund, Baleon Capital, Rise of the Rest, and SaaS Ventures. New strategic partners, SWBC and the Bankers Helping Bankers Fund, also contributed.

equipifi was founded in 2021 to offer consumers access to pay-over-time solutions from their preferred banking provider, not through a third party. The company’s solution helps banks and credit unions compete in an era when consumers have begun to expect BNPL as an option and crave flexibility without the need for a credit card. equipifi powers BNPL for millions of checking accounts with its tool that natively embeds BNPL options inside the bank’s own platform without requiring the user to fill out an application or undergo a credit check.

“A consumer opens their banking app,” the company explained on its website. “There’s a flexible payment option waiting for them. On the debit card already in their wallet. No new account. No application. No third-party service. They select their preferred term, tap accept, and they’re done. The institution just created a loan in real time, kept the relationship at the top, and gave the consumer something they didn’t think their bank could do.”

equipifi views its embedded BNPL offering as an infrastructure play. The company calls it “infrastructure for modern credit” that places flexible payments options inside financial institutions’ existing platforms. equipifi plans to use today’s $34 million round to bring flexible payments to every financial institution in the country.

The BNPL trend is interesting because when it first emerged over a decade ago, it wasn’t necessarily something customers were looking for. Now, however, BNPL tools have almost become table stakes. equipifi has proven that BNPL is no longer just a standalone fintech product competing against banks. Instead, it can work as embedded infrastructure that banks themselves want to own and integrate directly into their existing customer relationships. In this case, equipifi is positioning itself less as a consumer brand and more as an infrastructure provider powering the next generation of flexible payments behind the scenes.

5 Things to Know about the CLARITY Act

5 Things to Know about the CLARITY Act

The US Senate Banking Committee unveiled the latest version of the CLARITY Act this week. The Act aims to establish a clear regulatory framework for digital assets.

The CLARITY Act offers enforceable guardrails for digital asset markets in an effort to protect consumers and investors, counter illicit finance and security threats, and support innovation in the US.

The bill is controversial, as it includes provisions to limit liability for decentralized software developers and enters an ongoing debate around whether stablecoins should be permitted to offer yield or yield-like rewards. After more than 10 months of bipartisan negotiations, the Senate Banking Committee is preparing for a key procedural markup. Here are five things you need to know about the new version of the CLARITY Act.

More than crypto regulation

While crypto regulation is making headlines, the Act comes with broader stakes as it also attempts to define who controls the future infrastructure of digital finance in the US. Supporters argue the Act helps preserve a more market-driven and decentralized approach by defining the boundaries of governmental power while protecting the autonomy of private developers and individual users.

This debate extends beyond crypto trading and will ultimately determine who will own and govern the next generation of financial rails. Stablecoins, tokenized assets, and AI-driven financial agents are on the rise, and the rules governing those future financial rails are yet to be settled. The companies and platforms controlling the new infrastructure could hold influence similar to what cloud providers, mobile operating systems, and card networks hold today.

Delineates between securities and commodities

The debate over whether digital assets are considered securities has been around for about a decade. That’s why determining when a token is treated like a security and when it can transition into a commodity is one of the biggest goals of the CLARITY Act. The determination will dictate how exchanges and platforms operate, which regulator oversees it, and what disclosures are required.

Yield is a battlefield

The debate over whether or not stablecoins can pay yield (or yield-like rewards) has been a major sticking point between banks and crypto firms. While banks argue that stablecoin yield products could compete directly with deposits and pull money out of the traditional banking system, crypto companies argue that restrictions would hurt innovation and competitiveness.

The Act does not explicitly use the term “yield” in relation to stablecoins. However, it does establish a regulatory framework that distinguishes between different types of digital assets based on whether they provide a financial return, such as interest. The CLARITY Act implies that if a digital asset provides a right to interest, it would likely fall under the jurisdiction of securities laws rather than being treated as a digital commodity or a permitted payment stablecoin.

While separate stablecoin legislation continues to evolve in parallel in the form of the GENIUS Act, the CLARITY Act intersects with those debates because of how digital assets offering financial return may ultimately be categorized.

About global competitiveness

Supporters of the Act argue that it is less about embracing crypto speculation and more about preventing the next generation of financial infrastructure from being built outside the US. Europe, Hong Kong, the UAE, and Singapore have already moved ahead with digital asset frameworks, and if the US does not create a set of regulatory guardrails within this arena, banks, fintechs, and crypto firms will feel less safe innovating in the digital asset space.

Even if it passes, the debate is far from over

The legislation does not resolve every concern. In fact, there are still ongoing debates around AML protections, DeFi oversight, systemic risk, political conflicts of interest, and consumer protection. So while the CLARITY Act brings more regulatory transparency to crypto, it also accelerates a broader debate about who will govern the future infrastructure of digital finance as stablecoins, tokenized assets, and AI-driven financial systems become more integrated into commerce and payments.


Photo by akbar fathi

Kraken Parent Company Payward Seeks National Trust Charter

Kraken Parent Company Payward Seeks National Trust Charter
  • Kraken parent company Payward has applied for a national trust charter from the OCC to launch a federally regulated digital asset custody entity called Payward National Trust Company (PNTC).
  • The move would help Payward expand its institutional business by offering bank-level custody and trust services to clients that require a regulated qualified custodian.
  • The company also announced plans to raise funds at a reported $20 billion valuation.

Kraken parent company Payward is seeking a national trust charter from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). If approved, Payward would be able to establish the Payward National Trust Company (PNTC), which would offer custody and related services for digital assets.

With PNTC, Payward plans to serve institutional clients and individual customers seeking regulated, bank-level custody and trust services for digital assets. The charter will leverage Payward’s existing infrastructure, risk management, compliance programs, and subsidiaries to establish a federally regulated custody offering under OCC oversight. The regulated offering will expand access for institutional clients who require a federally regulated qualified custodian, broadening Payward’s client base in the US.

“Our long-held belief has always been that the right path forward for digital assets runs through robust, transparent regulation,” said Payward and Kraken Co-CEO Arjun Sethi. “A national trust company provides the certainty institutions require and establishes the infrastructure to build the next generation of custody. This is not about being first; it is about getting the framework right so markets can scale with clarity, interoperability, and long-term vision for what clients will demand as these systems mature.”

Along with its national trust charter announcement, Payward also disclosed that it is seeking to raise capital at a $20 billion valuation. While Payward did not comment on the matter, experts speculate the funds will be used to fuel acquisitions. The Wyoming-based company acquired stablecoin payments company Reap for $600 million earlier this month and bought digital asset derivatives platform Bitnomial for $550 million in April. These deals follow Payward’s 2025 mega deal to purchase NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion.

Taken together, the trust charter application, funding, and ramp-up in acquisition activity are preparing Payward for its IPO. However, while the company filed its S-1 in November of 2025, it halted IPO plans in March, citing unfavorable market conditions.

For Kraken, the trust charter could help deepen its role in institutional finance without becoming a traditional bank. Instead of pursuing a full banking charter, Payward appears focused on building regulated custody and trust capabilities around digital assets, potentially allowing it to expand relationships with institutional investors, asset managers, and enterprises seeking compliant crypto infrastructure.


Photo by Kindel Media

Circle Raises $222 Million in New Token Presale

Circle Raises $222 Million in New Token Presale
  • Circle launched Arc, a new blockchain network and native token designed specifically for institutional finance.
  • Arc, which aims to provide banks, corporations, and treasury teams with faster settlement, raised $222 million in a presale led by Andreessen Horowitz.
  • Alongside Arc, Circle introduced its new Agent Stack tools.

Stablecoin issuer and infrastructure company Circle launched a presale of a new token this week that raised $222 million. The new token, Arc, is the native token of Circle’s newest blockchain and the 10 billion tokens released give Arc a network valuation of $3 billion.

Andreessen Horowitz was the lead investor in the round, contributing $75 million. Other investors include BlackRock, Apollo Funds, Intercontinental Exchange, SBI Group, Janus Henderson Investors, Standard Chartered Ventures, General Catalyst, Marshall Wace, ARK Invest, IDG Capital, Haun Ventures and CoinDesk owner Bullish.

Circle holds 25% of the initial Arc tokens released, while 60% of the tokens will be distributed to users to build on, use, and contribute to the Arc network; 15% of the tokens will be held in long-term reserves.

The new expansion will help Circle diversify beyond its existing USDC stablecoin, which the company launched in 2018. As Ali Yahya and Noah Levine explained in a blog post on a16z crypto, “While USDC has become the trusted digital dollar for banks, corporations, and financial institutions seeking the speed of crypto without its volatility, there remains a problem. The internet infrastructure which USDC runs on today wasn’t built with big institutions in mind. It was built for individuals and crypto enthusiasts.”

Arc is essentially Circle’s attempt to build a blockchain network designed specifically for large financial institutions and global payments. Instead of being built for crypto traders or retail users, it is designed for companies that need to move money quickly, securely, and within regulatory requirements.

Arc can help treasury teams manage and move money in dollars using blockchain infrastructure, while still maintaining many of the controls and oversight traditional finance requires. With Arc, transactions settle almost instantly, privacy settings can be adjusted, and the network is run by approved institutional operators instead of anonymous participants.

“[Blockchain] infrastructure is becoming as important as mobile operating systems or cloud platforms,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said in an interview with CNBC. “We want to build an operating system that has many, many stakeholders in it … major companies who are running the infrastructure with us and who ultimately help to govern it.”

Arc will benefit from Circle’s expertise in operating USDC, which has grown to become one of the largest stablecoins with a market capitalization of over $77 billion. This network effect gives Circle a stronger starting position than other new blockchain projects that launch without established customers, products, or liquidity.

Along with the debut of Arc, Circle is launching the Circle Agent Stack, the company’s new chain-and protocol-agnostic open infrastructure designed for the agentic economy. At launch, Agent Stack includes three products that enable agents as autonomous actors: Agent Wallets to allow for controlled agent access to USDC and ERC-20 tokens, Agent Marketplace for discovering agentic services, and Circle Command Line Interface for executing agent financial actions through natural language.

Combined, the new token and agentic tools show that Circle is positioning itself for an agentic commerce future in which banks will be powered by autonomous software agents operating on blockchain infrastructure. Instead of just focusing on stablecoin issuance, Circle is building the underlying rails, governance structure, and tooling needed for banks and AI agents to move money, execute transactions, and interact with financial systems in real time.


Photo by Laura Lumimaa

What I Heard Between the Sessions at FinovateSpring 2026

What I Heard Between the Sessions at FinovateSpring 2026

FinovateSpring wrapped up last week, and with content running Monday through Thursday, there was a lot to take in. Because I spent the majority of the time running from microphone to microphone, from stage to camera, I missed many of the key demos and presentations.

I did, however, have time for a lot of quality conversations (both on and off stage). Here are some of the insights from the event.

Lines are blurring

It is clear that the world of fintech and banking we had from 2010 to 2023 is slowly fading away. Conversations with multiple people, especially my on-stage breaking news analysis session with Jim Perry, solidified this sea change.

As an industry, we are no longer talking about banks vs. fintechs or banks partnering with fintechs. Instead, the lines are blurring between what is a bank and what is a fintech as fintechs shift to becoming infrastructure providers. Similarly, in the payments world, consumers no longer need to understand the difference between decentralized finance and traditional finance. The increased use of stablecoins with easy on and off ramps to fiat currencies removes the complexities involved in leveraging decentralized finance and makes it easy for consumers to use new tools without ever changing their habits.

Distribution channels are shifting

LLMs are slowly becoming a major distribution channel for a range of bank tools. Consumers are increasingly consulting their preferred LLM to shop for loans, life insurance, credit cards, and more. As AI agents become more prolific, the customer relationship will be one step further removed from the lender, insurance company, and credit card provider. Instead, these players risk becoming infrastructure providers operating behind the scenes while AI platforms control discovery, recommendation, and engagement.

AI progress may not be linear

We are moving very quickly toward an AI-first future and if you don’t already have a team of AI agents running tasks behind the scenes, it is easy to feel like you are behind. There are, however, a few downsides to AI that may change the trajectory of adoption.

First, banks are built to handle human risk, not AI agent risk. While banks implement access controls, require approvals, and document audit trails, this is not sufficient for AI agents, which have been known to circumvent guardrails and even blackmail users in order to accomplish their own objectives. Given these risks and systemic limitations, banks may need to slow their progress, especially when it comes to using agentic AI.

Second, scaling AI is limited. While we often talk about AI like scaling software, in reality, it is closer to building up infrastructure. The energy demand for AI tools is exploding, and compute is constrained by the construction of data centers, which can be expensive and difficult to approve and build because of regulatory and environmental constrictions.

Additionally, it is important to consider the risks that happen when decisions are made in real time. When AI models are making decisions quickly, any mistakes, manipulation, or fraud within the model will propigate at the same rate.

Finovate is still about community

Finovate isn’t the biggest fintech conference, and it never will be. That’s because we have a focus on community. Instead of attending a frenzied event where you only get five minutes with each person you meet, the Finovate networking hall creates space for deeper conversations and genuine connections.

The focus on the fintech community is intentional. It is what keeps people coming back year after year. At a time when so much of the industry is being shaped by automation and digital interactions, there is still real value in face-to-face conversations, spontaneous introductions, and the kind of discussions that continue long after a panel ends.

Some of the most valuable insights from last week came from hallway conversations, lunch meetings, dinners, and the moments in between sessions where people could speak candidly about what they are building, where they are struggling, and where they believe the industry is heading next.

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

It’s the Monday after FinovateSpring, which means there are plenty of new ideas about the future of banking and fintech to talk about. Meanwhile, the news keeps flowing. Here are the top fintech news highlights from the week. We’ll continue to add more announcements as the week progresses.


AI tools

Nscale secures $790 million in financing to support AI infrastructure buildout in Norway.

Experian launches its “Know Your Agent” service, Experian Agent Trust.

Payments

Wise debuts US listing on Nasdaq.

Paymentology raises $175 million.

AdvicePay celebrates its 10-year anniversary.

Global Payments unveils AI-first handheld built for the future of commerce.

Loyalty and rewards

Ualett launches Ualett Rewards to give back to gig workers.

Digital banking

A pair of Finovate Best of Show winners—core banking platform 10x Banking and provider of deterministic AI for legacy system understanding Tweezr—announce a partnership to make core transformation easier.

Fintech startup Parkerfiles for bankruptcy.

InstaSwitch launches account activation infrastructure for business banking and announces $4.7 million in funding.

Augustus receives OCC conditional approval to charter the first clearing bank for the AI era.

Atos and Backbase to accelerate secure, AI-native banking across regulated markets.

Credit unions

VyStar Credit Union selects Diebold Nixdorf to modernize and manage its self-service network of ATMs.

Small business tools

Xero integrates with Claude.


Photo by Shamia Casiano

Versana Raises $43 Million to Build Infrastructure for Syndicated Loan and Private Credit Markets

Versana Raises $43 Million to Build Infrastructure for Syndicated Loan and Private Credit Markets
  • Versana has raised $43 million, bringing its total raised to $125 million, with backing from major banks and private credit players.
  • The company is building a shared, standardized data layer for the $9 trillion syndicated loan and private credit markets that replaces manual, inconsistent workflows with a single source of truth.
  • The new round brings on strategic investors like Fitch Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Motive Partners, and Apollo.

New York-based Versana announced today that it raised $43 million to support its infrastructure that brings transparency to syndicated loans and private credit.

BNP Paribas led the round, with participation from new strategic investors Fitch Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Motive Partners, and Apollo. Existing shareholders—including Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo—also made follow-on investments.

Today’s investment, which Versana will use to expand and grow globally, brings the company’s total funding to over $125 million.

“We’re thrilled that BNP Paribas, Fitch Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Motive Partners and Apollo have joined as strategic financing partners,” said Versana Founder CEO Cynthia Sachs. “This is truly a landmark moment, reflecting clear alignment across two very similar asset classes, BSL and private credit, and the need for modern digital infrastructure and data on one centralized platform. Together, with ongoing support from our existing investors, these new commitments strengthen our global position to accelerate platform growth, product innovation and digital data expansion.”

Versana was founded in 2021 to build a shared data platform for the operationally complex $9 trillion broadly syndicated loan (BSL) and private credit markets. In these markets, a single loan is funded by multiple lenders that each maintain their own records across disconnected systems. As a result, the syndicated loan market often requires manual reconciliation to sort through inconsistent data and offers limited visibility into loan positions, payments, and terms.

Versana creates a standardized, real-time data layer that serves as a single source of truth for all participants in a loan. The platform ingests data from lead banks and distributes it across lenders, investors, and service providers to reduce reliance on spreadsheets and email-based workflows.

Versana is out to solve fragmented, inconsistent data, a core problem in credit markets. With backing from both major banks and private credit players, the company is positioning itself as a data layer across traditionally siloed parts of the market.

As a new strategic investor, Fitch Ventures will help Versana expand its product-market fit into the pre-trade, credit decision-making process valued by portfolio managers and credit analysts. “We see meaningful opportunity to connect our complementary datasets to provide a more comprehensive and consistent view across loan data, including books and records, terms and conditions, covenants and related commentary,” said Fitch Managing Director Steven Miller.

Also joining as a strategic investor, Apollo will help Versana expand its capabilities by strengthening its connectivity with the buyside and new technologies enabling the loan market ecosystem. “We believe in Versana’s mission to modernize the broadly syndicated loan market,” said Apollo Managing Director Jennifer Lin. “Improving transparency and efficiency in BSL operations is important for the entire market, and we look forward to partnering with Versana as the platform continues to grow.”

Impact+ Heads to FinovateSpring to Spotlight Early-Stage Fintech Innovation

Impact+ Heads to FinovateSpring to Spotlight Early-Stage Fintech Innovation

New for FinovateSpring 2026, Finovate is bringing its Impact+ session to offer early-stage fintech founders a dedicated platform to pitch their ideas directly to an audience of investors, banks, and industry leaders.

The session, which debuted at FinovateEurope earlier this year, is designed to create a structured environment for founders and investors to connect, exchange insights, and explore partnerships at a stage when ideas are still forming and companies are actively shaping their trajectory.

Taking place on Monday, May 4, Impact+ will feature a keynote from Stripe’s Asya Bradley, followed by an investor panel and a series of four-minute startup pitches. The evening concludes with networking, giving attendees the opportunity to continue conversations sparked on stage.

Why Impact+ Matters

Early-stage fintech is often where the most interesting ideas emerge, but it’s also the hardest to get visibility into. Impact+ aims to close that gap by bringing founders and investors into the same room.

The concise format gives founders just four minutes to clearly articulate the problem they’re solving, how their solution works, and why it matters. This high-speed format offers investors a way to quickly evaluate emerging opportunities.

Meet the Startups Taking the Stage

At FinovateSpring, eight early-stage companies will take part in the Impact+ session, each tackling a different piece of the financial services stack—from underwriting and compliance to agentic commerce and investment intelligence.

Agentix

Agentix is positioning itself as the infrastructure layer for agentic commerce, enabling AI agents to transact across systems through a single integration. By focusing on discoverability across AI interfaces and enabling agent-to-agent transactions, the company is building toward a future where payments are initiated and completed by software agents rather than humans.

BUOH

BUOH is building an AI guidance layer for banks and insurers, designed to improve how institutions engage with customers during financial decision-making moments. By detecting intent and delivering personalized guidance, the platform aims to increase conversion rates, reduce customer acquisition costs, and improve long-term value.

CustomerPlus

CustomerPlus is rethinking client onboarding and compliance by replacing fragmented tools with a unified client management platform. By embedding regulatory rules directly into workflows, the company enables automated KYC assessments and more consistent compliance processes across products and jurisdictions.

Draco AI

Draco AI is focused on automating underwriting for small business lenders, starting with the merchant cash advance market. Its platform replaces manual analysis, such as reviewing bank statements and aggregating debt positions, with AI-driven workflows that compress hours of work into minutes.

Fintellion

Fintellion is an AI-native investment intelligence platform designed to bring institutional-grade research capabilities to smaller firms. By combining equity research, portfolio intelligence, and real-time insights into a single system, it aims to enable faster, more informed investment decisions without the need for large analyst teams.

Mercata

Mercata is building intelligence infrastructure for hedge funds by connecting internal knowledge such notes, ideas, and research, with external market data. The platform creates a persistent memory layer for investment teams, helping firms track evolving narratives and identify opportunities in real time.

ValueAssure

ValueAssure is developing protection products for niche markets underserved by traditional insurance. Its flagship offering, ValueAssureAUTO, provides trade-in value protection for vehicle owners, addressing gaps not covered by standard auto insurance or GAP products.

Ventus AI

Ventus AI is creating a customer intelligence layer that transforms transaction data into actionable insights. By identifying behavioral patterns and life events, the platform enables financial institutions to deliver more personalized experiences aimed at improving conversion, retention, and assets under management.

If you’re an investor interested in attending this session, there’s still time to register. We’ll see you in San Diego!


Photo by Evie Shaffer