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.”

Blockrise Looks to bunq for Financial Infrastructure

Blockrise Looks to bunq for Financial Infrastructure
  • bunq is launching a live BaaS use case, partnering with Blockrise to offer Bitcoin-friendly bank accounts with embedded banking services.
  • Blockrise users will gain regulated banking benefits, including fiat deposit protection up to €100,000 under the Dutch Deposit Guarantee Scheme via bunq’s license.
  • BaaS enables crypto–bank convergence in which banks provide compliant infrastructure while crypto platforms own the customer relationship.

European neobank bunq is going live with its BaaS offering, partnering with Bitcoin platform Blockrise to offer users Bitcoin-friendly bank accounts. 

Netherlands-based Blockrise users will gain access to Bitcoin services alongside embedded bank accounts. By leveraging bunq’s European banking license, fiat deposits will be protected up to €100,000 under the Dutch Deposit Guarantee Scheme.

“Up to now, Dutch Bitcoin users had to choose between security and convenience. With bunq’s infrastructure, they get both—a bank account that works seamlessly with Bitcoin, protected by the Dutch Deposit Guarantee Scheme,” said Blockrise Founder and CEO Jos Lazet. “We are proud to be the first-ever Bitcoin platform that is able to offer full bank accounts to our clients.”

The partnership marks the first live use case of bunq’s BaaS offering, which integrates bunq’s financial infrastructure into a business’ existing product by building on bunq’s open API. bunq anticipates that its BaaS service will offer users better, safer products. Because bunq handles the complex compliance and security requirements involved in offering bank accounts, businesses are able to focus on their core competencies and move with more agility.

The collaboration also reflects a convergence between traditional banking and digital asset platforms. As regulatory frameworks mature in Europe, licensed banks like bunq are becoming key enablers for crypto firms looking to offer more complete financial services. With BaaS-crypto partnerships, banks provide the compliant infrastructure, while crypto platforms own the customer relationship, which blurs the line between decentralized finance and centralized finance.

Founded in 2012, Amsterdam-based bunq offers both retail and commercial accounts with a range of tools, including budgeting and term deposits for consumers, and expense management and payment acceptance tools for businesses. Earlier this year, bunq applied for a US banking license for the second time, after it withdrew its original application in 2023.

SumUp Expands its Small Business Product Suite

SumUp Expands its Small Business Product Suite
  • SumUp is expanding its platform in the US with an all-in-one small business offering, combining POS Lite, a handheld terminal, card readers, and invoicing into a single ecosystem.
  • Today’s expansion of services comes 10 years after the company initially launched in the US.
  • The strategy reflects fintech’s rebundling, moving beyond payments to unify operations, sales, and business management tools in one platform.

Payment acceptance company SumUp is expanding its core product ecosystem in the US to give small business owners an integrated suite of tools to run their operations.

The new ecosystem breaks down into two categories: the first aims to help users run their business while the second helps them with payment acceptance. Combined, the tools offer business owners a complete set of business management tools in a single platform.

The first category offers businesses access to POS Lite, a point-of-sale solution built for merchants who need a fast, lightweight way to manage sales without the overhead of a full system; and SumUp Terminal, a handheld device that combines full POS functionality, payment acceptance, and business management tools in a single standalone unit.

SumUp has offered payment acceptance tools since it was founded in 2011. The fintech’s new business suite will include portable, plug-and-play card readers that accept chip and PIN, contactless, and mobile wallet payments; as well as an invoicing tool that generates professional invoices with built-in payment links.

“Small businesses shouldn’t have to stitch together five different tools just to run their day,” said SumUp USA Head of Product Ben Brazier. “We built this ecosystem around how merchants actually work—starting with payments, and layering in the management tools they need to stay on top of their business. The Terminal is the clearest expression of that philosophy: one device, everything you need, nothing you don’t.”

SumUp’s expansion echoes the wider “rebundling” trend that is taking place in fintech right now. Instead of offering fragmented point solutions, SumUp is bringing businesses a set of unified tools that bring payments, operations, and business management in a single platform, raising the bar for what small businesses expect from their financial and operational partners.

SumUp has more than four million merchant clients across the globe. Today’s expansion of services comes 10 years after the company initially launched in the US and five years after the fintech acquired payments and marketing platform FiveStars, a move that helped SumUp scale in the region. Overall, SumUp operates across 37 markets on four continents.

AU10TIX Partners with Camunda for KYC/KYB Workflow Orchestration

AU10TIX Partners with Camunda for KYC/KYB Workflow Orchestration
  • Identity verification and fraud prevention company AU10TIX has partnered with enterprise platform for agentic orchestration Camunda.
  • AU10TIX will leverage Camunda’s platform to support Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) workflows at scale.
  • Camunda Financial Services Transformation Lead Jawwad Rasheed will speak about the benefits of agentic orchestration at FinovateSpring 2026, Wednesday, May 6.

Identity verification and fraud prevention specialist AU10TIX has selected Camunda to support Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) workflows at scale. Camunda’s enterprise platform for agentic orchestration enables users to manage complex identity processes without embedding decision logic inside the application code. Externalizing decision logic, as Camunda’s platform does, enables businesses to manage complex workflows efficiently and to adapt to changing circumstances without disrupting applications.

“Camunda gives us robust orchestration for some of the most critical processes in our business,” AU10TIX VP of Research and Development David Voschina said. “By leveraging standardized, configurable workflows, we can scale faster, introduce new verification scenarios more efficiently, and provide greater transparency. Continuous innovation is essential to staying ahead through a proactive defense framework, and Camunda strengthens our ability to anticipate threats.”

Camunda’s technology coordinates document and photo capture, automated authenticity and consistency checks, third-party risk screening, and decision handling into a sole transparent business process. Decisions are consolidated into a single case, automating approvals and declines and routing exceptional cases to human agents for manual review as needed. The platform’s Optimize feature gives users operational oversight, performance transparency, and SLA accountability across operations.

“Identity verification sits at the heart of trust in digital services,” Camunda VP of EMEA Sales Stéphane Faivre-Duboz said. “With Camunda, AU10TIX has a scalable orchestration foundation that connects systems, services, and decisions into one governed process—enabling both compliance and continuous growth.”

Amsterdam-based AU10TIX provides identity verification and management solutions to help businesses defend themselves against fraud. The company’s automated global identity management system detects organized mass fraud attacks by analyzing traffic patterns and cross-referencing data. Since inception, the platform has authenticated billions of identities and prevented more than $24 billion in identity fraud. AU10TIX’s technology enables seamless customer onboarding and verification while proactively adapting to emerging threats and regulatory mandates.

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Berlin, Germany, Camunda enables firms to automate complex business processes across agents, people, and systems. The company creates production-ready, enterprise-grade agents with built-in governance that are designed to manage business-critical processes. More than 700 businesses around the world leverage Camunda’s platform to reduce time-to-value, boost operational efficiency, and enhance customer experiences.

The partnership between AU10TIX and Camunda reflects a number of growing trends within fintech: from the increased importance of identity and fraud prevention solutions to the embrace of agentic orchestration as a way of not only managing and automating workflows, but scaling those workflows, as well. The partnership is an example of how fintechs are working together to bolster fraud defense, improve efficiency, and remain one step ahead of both the latest fraud threats as well as evolving regulatory demands.

Catch Jawwad Rasheed, Camunda Financial Services Transformation Lead, at FinovateSpring 2026 next month in San Diego for his special address, “Invisible Infrastructure, Visible Results: The Case for Agentic Orchestration in Financial Services.”


Photo by Andrew Konstantinov on Unsplash

Banking Circle Launches Stablecoin Settlement Services

Banking Circle Launches Stablecoin Settlement Services
  • Banking Circle launched fiat-to-stablecoin and stablecoin-to-fiat settlement, enabling banks to move funds seamlessly across traditional and blockchain rails with instant settlement and regulatory traceability.
  • The move comes days after Banking Circle received its CASP license, which positions Banking Circle to embed stablecoin capabilities directly into a bank’s existing infrastructure.
  • Stablecoins are quickly emerging as an always-on settlement layer that is becoming standard in cross-border payments.

European cross-border payments fintech Banking Circle is narrowing the gap between stablecoin and fiat today. The fintech is launching stablecoin settlement services, a suite of fiat-to-stablecoin and stablecoin-to-fiat capabilities that will facilitate the movement of funds, regardless of whether they sit on bank rails or blockchain rails.

The announcement comes days after Banking Circle received a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) license from the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF). The newly minted license will allow Banking Circle to expand from cross-border fiat services into digital asset services.

“The award of our CASP license is an important milestone for Banking Circle, as well as for the broader payments ecosystem,” said Banking Circle CEO Laust Bertelsen. “Stablecoins have fast evolved from a peripheral innovation into core infrastructure for cross-border settlement, treasury management, and financial inclusion.”

Banking Circle will integrate its new stablecoin settlement service into banks’ existing infrastructure to help them take advantage of stablecoin rails. The new tools will offer increased security, lower risk, and more convenience than traditional global settlement rails, creating efficiencies for banks.

After they integrate with Banking Circle’s core platform, clients will be able to interoperate between fiat currencies and leading stablecoins, including USDC, USDG, and EURI. Leveraging stablecoin rails, Banking Circle will offer instant settlement and full regulatory traceability.

“We have spent years building the financial infrastructure that enables more than 750 payment companies, financial institutions, and marketplaces to efficiently move and convert over €1.5 trillion annually across the globe,” said Banking Circle Chief Digital Asset Officer Kirit Bhatia. “Stablecoins are a natural extension of that infrastructure and central to our mission of eliminating unnecessary cost and complexity through technology.”

Founded in 2013, Banking Circle was acquired by private equity firm EQT in 2018 for $300 million. Headquartered in Luxembourg and regulated by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), the bank is fully licensed and serves as a correspondent bank offering multi-currency bank accounts and virtual IBANs as well as bank connections for local clearing and cross-border payments.

Banking Circle has branches in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Poland, the Czech Republic and the UK, and subsidiaries in Liechtenstein, Singapore and Australia. 

Banking Circle’s announcement shows that banks across the globe are rethinking the underlying infrastructure of payments. Stablecoins are emerging as an always-on settlement layer that can complement traditional correspondent banking networks. As banks across the globe integrate stablecoin payments rails into their platforms, and as the global stablecoin market reaches approximately $293 billion, it is becoming clear that stablecoin rails are slowly becoming a standard part of cross-border payments, rather than an alternative.

Adyen to Acquire Loyalty Platform Talon.One

Adyen to Acquire Loyalty Platform Talon.One
  • Adyen is acquiring Talon.One for $879 million to add enterprise loyalty, promotions, and incentive infrastructure used by 300+ brands.
  • Adding Talon.One’s loyalty infrastructure moves Adyen beyond payments into real-time decisioning to enable merchants to connect identity, pricing, and promotions and act during the transaction.
  • The new infrastructure can dynamically deliver offers during AI-driven shopping experiences to help shape purchases.

Payments platform Adyen is acquiring loyalty solutions company Talon.One in a deal valued at $879 million (€750 million). The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026.

Germany-based Talon.One serves as the loyalty infrastructure for 300 enterprises, including large brands such as Nordstrom and H&M. Founded in 2015, the company offers tools for enterprise loyalty management, personalized promotions, and incentive optimization. Earlier this year, Talon.One released Unified Incentives Protocol (UIP), a new set of standards that shows available promotions and loyalty incentive offers within AI agent-based shopping experiences.

“Joining Adyen allows us to embed real-time decisioning at the core of every transaction,” said Talon.One Co-founders Christoph Gerber and Sebastian Haas. “Together, we enable merchants to connect customer identity with pricing and promotions in real time, in-store and online, driving better outcomes for our customers.”

Adyen anticipates that bringing in Talon.One will help connect online and in-store shopper interactions, enabling merchants to act on the insights in real-time. Combining Adyen’s payments infrastructure and transaction data with Talon.One’s real-time decisioning capabilities will allow merchants to establish a consistent customer identity across channels. Merchants can use this information to dynamically adjust promotions and pricing based on aspects of the customer identity.

“Our merchants ask us every day how they can better connect their online and in-store customer data and act on that in real time,” said Adyen Co-CEO Ingo Uytdehaage. “Many have tried to build a solution themselves but struggle to turn insights into action. With Talon.One, a merchant can recognize a shopper and apply a relevant offer instantly, before the payment is completed, ultimately driving higher revenue.”

Adyen considers the acquisition a “natural next step” in its investment in unified commerce and data products. Talon.One will enable it to link customer identity directly to SKU-level promotions and incentives within the flow of payments to improve conversion, fraud, and customer lifetime value.

Ultimately, the deal elevates Adyen beyond payment rails into a real-time decisioning layer within the transaction itself. By combining payments data with loyalty and promotion logic, Adyen is acting on the fact that transaction data is only valuable if it can be operationalized at the moment the purchase decision is still being made.

As the move toward agentic commerce accelerates, acting in the moment of the purchase becomes even more critical. AI-driven shopping experiences will increasingly surface and execute offers on behalf of consumers, making infrastructure that can dynamically deliver pricing, incentives, and identity-aware promotions a competitive differentiator.

Moomoo Launches Agentic Investing in the Form of API Skills

Moomoo Launches Agentic Investing in the Form of API Skills
  • Moomoo launches API Skills to connect personal AI agents to trading and allow investors to use natural language to build and execute strategies without coding.
  • The new tools include strategy validation, intent-to-execution translation, and 24/7 market monitoring inside a pro trading environment.
  • Moomoo enables external AI agents via APIs, giving users control, flexibility, and local data security.

Online investment and trading platform Moomoo is launching agentic investing tools this week. The California-based company has launched API Skills to allow retail investors to connect their personal AI agents directly to Moomoo’s infrastructure.

With API Skills, investors can use natural language commands to create structured, executable investment strategies without coding. The tool integrates with multiple AI agent frameworks, enabling always-on agents that act as 24/7 trading assistants that continuously interpret market data, monitor conditions, and prepare trades based on a user’s goals within a professional-grade trading environment.

“With Moomoo API Skills, we are reducing the technical barriers that once stood between an idea and its execution, enabling clients’ personal AI agents to connect directly with our platform while ensuring investors retain full control of every decision,” said Moomoo Canada CEO Michael Arbus.

The new tool not only helps non-technical users automate their trading decisions, but it also helps investors save time by streamlining more complex workflows. Included in the API Skills are: automated strategy validation that allows users to review, refine, and validate their strategies before deploying them; intent-driven development that translates natural language commands into structured logic to execute the move in the market; and a volatility monitor that detects market shifts 24/7.

With Moomoo’s API Skills, all trading credentials and sensitive account data remain within the user’s local environment instead of passing through third-party AI servers. The new capability also allows users to test and explore their agent’s logic using virtual funds before moving the logic into the wild.

Moomoo isn’t the only trading platform empowering users with agentic trading. Last month, brokerage platform Public introduced AI agents to automate their portfolio strategies with AI. The two approaches are slightly different, however. While Public’s agents are native, consumer-facing agents geared toward retail investors, Moomoo is an API layer for builders that lets external AI agents plug into trading.

Founded in 2018, Moomoo has 29 million investors across Singapore, Australia, Japan, Canada, Malaysia, and New Zealand.

Oracle Brings Agentic AI Platform to Corporate Banking

Oracle Brings Agentic AI Platform to Corporate Banking
  • Oracle is embedding agentic AI directly into corporate banking workflows, launching pre-built agents across credit, trade finance, treasury, and lending.
  • The tools target some of banking’s most manual, document-heavy processes, enabling faster decisions and allowing teams to scale output without adding headcount.
  • With a human-in-the-loop approach and hundreds more agents coming, Oracle is positioning AI as operational infrastructure.

Enterprise technology company Oracle is deepening its agentic AI prowess this week. The Texas-based company announced it is adding new embedded AI capabilities and agents for its corporate bank clients.

Oracle’s new agentic AI tools will offer clients a suite of AI-infused applications and pre-built AI agents for treasury, trade finance, credit, and lending. As a result, firms can automate once-manual processes and speed decision-making, ultimately unlocking new opportunities for growth.

“Corporate banking runs on precision, resiliency, and trust,” said Oracle Financial Services Senior Vice President Sovan Shatpathy. “Our AI-powered platform embeds intelligence directly into mission-critical processes, accelerating decisions and strengthening governance so banks can serve clients with greater speed and confidence.”

The two main pillars of the new launch include corporate credit and trade and supply chain finance. The corporate credit arm has five main agents that help with data extraction from loans, financial statements, and documents, and generate credit memo reports. The trade and supply chain finance has an application validator agent that ingests bank guarantee application packages and supporting documents and delivers a risk recommendation, as well as an agent that analyzes sales contracts and designs an appropriate supply chain finance program.

Because Oracle’s agentic AI takes a human-in-the-loop approach, all decisions are supported by human expertise, maintaining oversight and ethical governance. Oracle said that these agents are among “hundreds” of other corporate and retail banking agents that will launch in the next 12 months.

Much of the AI development we’ve seen in banking over the past two years has been customer-facing, taking the form of chatbots and personalization tools. Oracle’s new push into agents removes the strain from some of the most manual, document-heavy parts of corporate banking. Instead of just offering faster memo writing, Oracle’s tools allow credit teams to handle more deals without increasing headcount, offer a standardized approach to trade finance, and provide banks a way to offer faster response time to their clients.

Airwallex Launches Physical Point of Sale Device

Airwallex Launches Physical Point of Sale Device
  • Airwallex launched Airwallex POS Payments, a physical point-of-sale device.
  • The device will enable physical, in-store payments that integrate with Airwallex’s broader commerce stack.
  • The new launch helps Airwallex compete with Square and Stripe, but Airwallex has an advantage in regions where it holds banking licenses.

While the rest of the payments world is racing toward agentic payments, Airwallex is bringing its focus back to the physical world. The Singapore-based company announced this week that it has launched Airwallex POS Payments, a physical point-of-sale (POS) device.

The new, physical device integrates with the company’s commerce stack to unify online and in-store payments. Bringing everything together will help merchants offer consistent payment flows, reporting, and customer experiences across multiple channels. Enterprise retailers will gain more visibility and control across channels, while SaaS platforms will gain the ability to embed in-store payments directly into their products.

“By extending our global financial platform to the physical countertop, we’re bringing online and in-store payments together, reducing the fragmentation that has long held in-store payments back, and giving enterprises a truly global foundation for growth,” the company said in its announcement.

Adding physical POS devices places Airwallex directly in competition with Square, a pioneer in the mobile POS hardware space, and Stripe, which offered to acquire Airwallex in 2019 for $1.2 billion. Airwallex has an advantage over these two legacy players in certain regions, however. In Japan, for instance, where the company holds a banking license, the fintech owns both the backend banking infrastructure, as well as the front-facing software. So when a merchant is paid, Airwallex can hold the funds instead of having to transfer them to the merchant’s primary bank account.

Founded in 2015, Airwallex holds nearly 90 regulatory licenses and permits across 50 markets that enable customers to operate in 200+ countries and regions and support multi-currency checkout at scale. In 2025 alone, the company extended its regulated and local capabilities across 12 new markets, securing licenses and launching products in France, the Netherlands, Israel, Canada, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, and the UAE.

The new POS payments device is now available across the UK, Europe, Hong Kong, and Singapore, with plans to launch in Australia and the US, where it currently serves 46,000 businesses.

eToro Acquires Crypto Wallet Zengo

eToro Acquires Crypto Wallet Zengo
  • eToro has acquired self-custodial wallet provider Zengo to deepen its digital asset capabilities and expand into on-chain finance.
  • The deal brings keyless wallet infrastructure in-house, positioning eToro to move beyond trading into custody, authentication, and transaction control.
  • As crypto evolves into infrastructure, owning the wallet layer could determine who controls the customer relationship.

Social trading and investment network eToro announced it has acquired self-custodial crypto wallet provider Zengo for an undisclosed amount. eToro plans to leverage the acquisition to deepen its digital asset capabilities and bridge traditional finance with on-chain infrastructure.

Zengo was founded in 2018 and offers a crypto wallet with buy, sell, and swap capabilities to both individual and commercial users. The Israel-based company positions itself as a secure crypto wallet, offering Bitcoin vaults, theft protection, a Web3 firewall, and enterprise-grade compliance and controls for commercial users. Notably, Zengo is a pioneer in multi-party computation cryptography and is known for its keyless wallet architecture.

“We believe the future of finance will be increasingly digital, decentralized, and user-controlled, with self-custody playing an important role in that evolution,” said eToro Co-founder and CEO Yoni Assia. “Zengo has built an innovative and secure wallet experience, and this acquisition will enable us to accelerate its growth while continuing to provide users with choice in how they access digital assets.”

eToro will combine its multi-asset platform with Zengo’s non-custodial wallet technology to expand on its own digital asset capabilities while growing Zengo’s platform. “From day one, Zengo has focused on making self-custody simple and secure for everyday users,” said Zengo Co-founder and CEO Ouriel Ohayon. “Joining eToro allows us to accelerate that mission at a global scale. Together, we can expand access to self-custody and on-chain finance while connecting it to a broader investing ecosystem that bridges traditional and on-chain finance.”

Founded in 2007, eToro launched Bitcoin trading capabilities in 2013, but didn’t launch a dedicated crypto trading platform in the US until 2019. Today’s acquisition will help eToro expand into tokenized assets and emerging decentralized trading models such as prediction markets and perpetuals.

As the banking world increasingly normalizes decentralized finance, it may no longer be enough for fintechs and investment firms to simply offer traditional finance investing tools, especially as crypto evolves from an asset class into infrastructure.

By acquiring Zengo, eToro is positioning itself to participate more directly in on-chain activity, rather than simply offering access to facilitate trades. The deal is another example of fintechs pushing deeper into infrastructure. Self-custody wallets are emerging as the interface layer for on-chain finance. By bringing that capability in-house, eToro is positioning itself to control digital assets, storage, authentication, and transactions.

London-Based Round Raises $6 Million to Automate Treasury Management

London-Based Round Raises $6 Million to Automate Treasury Management
  • Round has raised $6 million and announced the launch of agentic workflow and autonomous payroll tools to automate treasury, AP, and payroll.
  • The company combines AI-driven automation with owned payment infrastructure to fully execute finance teams’ money movement commands.
  • By sitting in the flow of funds, Round introduces new competition for banks, treasury management system providers, and fintechs.

Treasury management company Round has closed $6 million in seed funding this week, boosting its total funding to $8.1 million. The London-based fintech is also unveiling two new products: Agentic Workflow Builder and Autonomous Payroll

Today’s round was led by Alstin Capital. Existing investors including Passion Capital, along with new investors Backed VC and Love Ventures, as well as angel investors, also contributed. Uniquely, Round’s own clients also invested. Around 10% of the company’s customer base contributed to today’s round.

“We are building for the finance team of the future, one that understands the importance of automation to keep up with the pace of modern companies. AI tools are rapidly being deployed across the industry and finance teams do not need to be left behind,” said Round Cofounder Hayyaan Ahmad.

The company will use today’s funding to accelerate product development, expand its engineering and go-to-market teams, deepen integrations across banks and accounting systems, and scale its existing infrastructure. Round also has plans to launch community-focused events such as hackathons, hands-on workshops, and webinars.

Round’s new Agentic Workflow Builder, which is currently in early access, builds a workflow based on a natural language description. It allows finance teams to run workflows autonomously that previously required an employee. The Agentic Workflow Builder can run 24/7 and notify teams via Slack, WhatsApp, or email if something needs attention.

Similarly, Autonomous Payroll essentially helps payroll run itself, autonomously pulling funds and executing the payment on schedule. It eliminates the need for finance teams to log into multiple systems to make payroll each month.

Treasury, payroll, and accounts payable have historically been fragmented across banks, ERP systems, and manual workflows. By combining agentic AI with owned payment infrastructure, Round is aiming to collapse those layers into a single, autonomous system.

Round was founded in 2023 to reduce the manual work involved in treasury management by automating workflows. The company automates treasury, accounts payable, and payroll to save finance teams the manual, repetitive work involved in moving funds around to optimize yield.

Round differentiates itself from other automated workflow platforms because it owns and manages the infrastructure involved, such as wallets and payment rails. Clients can leverage that infrastructure, along with Round’s machine learning and intelligence to set rules for approval thresholds, payment schedules, and cash minimums, to ensure payroll obligations are met, and that idle cash is invested appropriately. Since launching its first automated workflows less than a year ago, Round has processed over $500 million.

With Round owning the infrastructure, banks, legacy treasury providers, and even fintechs face a new type of competition. Traditional treasury management systems such as Kyriba offer visibility and controls, but often rely on integrations with external banks and require manual execution. Newer fintechs like Ramp, Brex, and Airbase offer spend management and accounts payable tools, but do not offer full autonomous fund movement.

Moving forward, Round’s challenge will be client trust and regulatory oversight. While finance teams may be willing to automate workflows, they may be less willing to fully automate money movement, especially when it comes to payroll.


Photo by Jan van der Wolf

Binance Joins Crypto Rivals in Race to Launch Prediction Markets

Binance Joins Crypto Rivals in Race to Launch Prediction Markets
  • Binance is adding prediction markets via a partnership with Predict.fun to enable one-click, fee-free bets on real-world events using existing account balances.
  • The move raises regulatory and ethical concerns, as prediction markets blur the line between forecasting and gambling and operate with limited oversight.
  • The move opens a new revenue stream while attracting retail users interested in event-based trading and deeper platform engagement.

Digital asset exchange platform Binance is adding a new revenue stream today. The Cayman Islands-based company has added prediction markets to the Binance App, allowing users to place bets on real-world outcomes across categories.

Binance has teamed up with Predict.fun, a forecasting platform that will host prediction markets on Binance’s platform. The newly integrated prediction markets will offer one-click, fee-free access, with no complex onboarding required. Users will be able to use their Spot and Funding Account balances.

“Prediction markets allow participants to take positions on future outcomes across areas like sports, economics, world events, culture, and crypto,” the company said in its announcement. “Each outcome (Yes and No) is represented by a share priced between $0.01 and $0.99, representing the collective belief of participants on the outcome’s likelihood — for instance, a share priced at $0.80 in a sufficiently deep market would suggest an 80% chance of the outcome occurring.”

As with all moves in the prediction markets space, the launch is not without controversy. Aside from the fact that Binance’s prediction market operates outside the supervision of any financial regulatory authority, prediction markets in general have a reputation for blurring the line between informed forecasting and speculative gambling, especially when tied to sensitive real-world events such as elections or geopolitical outcomes. Additionally, prediction markets are prone to manipulation, may incentivize undesirable behavior (especially among young men), and often lack the regulatory safeguards seen in traditional financial products.

By integrating prediction markets directly into its app, Binance is making it easier for its target market of young men to participate, while also inviting greater regulatory attention at a time when global authorities are already tightening oversight of both crypto platforms and event-based trading.

Binance isn’t the first player in the crypto market to add prediction markets to its platform. US-based Coinbase launched prediction markets in partnership with Kalshi four months back, while Crypto.com unveiled a standalone prediction market platform, OG, aimed at sports enthusiasts three months ago.

Overall, Binance’s new prediction markets offering opens up a potentially lucrative revenue stream while also serving as a powerful user acquisition tool, particularly among a growing group of retail traders drawn to event-based speculation.


Photo by lil artsy