Nude, a U.K.-based fintech that helps prospective homebuyers save money to buy their first home, raised $4.1 million (£3.3 million) in a funding campaign waged on Seedrs. The company also managed to secure additional funding from the U.K. government’s Future Fund. Both fundings add to the $2.1 million (£1.7 million) in growth capital Nude secured last year.

“The challenges facing young people are huge, with a massive wealth imbalance, a complex financial system and little help,” Nude CEO and founder Crawford Taylor explained. “We’ve been planning, testing, and building Nude to make the financial world fairer and easier, starting with helping people buy their first home faster and easier than ever before.”

Nude combines a savings account, PFM app, and financial advisory to help homebuyers determine just how much money they will need to save for their first home by analyzing property location and type, as well as the homebuyer’s capacity to save. The app looks at the user’s overall spending to identity areas of potential savings that could be diverted towards the homebuying goal, and uncovers potential “savings boosters” such as government bonuses or savings “streaks” that can accelerate the saving process.

“We don’t think the financial world is very friendly, or easy, and it definitely doesn’t make you feel as good as you should when you’re managing to save up a house deposit,” Nude co-founder and CMO Marty Bell said. “We’re here to change that. Nude is like having a friend that’s really good with money with you, all the time.”

The company’s future plans include securing a banking license and offering mortgage products, as well as children’s accounts and retirement savings accounts.

Now we know why the men (and women!) around Robinhood are so merry. The mobile trading and investing platform announced this morning that it has secured $320 million in additional funding. Combined with the $280 million the company raised earlier this year as part of its Series F round, Robinhood now has raised more than $1.5 billion in capital and sports a valuation of $8.6 billion.

This latest infusion comes courtesy of both new and existing Robinhood investors, including TSG Consumer Partners and IVP. The Series F was led by Sequoia Capital, and featured participation from NEA, Ribbit Capital, and Unusual Ventures, as well.

Founded in 2013 by co-CEOs Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, and officially launched two years later in the spring of 2015, Robinhood has grown into one of the more influential – and increasingly well-funded – online investment platforms aimed at millennials. The company leveraged commission-free trading in both stocks and ETFs to present an immediate challenge to incumbent brokerage firms – a challenge that is credited for eliminating trading fees at rivals like Charles Schwab, E-Trade, and TD Ameritrade by the fall of 2019.

Menlo Park, California-based Robinhood has expanded its offerings in recent years to include commission-free trading in cryptocurrencies, and a “cash management” feature that offers FDIC insurance and an annual interest rate of 1.8%. The company noted earlier this year that it has added more than three million new accounts in 2020 alone, and that 50% of its new users this year are first-time investors.

“As more people choose Robinhood, we remain focused on continuously improving the experience we provide,” the company’s blog read when the initial investment in the Series F was announced in May. “With this funding, we’ll continue to invest in scaling our platform, building new products, and accelerating build-out of our operations. This means hiring more top talent across all of our offices, including our newest office in Denver.”

Photo by Felix Mittermeier from Pexels

Every company is a fintech company. Or so said Plaid CEO and Cofounder Zac Perret earlier this year. Today’s news that web browser Opera plans to acquire challenger bank Fjord Bank certainly affirms Perret’s statement.

Terms of the purchase, which is currently subject to regulatory approvals, were not disclosed.

So what will a web browser do with a bank? According to the press release, Opera will use Fjord Bank to “further accelerate its fintech operations in Europe by launching new, disruptive services aimed at improving consumers’ personal finances.”

“Looking at the fintech space in Europe,” said Opera EVP Krystian Kolondra, “we believe it needs more and bigger challengers who should provide people with smarter and empowering solutions for their personal finances.”

Opera, which counts 50 million active browser users, has already made inroads into the fintech space. Earlier this year the Norway-based company acquired banking-as-a-service provider PocoSys. As a result of the move, Opera built on Pocosys’ digital wallet and payment technology and is currently testing a new version of the Pocopay card and app.

“With the support of Opera, we are also excited to launch our first banking services in Lithuania this summer,” said Fjord Bank CEO Veiko Kandla.