• 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.

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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.

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Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva

• 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.

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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.

• 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.

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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.”

• 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.

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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.

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Photo by Jan van der Wolf

• Robinhood Ventures Fund I made early investments in Stripe and ElevenLabs, expanding its portfolio of private fintech and AI companies.
• The fund, which began trading earlier this month on the New York Stock Exchange, gives retail investors access to private market opportunities traditionally reserved for institutional and accredited investors.
• As part of its push to become a financial super app, Robinhood is building infrastructure to package and distribute private assets.

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Robinhood Ventures’ first fund, Robinhood Ventures Fund I (RVI), announced it has closed investments in Stripe and ElevenLabs, just days after the fund began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RVI.

Last week, RVI purchased $14.6 million of Class B common stock of Stripe in secondary transactions, and days later bought $20 million of Series D preferred stock of ElevenLabs in a primary transaction. Founded in 2010, Stripe enables businesses to accept payments, manage billing, and embed financial services into digital platforms. UK-based ElevenLabs is an AI research and product company focused on audio, voice, and realistic speech.

Robinhood launched Robinhood Ventures to enable its users to invest in private companies. The portfolio now includes Airwallex, Boom, Databricks, ElevenLabs, Mercor, Oura, Ramp, Revolut, and Stripe. Robinhood plans to add more private companies in the future.

“We’re excited to add Stripe and ElevenLabs to Robinhood Ventures Fund I and are proud to offer retail investors access to these frontier companies,” said Robinhood Ventures Fund I President Sarah Pinto. “They are helping shape the future of fintech and AI, and reflect RVI’s focus on investing in innovative companies operating at the forefront of their industries.”

In an era when valuable tech companies are staying private for longer, it is difficult for everyday investors to tap into that value. Instead, access has traditionally been limited to wealthy and institutional investors. But because Robinhood doesn’t require investors to be accredited or charge performance fees like traditional venture funds do, a wider variety of investors are able to participate.

Expanding its investment infrastructure is a key piece for Robinhood, which has recently disclosed its goal of becoming a financial super app. The California-based company is offering more than just investment access. It is building the rails to package, price, and distribute traditionally illiquid assets to everyday investors. If this infrastructure model proves successful, Robinhood could expand beyond venture equity into other private market categories such as credit, real estate, and tokenized assets.

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Photo by Magda Ehlers

• Varo raised $123.9 million in a Series G round led by Warburg Pincus and Coliseum Capital.
• The bank will use the investment to scale its chartered banking and lending platform.
• Alice Milligan, former chief marketing officer at Morgan Stanley, and Kevin Watters, former division chief executive officer at JPMorgan, have joined Varo’s Board of Directors.

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Digital challenger bank Varo landed $123.9 million in financing this week. The Series G round, which boosts Varo’s total funding to $1.1 billion, was led by existing investor Warburg Pincus and new investor Coliseum Capital Management. Also contributing to today’s investment are existing investors such as Northview.

For new investor Coliseum Capital Management, the appeal lies in Varo’s ability to use its charter to compete with incumbent banks while expanding its product depth. “We are thrilled to join Warburg Pincus as long-term, collaborative partners, and support Varo’s work to expand its customer value proposition and to further differentiate from traditional banks,” said Coliseum Capital Management co-founder and Managing Partner Chris Shackelton. “We believe Varo is building a resilient and scalable platform from which to capitalize on a significant market share opportunity.”

Varo was founded in 2017 and secured a bank charter three years later. The fintech’s banking platform brings digital-first bank tools, from money management to lending, credit building, and savings accounts and tools. Varo offers two lending products, Varo Advance and Varo Line of Credit, which together generated $547 million in volume last year. The bank’s lending tools are powered by the company’s machine learning models that supplement traditional credit data, allowing the bank to lend to non-traditional borrowers.

As part of today’s announcement, Varo disclosed that Alice Milligan, former chief marketing officer at Morgan Stanley, and Kevin Watters, former division chief executive officer at JPMorgan, have joined its Board of Directors.

From a governance and operating perspective, Varo’s board sees the company’s combination of regulated banking discipline and modern technology as a key differentiator in a crowded challenger market. “Varo has built something rare: a technology-first customer experience paired with the governance and risk discipline required of a nationally chartered bank,” said Varo Bank Board of Directors Alice Milligan and Kevin Watters. Watters reports that Varo will use today’s funds to support the company’s next phase of growth by scaling its lending and banking platform.

“This combination of new capital, Coliseum’s partnership, and experienced banking leaders joining our board, is propelling Varo into its next phase of growth,” said Varo Bank CEO Gavin Michael. “We remain focused on operating with discipline and delivering meaningful impact for our customers.”

US-based Varo is one of the few true challenger banks that operate with their own bank charter, a structural advantage that gives it direct control over deposits, lending, customers, and unit economics. But a charter alone does not guarantee scale. Varo is still small when compared to competitors such as Chime, which operates under a sponsor banking model and has tens of millions of users. And while SoFi is Varo’s closest chartered competitor, the gap between the two is widening. SoFi recently reported record Q4 2025 results, including $1 billion in net revenue, $174 million in net income, and one million new members added in a single quarter.

As bank charters increasingly become table stakes in the challenger banking field, Varo will need to focus on scaling by differentiating its offerings and channels to reach new markets, especially as international players like Nubank, which just received regulatory approval to operate in the US, bring their customer-winning strategies to the US.

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Photo by Landiva Weber