Photo credit: pedrosek
To prove that last week’s post where 10 fintech fundings were announced in a single day, I submit for evidence yesterday’s April Fool’s Day activity.
Seems as if companies might want to avoid announcing new fundings on April 1, but that sometimes inauspicious date didn’t faze the pace yesterday as seven fintech players revealed total equity investments of $33.5 million. Adding to that figure is $22.5 mil in debt, for a total of $56 million in new capital.
- $22 million to BIMA Mobile to expand its mobile micro-insurance services in developing markets. The company says it already has 7 million customers.
- $20 mil in post-IPO debt to Identive Group to further its identity-management platform (NASDAQ: INVE)
- $4 mil to Citizen.VC in advance of its April launch of an AngelList-like service for funding startups (link to temporary launch page)
- $4 mil to OpenFin to expand its financial trading platform
- $2.5 mil Series A for WealthForge to build out its securities-issuing platform, currently used by Realty Mogul among others
- $2.5 million in debt to ID.me to expand its digital identity network
- $1 mil seed-round to PayStand, a Santa Cruz-based digital POS system that accepts credit cards and Bitcoin (of course)
Again, I’m not saying this is a bubble, but it certainly is a LOT of activity. Then again, if you count insurance (not including health), the financial sector is 8.4% of U.S. GDP in 2011, up from 4% in the 1970s. And it’s ripe for improvement in many, many areas.