Fintech giant Stripe continues to buy

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at the easy acquisition of Stripe, the fintech’s role in Clio’s latest investment, the latest news on digital banking startup Mercury, and more.

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The big story

Payment giant Stripe Stripe Inc. has made its third acquisition in the past 14 months and at least its 15th in its history, TechCrunch exclusively reported. Stripe acquired 13 people from Lemon Squeezy, a merchant of record that calculates and pays global sales taxes for digital products and handles legal processing and fees in each country. The startup primarily served SaaS and software companies. It’s always interesting when a larger fintech acquires a smaller competitor. Announcing the acquisition at X, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison said that Stripe would “scale merchant of record sales at scale.”

Analysis of the week

I have covered Canadian legal technology Clio for a few years now. So I was particularly interested when the company announced last week that it had raised $900 million at a $3 billion valuation (led by new backer New Enterprise Associates, which alone raised over $500 million). I was even more interested to learn that a big driver of investor interest was embedded fintech. Clio began integrating payments into its offering in 2022 and has since seen its ARR grow to over $200 million, up from $100 million ARR in June 2022. And it’s profitable! Fintech is the winner!

Listen here to the Equity team break down the deal:

Dollars and cents

MNT-Halana fintech unicorn from Egypt, is on a consolidation march. The microfinance and payments startup has raised $157.5 million in funding and is using the money in part to finance the acquisition of another fintech, Tam Finans, as it expands into Turkey.

Tiger beetlewhich built an open-source database specifically designed to process online financial transactions, recently closed a $24 million Series A funding round led by Natalie Vais of Spark Capital with participation from Amplify Partners and Coil.

What else we write

Digital banking startup Mercury said it would no longer serve customers living in the U.S. with business and residential addresses in certain countries, including Ukraine and Nigeria, in a move that angered founders and investors alike. Mercury has since walked back the claim, telling TechCrunch it was “a mistake” and that the policy change only applies to founders living in Ukraine, not to founders living in the U.S. with Ukrainian passports. Competitor saw an opportunity and Brex took action to help the Ukrainian founders.

BELIEVEan Indian fintech startup, has introduced a new feature that helps customers better manage and gain insight into their cash flow. The startup aims to increase engagement through personal finance tools.

Revolution has been granted a banking license by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the United Kingdom. This is a significant milestone for the London-based fintech company, especially since it has been trying to obtain this license since 2021.

Newspaper headlines with much interest

Global financial services funding has slowed over the past 5 quarters

Jack Dorsey is set to overhaul Block in a shakeup he says could feel ‘big and disruptive or uncomfortable’ – internal memo

Robinhood Expands Features with Pooled Investment Accounts

European competitor of Visa and Mastercard soon also available in Belgium

Nova Credit Adds Credit Karma Co-Founder Nichole Mustard to Its Board of Directors (TC wrote about the startup’s latest capital raise here.)

UniCredit acquires banking-as-a-service company Vodeno and Belgian digital bank Aion

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