ICYMI fintech funding round-up: Abhi, Emerge, Diesta, and Axyon AI
At FinTech Futures, we know that it can be easy to let funding announcements slip you by in this fast-paced industry. That’s why we put together our weekly In Case You Missed It (ICYMI) funding round-up so you can get the latest funding news.
Abhi lands $15 million
UAE-headquartered fintech Abhi has bagged $15 million in credit financing led by Shorooq Partners and Amplify Growth Partnership.
Founded in 2021 in Pakistan, the firm offers solutions for earned wage access (EWA), small and medium enterprise (SME) financing, and payroll financing and processing.
Abhi states the credit financing, which follows the company’s $17 million Series A raised in 2022, will be used to “scale its operations” and broaden its EWA solutions to serve the “blue and white-collar working populations” in the UAE.
The company says it has facilitated $55 million in EWA for workers in the UAE through 545,000 transactions to date.
New Zealand-based Emerge has secured a $12 million Series A funding round as it looks to become the country’s first challenger bank.
The round was led by Altered Capital with additional support from Icehouse Ventures, NZVC, K1W1 LIMITED, NZ Fintech Fund, Hard Yaka Ventures, and a consortium of angel investors.
The start-up offers a range of digital banking services, including physical and virtual cards, in-app receipt capture, and spend limits, with merchant and subscription controls coming soon.
Diesta secures $3.8 million
Diesta, a London-headquartered B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) insurtech, has raised $3.8 million in a seed funding round.
The round was led by New York-based VC firm FinTech Collective with participation from Commerce Ventures and existing backers SixThirty and Restive Ventures.
Founded in 2022, Diesta, which bagged a $2 million pre-seed round last year, provides a payment operations platform tailored for the insurance industry.
Diesta says it plans to use its latest financing to expand across the UK, Europe, and the US while also enhancing its platform with advanced AI-driven integrations and embedded fintech partnerships.
Italian AI fintech Axyon AI has raised an additional €2.1 million in funding. The cash injection completes a funding round started in December 2023, bringing the total raised to €6 million.
This round saw backing from San Francisco-based VC firm Green Sands Equity, Italian holding company Investment Opportunity 1, and a group of angel investors.
Headquartered in Modena, Italy, the company leverages AI to enable asset managers to identify opportunities, provide AI-powered asset rankings, and offer optimised equity and ETF indices.
The funds, which follow a €1.6 million raise in 2022, will be used to boost Axyon AI’s “commercial expansion and technological initiatives”.
