BVNK, the crypto-powered payments and banking platform for businesses, has secured $40 million in Series A funding to drive growth as it brings traditional finance and crypto together. The investment will fuel BVNK’s launch into new markets, including the USA, accelerate its acquisition of regulatory licences, and support the expansion of product capabilities. The fundraising round was led by Tiger Global alongside other notable investors including The Raba Partnership, Avenir, Kingsway Capital, Nordstar, Concentric, and Base Capital.  Angel investors included the founders of Anchorage Digital, Coinlist, Eco.com and TrueLayer; Microsoft’s ex-head of strategy and former Stripe and Jump Trading executives.

Lighthouse, the company building the open metaverse navigation engine, has raised a $7 million seed round co-led by Accel, BlockTower and Animoca Brands. The round includes participation from White Star Capital, Sparkle Ventures, Gemini Frontier Fund, The Graph core developers StreamingFast, Tiny VC and angels including Patricio Worthalter (founder, POAP),  Ryan Selkis (founder, Messari), Alex Svanevik (founder, Nansen), Thibault Launay (founder, Exclusible) and other high profile Web3 investors.

LeapFrog Investments (LeapFrog) and Tana Africa Capital (Tana) have invested in Interswitch, one of Africa’s technology-driven companies focused on the digitisation of payments. The investment will assist in supporting the company’s drive to advance the payment ecosystem across the continent. A portion of the investment has been acquired from existing shareholders, with Ignite Holdco Limited, made up of Helios Investment Partners and TA Associates, remaining the largest shareholder in the business following the transaction.

La Banque Postale Asset Management (LBP AM) has made the first closing of its LBPAM Infrastructure Debt Climate Impact Fund at €270 million. With this new achievement, the Real and Private Assets platform totals €7 billion raised since its inception in 2012, and opens a new phase of diversification of its offering with the launch of new strategies that combine search for yield with climate and social impact. The fund aims a target size of €500 million with a hard cap at €700 million. Its marketing has begun with European institutional investors alongside CNP Assurances, and will continue over the

General Mills has acquired TNT Crust from Peak Rock Capital. TNT Crust is a manufacturer and distributor of pizza crusts for foodservice, quick service restaurant, and retail channels.

Elucidate, a financial crime risk management platform, has raised $8 million in a funding round led by AV8 Ventures, alongside Elevator Ventures, the corporate venture capital entity of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) and Tommy Nicholas, Founder and CEO of Alloy. Existing investors APEX Ventures, Frontline Ventures, BiG Start Ventures and SixThirty Ventures, also participated.

BGF, a UK and Irish investor, has completed a £1.6 million investment in Aiber, a Scottish med-tech firm, headquartered in Inverness. This completes a £2 million fundraising round, with existing investors Scottish Enterprise and Equity Gap also participating.

Aiven, a software company that combines open source technologies with cloud infrastructure, has announced it raised $210 million in its Series D at a pre-money valuation of $3 billion. The round was led by Eurazeo, and joined by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock as well as existing investors IVP, Atomico, Earlybird, World Innovation Lab and Salesforce Ventures.

Funds advised by EMH Partners, the Munich-based private equity firm with focus on investments in medium-sized businesses, has acquired a significant minority share in Acrolinx Holding GmbH. GENUI, owner of the majority in Acrolinx, will remain the major shareholder.

Caixa Capital Risc, the venture capital arm of CriteriaCaixa and lead investor through its Criteria Venture Tech fund, and Iberdrola, through Perseo, its programme for start-ups to promote the development of technology-based companies, have joined forces to accelerate the digitisation of smart grids and cybersecurity with a €2.5 million ($2.6 million) investment round in Barbara IoT.