Canadian Fintech: Scotia buys US bank 👍
Valsoft raises at $3b valuation. Bench shuts down.
Good morning! Welcome back to the Canadian Fintech Newsletter, an industry roundup for founders, operators and investors.
Every Monday we break down the hottest topics in the industry in under 3 minutes.
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💰 Funding
Starboard, a Toronto based logistics platform for international trade, raised $5.5m from Eclipse, Garuda Ventures, & Everywhere Ventures.
Starboard allows freight companies to process shipments in real time, reconciling invoices & follow up on payments.
Valsoft, a Montreal based private equity firm focused on small, niche software businesses raised over $200m at a nearly $3b valuation, led by Portage, Propelr Growth, & Viking Global.
Arcadea, Banyan & Define Capital are other Canadian funds emulating Constellation Software, the Toronto based and publicly traded godfather of small tech rollups.
🤝 M&A
Scotiabank has received regulatory approval to acquire another 10% of KeyCorp, a Cleveland based bank.
Scotia announced in August that it would buy 14.9% of the US lender for nearly $4b, in two tranches.
KeyCorp gives Scotia exposure to US retail banking, which the other big 5 banks already have.
Fairfax Financial, a Toronto based conglomerate in the P&C insurance industry is fully acquiring Brit, a UK based insurer for $383m.
Fairfax has owned a majority stake in Brit since 2015. Omers was the sole minority shareholder.
Early bird tickets for Canada’s largest automotive finance conference are on sale now!
Join hundreds of bank, captive auto, and fintech lending executives in Toronto for a full day conference in partnership with the Canadian Auto Show.
🚀 Product
Zpayd, a Toronto based whitelabel bill payment infrastructure has integrated with MoneyGram, an international money transfer platform.
Emoot, a Vancouver based app to send personalized greeting cards on top of Interac e-transfer launched.
Earlier this year Interac acquired a similar tool called Vouchr.
Kaira, a Montreal based financial coaching app partnered with employee benefits provider AGA.
9 month after becoming CEO of MaRS, Alison Nankivell quit to become CEO of EDC.
Bench, a Vancouver based bookkeeping platform abruptly shut down after 13 years and 30,000 customers. Founder and ex-CEO Ian Crosby had this to say:
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Happy new year! See ya in 2025 👋