Hello Fintech Friends,
Today’s newsletter is brought to you by our friends at Casca.
Please find another week of fintech exits and deep reads below.
Have feedback for us? Let us know. Find me at @nikmilanovic, @twifintech, and @ndm
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Over 30 million U.S. businesses are stuck with slow, manual loan processes—or forced into costly online financing. With Casca, banks can eliminate the human bottleneck, cutting turnaround times, boosting approvals, and offering more competitive rates. The result: faster growth for your customers, and a bigger, more profitable lending portfolio for you.
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Reads of the Week
Exits
IPOs & SPACs
Buy-now-pay-later platform Klarnarevived its U.S. IPO plans with a target valuation of up to $14 billion.
SK Finance, backed by TPG, shelved its planned India IPO after weak investor demand. The non-bank lender sought to launch the deal earlier this month but demand fell short, even after cutting the proposed offer to 16 billion rupees ($183 million).
Commercial Bancgroupfiled for a $173 million IPO to expand its Tennessee-based community banking operations.
Trump Media & Crypto.comlaunched a SPAC to build a $6.4 billion crypto-treasury anchored in CRO tokens.
M3-Brigade Acquisition VIpriced a $300 million SPAC IPO targeting large crypto and blockchain companies.
Bitcoin Infrastructure Acquisitionfiled for a $200 million SPAC IPO focused on digital asset infrastructure.
CSLM Digital Asset Acquisition IIIpriced a $200 million SPAC IPO aimed at blockchain and digital asset businesses.
M&A - Fintech
The Carlyle Groupclosed its acquisition of financial advice tech provider Intelliflo for up to $200 million, including $135 million up front and $65 million in earn-outs.
Wealthsimpleacquired the investment research platform Fey from Montreal, with financial terms undisclosed.
SwedbankboughtBarclays’s ownership stake in consumer credit provider Entercard for approximately $275 million, making Entercard its wholly owned subsidiary.
Bow River CapitalpurchasedPark Cities' asset-based financing business, gaining a 12-person team and new lending capabilities.
Guidelineentered into an agreement to be acquired by Gusto, after serving around 65,000 customers and managing over $20 billion in assets.
M&A - Banks and Financial Institutions
UniCreditboosted its equity stake in Commerzbank to approximately 26% by converting synthetic holdings into physical shares.
Fund solutions provider JTCrejected Permira’s preliminary £2 billion takeover proposal, sending its shares to record highs.
Barclays agreed to sell its stake in joint venture Entercard to partner Swedbank for an estimated 2.6 billion crowns ($273.2 million).
Desjardins Groupsigned a definitive agreement to take Guardian Capital private in a C$1.67 billion all-cash deal, joining their asset-management platforms.
Stablecoins to most look like dollars on chain, but what they really are is connectivity infrastructure.
👉 Use Case #1 – Linking real-time payment systems
FedNow. SEPA Instant. PIX. UPI.
Each runs domestically, but they don’t talk to each other.
Stablecoins stitch them…— Max von Wallenberg | IRON (@maxwallenberg) August 24, 2025
💡
Sponsored Content
Over 30 million U.S. businesses are stuck with slow, manual loan processes—or forced into costly online financing. With Casca, banks can eliminate the human bottleneck, cutting turnaround times, boosting approvals, and offering more competitive rates. The result: faster growth for your customers, and a bigger, more profitable lending portfolio for you.
Want to sponsor a newsletter? See our sponsorship information here.
