Tech Category
Report: Fintech Startup Ramp Said To Be Raising $200M At A $16B Valuation
Expense management startup Ramp is in discussions to raise around $200 million in a round of funding that would bump its valuation to about $16 billion, according to The Information. Founders Fund, an early and repeat backer, is reportedly aiming to lead the investment. Other existing investors such as Sands Capital and Khosla Ventures are believed to be participating as well. New York-based Ramp has evolved into a fintech darling since its 2019 inception. The company has branched out from offering a corporate card into travel, bill pay and a new treasury product. It crossed $700 million in annualized revenue as of January of this year, sources previously told TechCrunch. Just over three months ago, in early March, Ramp announced it had nearly doubled its valuation to $13 billion after a $150 million secondary share sale. The company declined to comment on the rumored latest financing. To date, Ramp has secured a total of $1.2 billion in equity financing and $700 million in committed debt funding. Other investors include General Catalyst, Stripe, Citi and Sequoia Capital. Ramp competes in a crowded space that includes the likes of Brex, Navan, Mercury, Rho and Mesh Payments. The company’s biggest revenue generator is earning interchange fees from its cards. It also makes money through transaction fees on bill payments, SaaS revenue via its Plus offering, foreign exchange from global money movement, and affiliate fees through its travel product, among other things. If confirmed, Ramp’s latest funding would be another notch in what is turning out to be somewhat of a comeback year for fintech. On June 12, digital bank Chime made its public market debut, shooting up 37% in first-day trading Thursday on Nasdaq. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Chime Climbs In Market Debut
Shares of online banking company Chime shot up 37% in first-day trading Thursday on Nasdaq, the latest in a string of high-performing IPOs. San Francisco-based Chime priced shares for its IPO at $27 each on Wednesday, above the projected range of $24 to $26. The company raised roughly $700 million in the offering, with another $165 million in shares sold by existing investors. Shares closed at $37. The offering comes amid an increasingly busy period for unicorn IPOs. On Wednesday, space and defense tech startup Voyager Technologies made its New York Stock Exchange debut to strong demand. And last week, stablecoin issuer Circle saw its shares soar in initial trading. Unlike many venture-backed IPO candidates, both Chime and Circle are profitable. Chime posted net income of $12.9 million in the first quarter of this year. It also reported Q1 revenue of $519 million, up 33% from a year ago. Founded in 2012, Chime was also a heavy fundraiser in its startup days. Between 2013 and 2021, it raised $2.3 billion in known equity funding, with DST Global, Crosslink Capital and Menlo Ventures among its largest venture stakeholders. Pipeline heating up While the IPO market overall is looking more active, the fintech space in particular appears to be heating up. Besides Chime and Circle, another one to watch is Swedish buy-now, pay-later provider Klarna. Klarna filed to go public in March but delayed its offering when markets turned bearish. With the IPO market looking receptive these days, however, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it make its entry soon as well. Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
New Unicorns Add $22B In Value In May As 5 Trot Onto Board From Europe
Thirteen companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in May 2025, including five from Europe, Crunchbase data shows. The five new unicorns from Europe mark the highest monthly count of new billion-dollar startups since 2023 for the continent. They included the first two from Germany and the first company from Portugal so far this year to be valued at $1 billion-plus. The U.K. also added two companies last month, marking three total this year. Six companies joined from the U.S., adding up to 31 so far this year. And two companies joined from India, adding up to three companies in 2025 year to date. Collectively, these 13 companies added $21.7 billion in value to the board in May. Sales and marketing, and defense tech — sectors impacted by AI — led for new unicorn companies in May, with two each. Exits Six companies exited the board in May, removing $13.4 billion in value. They include four unicorn companies that went public last month: Israel-based social trading platform eToro, San Francisco-based digital clinic Hinge Health, India-based electric scooter manufacturer Ather Energy, and Austin, Texas-based advertising platform MNTN. Each of these companies went public at or above their last known valuation, except for Hinge Health which was last valued at $6.2 billion and debuted at $2.6 billion. Two unicorns were acquired. Coding startup Windsurf, last valued at $1.1 billion in 2024 was acquired by OpenAI for $3 billion. Daily Harvest, a direct to consumer snack company known for its frozen smoothies, valued at $1.1 billion in 2021, was acquired by Chobani for an undisclosed amount. May’s newly minted unicorns Here are the 13 newly minted unicorns in May, by sector. Sales and marketing Defense tech DevOps Biotechnology E-commerce Logistics Product tools HR SaaS Media and entertainment Raw materials Related Crunchbase unicorn lists: Related reading: Methodology The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are added to the Unicorn Board as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round. The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter. Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to The Exited Unicorn Board. Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits. Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price. Illustration: Dom Guzman
Octaura Nabs $46.5M To Give Traders A Way To Trade Loans ‘More Easily’
Octaura, which has developed a syndicated loan platform, has raised $46.5 million in a funding round which included participation from a group of banking heavyweights. Founding investors Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Moody’s all participated in the New York-based company’s latest financing. New backers include Barclays, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Apollo and Motive Partners, MassMutual Ventures, and Omers Ventures 1. Octaura was founded in April 2022 by a consortium of banks, including Bank of America and Citi, as an independent company. Their goal was to create the first open market electronic trading platform for syndicated loans and CLOs, or collateralized loan obligations. The company’s digital platform launched in 2023, allowing traders to buy and sell loans and CLOs “more easily,” something that hadn’t been available to the market before, according to Brian Bejile, CEO of Octaura. “As a result, participants have better accessibility, less errors and a more streamlined trading process,” he told Crunchbase News. “In addition, Octaura was created to improve the availability and use of data and analytics solutions for the loan and structured credit markets.” While the company declined to reveal hard revenue figures, Octaura noted that between April 2023 and April 2025, the New York-based company grew its dealer network from three to 25 and expanded its buy-side participation from 34 to 146 firms. Its share of secondary loan trading volume is also up. In the first quarter of 2024, Octaura reached 1% of secondary loan trading volume, compared to one year later when the trading activity on its platform totaled 4.6% of total market volume. Octaura’s loan and CLO trading platform operates with a transaction-based fee model. Its data and analytics product offerings are subscription-based. Presently, the company has 60 employees. Octaura currently operates in the U.S. with a view toward expansion into the U.K. and Europe “when appropriate,” Bejile said. Investor interest It is not clear how much Octaura has raised in total funding. It received an unknown amount of capital at the time of its founding in 2022. Omers Ventures partner Laura Lenz told Crunchbase News that her firm has been looking at the alternative asset class space for “a long time.” “Unlike incumbents or point solutions that digitize narrow parts of the workflow, Octaura is vertically integrated: combining trade execution, analytics and data in a single platform,” she said. “Its ability to deliver end-to-end trading and post-trade capabilities is what sets it apart.” Also, Lenz argues that Octaura is “not just a tech provider.” Rather, she describes it as a consortium-backed exchange. “The buy-in from major market participants gives it a structural advantage in adoption and network effects,” she added. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman