Investors poured money into fintech, mortgage services, and autonomous vehicles.

Venture capitalists were generous this week, investing $300 million amounts in as many as five startups across multiple geographies. The largesse flowed to Grab Financial, Blend, MX, WeRide, and Rapyd.

Grab Financial

The Grab Financial Group announced today its Series A funding of over $ 300 million led by Hanhwa Asset Management, with participation from K3 Ventures, GGV Capital, Arbor Ventures, and Flourish Ventures.

Grab Financial is a subsidiary of Grab, the Southeast Asian ridesharing and delivery giant and largest Southeast Asian unicorn.

The round valued Grab Financial at $ 3 billion. The fintech saw a jump in the use of its digital financial services by consumers and SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reported growth in total revenues of more than 40% during 2020 compared to 2019.

Blend

Fintech innovator and consumer lending facilitator Blend scored $ 300 million in Series G funding led by Coatue and Tiger Global. The round valued Blend at $ 3.3 billion. That tag is nearly twice that of the $ 1.7 billion valuation achieved just five months ago.

“Using the company’s platform with no-code, drag and drop workflows that work across all channels, financial institutions can evolve their business faster than ever before while driving a personalized, dynamic experience,” Blend says in an announcement.

Blend facilitated $ 1.4 trillion in loans during 2020. That was more than twice what it facilitated in 2019, for its more than 285 lender partners.

The start-up will use the funding for product development and building the banking software infrastructure for the future.

MX

MX, a money experience innovator, seeks to make interactions with money as intelligent and personalized as those from Amazon, Spotify, or Tesla. It does this using data, connecting customer accounts and core banking systems to other technology platforms, and creating personalized digital money experiences.

The start-up announced Wednesday its raise of $ 300 million in a Series C round led by TPG Growth with participation from new and existing investors. These included CapitalG, Geodesic Capital, Greycroft, Cota Capital, Canapi Ventures, Digital Garage, Point72 Ventures, and Pelion Venture Partners, along with Regions Financial Corp.

Of the total amount, TPG Growth invested $ 150 million.

“Companies today need to leverage data strategically in order to sustain and grow their businesses,” said Derek Zanutto, General Partner at CapitalG. “We believe that MX has the potential to do for the financial industry what Netflix did for streaming and Amazon did for shopping by leveraging data to create highly personalized, delightful customer experiences.”

WeRide

WeRide is a smart mobility company that creates leading L4 autonomous driving technologies. It is backed by an alliance of Groupe Renault, Nissan Motor, and Mitsubishi Motors.

WeRide Robotaxi, a joint venture with Baiyun Taxi and SCI (Guangzhou) Group, has launched a Robotaxi program in Guangzhou, China. The operation covers 144.65 square kilometers in the Huangpu and Guangzhou Development District. It provides the locals with Robotaxi services on their daily commute. It’s the first Robotaxi service open to the public in China. Established in 2017, WeRide is headquartered in Guangzhou, China.

In an announcement today, WeRide said it scored a $ 310 million investment from bus maker Zhengzhou Yutong Group and several state-backed investors. The latter included China Development Bank’s Equipment Manufacturing Fund; Hengjian Emerging Industries Fund, controlled by the provincial government of Guangdong; and Zhuhai Huajin Capital, controlled by the Zhuhai city government.

Private equity companies CMC Capital Partners and Tryin Capital also are among WeRide’s new investors.

WeRide will use the funding to accelerate its research efforts and work towards the commercialization of its autonomous technology.

Rapyd

Rapyd is a Fintech-as-a-Service platform that makes it simple to integrate local payment and fintech capabilities into any application for scaling it up globally.

Businesses can accept and send payments without having to build their own infrastructure through the Rapyd Global Payments Network. The network supports hundreds of local payment methods including cards, bank transfers, e-wallets, and cash.

Rapyd announced Wednesday its $ 300 million Series D financing round led by Coatue. New investors that joined the funding included Spark Capital, Avid Ventures, FJ Labs, and Latitude. Existing investors General Catalyst, Oak FT, Tiger Global, Target Global, Durable Capital, Tal Capital, and Entrée Capital also participated.

The company said it will use the new funding two double its engineering and product teams.

Rapyd will also expand the “self-service” element in its platform.  It will thereby empower businesses across the world to on-board and utilize Rapyd’s financial capabilities in the shortest possible time.

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