From casino and workforce payments to a travel fintech, funding rounds are in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Sightline Payments ($244 million), Branch ($540 million) and Hopper ($175 million) all announced fundraises on Tuesday (August 17, 2021).

Sightline Payments

Sightline Payments achieved the distinction of becoming Nevada’s first fintech unicorn after closing a $244 million round that value the company at over $1 billion. The round was led by fintech investor Bill Foley’s Cannae Holdings and included existing investors Genting Group, Point Break Capital Management, and founding investor Walter Kortschak.

“Financial Services has historically not embraced the legal, regulated gaming industry, but thanks to the innovations Sightline has fostered in the market, gaming is clearly poised for an omni-channel cashless revolution,” said Sightline Co-founder Omer Sattar in a statement. (Sightline)

Hopper

Mobile-first travel marketplace Hopper closed a $175 million Series G financing led by GPI Capital with participation from Glade Brook Capital, WestCap, Goldman Sachs Growth and Accomplice.

“We feel strongly that our fintech offerings through Hopper Cloud can help supercharge the travel industry’s recovery by introducing a totally unique revenue stream for other brands,” said Frederic Lalonde, CEO and Co-Founder of Hopper. “In fact, if all travel distribution channels offered our fintech, it could increase the total consumer spend for the sector by $200 billion annually.”

The company claims it has emerged from the pandemic stronger than ever. Compared to last year Hopper is likely to clock a 330% revenue growth this year. Moreover, it has already overtaken its pre-pandemic revenue peak from Q1 2020 by over 100%. (CISION PRNewswire)

Branch

Branch is a fintech that accelerates payments to employees and independent contractors. It raised over $540 million for its delivery of flexible workforce payments.

Branch closed a $48 million Series B funding round with participation from Drive Capital, Crosscut Ventures, Bonfire Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, and HR Tech Investments LLC, a subsidiary of Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., among other investors.

The startup also closed on a $500 million credit facility from funds managed by Neuberger Berman.

“Faster payments is a compelling and transformative benefit expected by today’s workforce,” said Branch CEO Atif Siddiqi. “We’ve seen how it can significantly improve cash flow for both companies and workers, so we’re excited to deliver instant payments and other engaging tools to more sectors and workforces, from other workers living paycheck to paycheck to independent contractors growing their own businesses.”  (Branch)

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