Capital markets

Technology investors are bulldozing cash into blockchain and artificial intelligence, but the “why” is just starting to emerge, as is the true nature of the innovation.

Banks are a primary market to be pursued by Blue Hexagon, which received $31 million in venture capital.

The new asset-based securities lending unit, based in Charlotte, N.C., will provide warehouse lines of credits to nonbank consumer and commercial lenders.

Featurespace wants to expand its fraud-fighting tool beyond its core audience of banks and payment processors to cover transactions across a broader industry spectrum including retail, gaming and insurance.

Just five months after first reaching a $20 billion valuation, Stripe has attracted another $100 million investment that's put it past $22.5 billion, allowing the fintech to put even more pressure on the legacy acquiring industry.

The U.S. e-commerce explosion is driving about $150 billion annually in returns, and Returnly is riding the trend with a service to eliminate the waiting time for consumers to receive funds from items they plan to return to the merchant.

CrediFi helps bankers pursuing commercial real estate loan growth minimize the risk in lending to customers they historically haven't served.

The New York based Petal uses machine learning to optimize the limited financial data available for low-information consumer groups and millennials, who often turn to installment loans from companies such as Affirm, Klarna and PayPal Credit.

Mobeewave, a provider of in-person contactless payment acceptance software, is getting an investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation that pushes a recent Series B funding round led by NewAlpha, Mastercard and Forestay Capital to nearly $20 million.

The core-banking vendor won the investment and ringing endorsements from the trade group and several banks because its open system and cloud delivery could eventually challenge entrenched tech players.