Venture funding

Canadian startup Payment Rails, which aims to use APIs, blockchain and artificial intelligence to find efficient routes for cross-border payments, has closed a seed round bringing funding for its concept to $1.1 million.

Bill.com's efforts to crack one of the last bastions of paper checking with automation has drawn a fresh $100 million investment round.

Researchers in Sweden found that venture capitalists often use unflattering language to describe female entrepreneurs. That could explain why women’s applications for funding were rejected more frequently than men’s.

The company, founded by musician Jack Conte about five years ago, allows fans to give creators a steady paycheck to create new content, and it's a clear hit among certain communities. But by severing the clear link between product and payment, it has also created some unprecedented issues.

New European standards require greater data sharing to accommodate faster transaction processing, mobile payments and other digital efforts — a trend that is also inspiring new collaborations across the pond.

The commercial potential of internet-connected devices appears bound only by imagination and comfort. For security companies, there's a similar broad horizon as watches, refrigerators and other everyday items become tools for payments.

Security companies are using technology to stop more complex fraud based on a smaller amount of data, and investors are taking notice.

San Francisco-based startup UnifyID is developing an “implicit authentication” platform that requires no conscious actions by users to authenticate identities, and it’s just closed $20 million in fresh funding to support its growth.

Visa's recent leading of a $25 million investment round in Marqeta is an unusual move for the card network, which has most recently focused its investments in merchant acquiring technology companies.

The federal agency's investigative report concludes that crowdsales of blockchain tokens known as initial coin offerings may need to comply with securities laws.

The app allows users, many of them first-time investors, to get started for as little as $5.

The Spanish bank's VC arm added two companies focused on artificial intelligence to its portfolio this week. Both firms promise to help banks connect better with customers.

Much like the consumer retail acquisition market, business payment companies are expanding the appeal of transaction automation by tying it to international growth and value-added merchant services.

InstaReM plans to use the investment to accommodate rapid volume expansion.

LendUp is seeking to differentiate itself from competitors by making fast loan decisions and designing its customer experience around the mobile phone.

Many companies in the payments industry see B-to-B transactions as ripe for modernization, and Mastercard is no exception. Its recent participation in a $300 million funding round in AvidXchange enables a new approach to this market.

Merchant acquirers are racing to sell "integrated payments," or a one-stop shop for transaction processing and myriad other services that stores can tie to the point of sale. But small to medium sized businesses are not often the targets for these efforts.

Long Game uses behavioral economics and the mass popularity of lottery games to redirect lottery spending toward savings.

Diebold Nixdorf, on a mission to expand its omnichannel banking and retail offerings, has formed a strategic partnership with Kony Inc., a maker of white-label mobile applications.

Suni Harford is off to UBS, and Shaza Andersen is selling the bank she founded. Also, you should hear how venture capitalists talk about female entrepreneurs.