Duna has raised a 30 million euro Series A led by CapitalG, the growth investment arm connected to Alphabet. This brings its total funding past 40 million euros after a 10.7 million seed round. The round also includes participation from Index Ventures and Puzzle Ventures.

This is a category that rarely gets headlines. Business identity verification lives inside compliance and operations, yet it directly affects how fast regulated platforms can onboard customers and start generating revenue.

The problem Duna is solving

Verifying business customers is rarely straightforward. It involves corporate registries, beneficial ownership checks, document reviews, and frequent manual intervention. For many fintechs and regulated platforms, this creates slow onboarding flows, back and forth with customers, and internal operational burden.

Duna builds software to handle know your customer and know your business requirements with a higher level of automation. The aim is to reduce manual work and improve onboarding efficiency for companies that need to verify other businesses.

The founders previously worked at Stripe, where they led infrastructure teams. Their experience with building financial infrastructure at scale shaped the view that business identity checks are still handled through fragmented tools and manual processes.

Early customers include Plaid, CCV, Moss, Bol, and SVEA Bank. Their adoption points to a shared operational challenge across platforms that onboard businesses at scale.

Why the Series A matters

A 30 million euro Series A for a company focused on business identity infrastructure is notable because it highlights investor interest in compliance tooling that sits deep in enterprise workflows.

CapitalG’s involvement signals confidence from investors familiar with large scale fintech infrastructure. Continued backing from Index Ventures and Puzzle Ventures adds further credibility from funds that have supported many fintech companies through growth stages.

Duna plans to use the funding to expand its enterprise capabilities and to work toward a broader vision. The idea is that once a company’s identity and its stakeholders are verified, this information could be reused across platforms instead of being repeatedly checked from scratch.

If this approach matures, onboarding may become less of a hidden friction point and more of a predictable, manageable process for regulated platforms.

Key takeaways for fintech startups

A few points stand out for founders and operators working on regulated products:

• Business identity verification remains a major operational bottleneck for platforms that onboard corporate customers.
  
  
• Automation in know your customer and know your business processes can directly affect onboarding speed and internal workload.
  
  
• Adoption by established platforms shows this is a recurring, practical problem rather than a theoretical one.
  
  
• Investor interest in this space reflects the value of solving difficult compliance challenges inside core workflows.
  
  
• The concept of reusable business identity could reduce duplicated effort across platforms over time.

If you are dealing with onboarding, compliance, or identity challenges in your product, contact us to discuss how to approach these problems in a structured way.

Corpay announced an agreement to sell PayByPhone, its mobile parking payments business, as part of a move to concentrate more tightly on its core corporate payments activities.

The buyer is Lightyear Capital, a New York based private equity firm. Once the deal closes, PayByPhone is expected to operate independently under Lightyear’s ownership. Corpay stated that the transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

PayByPhone has been part of Corpay’s vehicle payments segment, offering digital parking payment solutions and related parking software to cities, operators, and drivers around the world. Despite its global footprint and established position in parking payments, Corpay now considers it outside the areas where it wants to deploy capital and management attention.

This decision comes as Corpay continues to shape its portfolio around corporate payments and cross border payment solutions for businesses. In recent periods, the company has made acquisitions and investments that align more directly with this focus. The sale of PayByPhone follows the same logic. Fewer business lines, more attention on the ones that match the long term direction.

A Portfolio Choice, Not a Performance Issue

Corpay’s leadership made it clear that this is a portfolio decision rather than a reaction to performance. The company expressed confidence that PayByPhone can continue to grow under ownership that is more focused on parking and mobility payments.

From Corpay’s perspective, the divestiture allows capital and internal focus to move toward segments that are more central to its corporate payments strategy. This also simplifies the company’s structure, which is often an explicit goal when firms shift from operating diverse services to building depth in fewer areas.

Corpay also noted that it does not expect the sale to have a material impact on its projected 2026 Cash EPS outlook. More details on the financial effect are expected to be shared during its fourth quarter earnings call. Deutsche Bank acted as financial advisor on the transaction, and Jones Day served as legal counsel.

What This Signals

The message behind this transaction is straightforward. Corpay is choosing clarity over breadth.

Rather than keeping a well known but non core asset inside the group, the company is reallocating attention toward areas that fit its definition of corporate payments and cross border services. At the same time, it is placing PayByPhone with an owner that can give it a more specialized focus.

This is a reminder that growth stories are often shaped as much by what companies sell as by what they buy.

Key takeaways for fintech startups

A few points stand out for founders and operators watching this move:

• Corpay agreed to sell PayByPhone to Lightyear Capital to sharpen its focus on corporate payments.
  
  
• The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, pending approvals.
  
  
• Corpay does not expect a material impact on its 2026 Cash EPS outlook.
  
  
• The decision reflects portfolio simplification and tighter alignment with long term strategy.

If you are thinking about how your own product mix or asset base fits your long term direction, reach out. We help fintech teams shape a clear story around strategic choices like these.

EnFi, a Boston-based company building AI agents for commercial lending, has raised $15 million in Series A funding. The round includes investors connected to more than 150 banks.

That detail stands out. This is not generic venture interest in AI. This is capital that sits very close to lenders who deal with credit teams every day.

With this round, EnFi’s total funding reaches about $22.5 million, following a $7.5 million seed round in 2024.

The investors behind the round

The Series A was led by FINTOP, with participation from Patriot Financial Partners, Commerce Ventures, Unusual Ventures and Boston Seed Capital.

These firms are known for deep relationships in banking, especially with regional and community institutions. The target user for EnFi’s platform is not a global bank with large internal teams. It is lenders that struggle to hire and retain enough experienced credit analysts.

The investment thesis is tied directly to that constraint.

The problem EnFi is addressing

Banks are facing a shortage of credit talent. There are not enough experienced analysts to keep up with demand. This limits how many loans a lender can properly assess and process.

Leadership teams are left with a trade-off. Slow down growth or stretch existing teams.

EnFi positions its AI agents as a way to increase the capacity of credit teams without adding headcount.

What the AI agents actually do

According to the company, EnFi’s AI agents handle end-to-end commercial lending tasks. This includes screening new deals, underwriting loans, monitoring risk and managing data workflows tied to credit operations.

The framing is practical. AI takes on the repetitive and structured work. Human analysts focus on judgment, exceptions and decision making.

The company states that these agents can become productive within 60 to 90 days of deployment, acting as virtual co-workers inside credit teams.

Why this matters for smaller lenders

Large banks can invest heavily in technology and hiring. Regional and community banks often cannot.

Tools that increase the output of existing teams without requiring large hiring plans change the equation. Investors backing EnFi are signaling that this model has real demand from lenders who feel the pressure of limited credit capacity.

The emphasis is not on replacing people. It is on extending what existing teams can handle.

If this approach scales, the structure of credit operations may start to look different. Fewer analysts doing more work, supported by AI agents running in the background.

Key takeaways for fintech startups

A few signals from this round are worth noting for fintech builders.

• Banks are interested in AI that performs real operational work inside regulated workflows, not just surface automation.
  
  
• Talent shortages in credit functions create a clear opening for products that expand team capacity.
  
  
• Investors with direct banking relationships are backing tools that address everyday operational constraints.
  
  
• AI agents working alongside humans are gaining acceptance as part of credit team design.

If you are building products for lenders or thinking about how AI fits into banking operations, this shift is worth studying. If you want to discuss how these changes could affect your strategy or product direction, contact us.