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# Is Nubank Buying Its Way to Europe?
- URL: https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/is-nubank-buying-its-way-to-europe/
- Published: 2026-09-28T14:37:12.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-28T14:37:12.000Z
- Author: Jose Kont
- Tags: The Daily Dealflow

Hi, and welcome to a new edition of [The Daily Dealflow](https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/tag/the-daily-dealflow/) — the 5-minute briefing that gives you clear context on capital flows and market-moving trends across the Americas, from Silicon Valley to Buenos Aires. Let's dive in.

## 🏆 Deal of the Day

Nubank has opened early talks to acquire Monzo, the British digital bank, in a deal that could value Monzo at up to £10B ($13.2B) and combine cash and equity – [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-26/monzo-in-talks-on-possible-sale-to-brazil-s-nubank-sky-reports?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Why This?:** If it closes, this would be one of fintech's largest deals of the year and the clearest signal yet that Latin America's biggest neobank is done growing only at home — it's now shopping for a beachhead in Europe, using the scale it built serving 139 million customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia to fund the leap.

**Positive Context:**

- Nu just picked up a Lead Bank partnership for U.S. products and conditional approval for its own U.S. bank charter; buying Monzo would instantly hand it a licensed, profitable platform in the UK and EU instead of building one from scratch.
- Monzo isn't a distressed target — it posted £1.7B in FY2026 revenue (up 39% year-over-year) and £172.6M in adjusted pretax profit, with 15.2 million customers and £25.7B in deposits.

**Yes, but:**

- Neither side has confirmed talks, and Monzo's board is weighing at least two other paths — an independent fundraising round above £8B or a private equity minority-stake sale — before any acquisition gets done.
- A sale would frustrate the London Stock Exchange, which has spent years courting Monzo for a hometown IPO, and could reignite UK anxiety about losing another homegrown fintech champion to a foreign buyer.

**Zoom in:** Monzo already tried to crack the U.S. on its own and retreated, shutting down its American operations in June 2026 to refocus on the UK and Europe — so if this deal closes, Nu would essentially be buying its way into the exact markets Monzo couldn't win alone.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/09/nu-monzo.webp)

## 💰 Venture Capital

*Submit a deal for The Daily Dealflow newsletter via DM* [*here on LinkedIn*](https://www.linkedin.com/company/theinvestorsociety/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com)*.*

**Pilgrim (US)** – $25M, Seed, defense biotechnology startup developing Argus, a portable air-sampling and genomic-sequencing device for detecting airborne pathogens, founded by Jake Adler. Buckley Ventures led the round; Anthropic researchers Logan Graham and Sholto Douglas, Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, and Figma CEO Dylan Field also backed the company. Its sensors are already deployed around the US under a CDC biosurveillance agreement – [The Investor Society](https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/pilgrim-raises-us-25m-to-spread-its-airborne-pathogen-sensor-across-the-us/).

**Basecamp Research (US)** – $140M, Series C, an AI biotech training EDEN, a biological foundation model built on a self-collected "Trillion Gene Atlas," to design in-body cell therapies that edit DNA directly inside patients using serine recombinases. Founded by Glen Gowers and Oliver Vince — who once ran the first off-grid DNA sequencing on a polar ice cap while retracing a 1932 Antarctic expedition route — the oversubscribed round was led by S32 with Anthropic's Anthology Fund and Nvidia also joining, nearly doubling the company's valuation to $800M – [Tech Funding News](https://techfundingnews.com/basecamp-research-lands-140m-from-anthropic-and-nvidia-to-push-ai-designed-cell-therapy-toward-the-clinic/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Rightway (US)** – $155M, Series E, pharmacy benefit manager and care-navigation platform for employers, founded by Jordan Feldman. Francisco Partners led the round, with Thrive Capital and Khosla Ventures participating. It serves about 3 million people and says 45 Fortune 500 companies have switched from one of the three largest PBMs – [The Investor Society](https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/rightway-raises-us-155m-to-take-on-the-big-three-pharmacy-benefit-managers/).

**HIFI (US)** – $37M, Series A, financial infrastructure letting enterprises move money across stablecoins and traditional bank rails through a single integration, essentially plumbing for the stablecoin economy Wall Street keeps promising is coming. Founded by Zach Walsh and Mohamed Afifi, the round was led by Left Lane Capital and brings HIFI's total funding to $47M just three years after the company's 2022 launch – [AlleyWatch](https://www.alleywatch.com/2026/09/the-alleywatch-startup-daily-funding-report-9-24-2026/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Island (US)** – $400M, Series F, secure enterprise browser expanding into a control platform for governing employees and AI agents, founded by Mike Fey and Dan Amiga. Evolution Equity Partners led the round, joined by Sequoia Capital, Coatue, Insight Partners and others; CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch also invested personally. Eight of the world’s 10 largest banks use its browser – [The Investor Society](https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/island-raises-us-400m-to-govern-ai-agents-across-the-enterprise/).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-28-at-8.12.12---AM.png)

Mental health is deeply personal, yet it is also one of the defining public health challenges of our time. For those affected, its consequences can touch every part of daily life, making seemingly simple tasks seem insurmountable. But the toll of mental health problems doesn’t stop there. Mental-health-related absences place a financial and operational strain on employers, while healthcare systems in many countries are chronically overstretched and understaffed, ill-equipped to deal with the growing prevalence of mental health issues. In a 30-country survey conducted by Ipsos in 2025, 45 percent of respondents identified mental health as one of the biggest health problems their country currently faces, ranking it above conditions such as cancer and heart disease, the two most common causes of death across 37 OECD countries in 2023\. This growing recognition is closely linked to increasing openness around mental well-being: as stigma declines and awareness grows, mental health is becoming a central focus for health systems and policymakers. ****Source: Ipsos Health Service Report 2025.**

## 🏛️ Private Equity

**Databricks (US) acquired Row Zero (US)** – undisclosed value, tuck-in acquisition, the data-and-AI giant bought the cloud spreadsheet startup that can handle more than 1 million live rows, built by former AWS and Tableau engineers, to plug it into its Genie AI agent so business analysts can query enterprise data without touching separate BI software. ***"Spreadsheets are one such interface that every business analyst loves,"*** said Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi, marking the company's fifth acquisition of 2026 – [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/24/databricks-buys-row-zero-and-is-scouting-for-more-startups-to-acquire/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Century Park Capital Partners' Total Access Elevator (US) acquired American Elevator (US)** – undisclosed value, bolt-on acquisition, the private equity-backed elevator platform added the Los Angeles-based maintenance, repair, and modernization provider, the latest in a string of add-ons consolidating a fragmented industry where a single stuck elevator can shut down a building's entire day – [PE Hub](https://www.pehub.com/century-park-capital-partners-total-access-elevator-adds-los-angeles-based-american-elevator/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Arcventis (US) agreed to a majority investment in Aligned Modern Health (US)**, previously backed by Harbour Point Capital – undisclosed value, majority stake, the deal hands control of a functional-medicine and hormone-health platform running 15 clinics in Chicago plus a telehealth practice spanning more than 20 states, betting that "alternative" wellness care is becoming mainstream enough for private equity math to work – [PE Hub](https://www.pehub.com/arcventis-agrees-to-majority-investment-in-harbour-point-backed-aligned-modern-health/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

## 📈 Public & Capital Markets

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-28-at-8.17.09---AM.png)

Opening Market Figures, Mon 28 Sep, 2026.

**Oura (US, Nasdaq: OURA) – IPO**, the smart-ring maker's offering drew roughly four times more orders than the 50 million shares on offer, with the deal on track to value the health-wearable company at up to $15B and raise as much as $2.2B when it prices September 29 — the first IPO with a shot at topping $1B since Jersey Mike's Subs priced in July, wearables/health-tech industry – [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-25/smart-ring-maker-oura-s-ipo-is-about-four-times-oversubscribed?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Anthropic (US)** – governance filing ahead of IPO, the AI lab's seven co-founders, led by CEO Dario Amodei, are asking shareholders to approve special shares granting them 50.1% combined voting power despite owning roughly 2% of the company each, a Zuckerberg-and-Spiegel-style structure meant to keep founder control intact once Anthropic — last valued near $965B privately and reportedly worth $1.5T on secondary markets — actually goes public, AI/capital markets industry – [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/25/anthropics-founders-seek-voting-control-ahead-of-ipo/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Solari Capital (US)** – venture and pre-IPO markets thesis, AJ Scaramucci's firm has deployed $350M since emerging from stealth on a bet it calls "programmable reality," while also building tokenization and secondary-market tools to let more investors buy into private companies that now take 12 to 13.5 years to go public, up from 6 to 9 years in the 1990s. Backers include Ron Conway, Jim Breyer, Eric Schmidt, and Bain Capital's Stephen Pagliuca, private markets industry – [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/09/25/aj-scaramuccis-solari-capital-ipo-private-collectibles/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

## 📅 ICYMI

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/09/handwritting.png)

**Dumb.co, a startup that sells modified flip phones**, started [requiring](https://www.businessinsider.com/dumbco-startup-handwritten-cover-letters-ai-dumb-phones-i2026-9?ref=theinvestorsociety.com) handwritten cover letters for applicants to its internship program to fight the barrage of AI-generated slop. Even with the old-school requirement, the company got \~900 apps for four open roles.

**A new SafeHome.org report** finds [61% of U.S. households now own a security camera](https://www.safehome.org/resources/home-security-industry-annual/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com), with 30% keeping one indoors — as camera sensors quietly migrate into toothbrushes, toilet seats, and refrigerators, "smart home" is starting to mean "home that's always watching".

[**Zoos are going full tech-enrichment on their animals**](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/09/zoo-animals-technology/688416/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com)**:** arctic foxes get smart puzzle feeders, polar bears get motion-sensored bubble machines, orangutans get custom Xbox games, and penguins get iPad hunting games — all designed to fight captivity boredom without faking a fake wilderness.  
  
*See you tomorrow,*

[***Jose Kont***](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jose-kont/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com)  
*The human behind The Investor Society.*