Brex and Novo in the US, along with Qonto in France, have closed on funding rounds that they could use to make broad lending plays that could threaten incumbents.

Pairing up the fintech’s products for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with the banking giant’s existing suite will give U.S. Bank a formidable lineup to compete with digital challengers like Brex and Square.

Brex raises $300M to bolster position as one stop shop for SMBs (10/26). 16. TradingView blurs the line between investing and social media, raises $298M (10/18). 17. Crypto startup Bitpanda secures $263M amid B2B push (8/18). 18. Pipe raises $250M less than a year after launch (5/21). 19. Insurtech giant wefox to raise $250M (3/22). 20.

More on this: In a blog post announcing the tie-up, Plaid CEO Zach Perret noted that the companies’ customer bases overlap, and cited neobanks Current and Brex as examples. Plaid now has about 5,500 customers, per TechCrunch, which said that the deal will also expand Cognito’s reach. The combination is valued at about $250 million, the publication reported.

SMB-focused banking platforms have attracted massive funding rounds globally on the back of stellar growth: US-based Brex raised $300 million in October, and French-based Qonoto just closed a $552 million Series D round. As Koinworks grows and attracts more capital, we expect that it will pursue the one-stop-shop model that larger players like Brex have developed.

Brex, which offers a business-banking account, expense tracking, and a corporate card with a sliding scale for rewards that lets customers get up to eight points for every dollar they spend. Capital on Tap, a UK SMB lending fintech that’s expanding to the US after landing a $100 million credit facility. U.S.

Brex became a decacorn by offering a corporate credit card alongside financial management tools like expense tracking. Credit card and accounting fintech Ramp reached a $3.9 billion valuation in August. Corporate travel startup TripAction reached a $7.25 billion valuation after doubling down on expense management solutions.

SMB credit card fintech Brex, for example, revealed a dashboard that houses solutions like bill pay and spend management in April and launched a lending product in August. And SMB lender Kabbage moved into neobank territory with a high-yield checking account.

In early August, Brex pulled back from its application for an industrial bank charter—a slightly different license that offers similar benefits to a national bank charter—to “modify and strengthen our application and resubmit at a later date,” according to a Brex spokesperson. The charter opportunity: The allure of a bank charter lies in the autonomy and control it brings.

Brex, for example, has a card with several points categories and now operates in business neobanking, and Ramp offers 1.5% cashback paired with its supplemental Ramp Savings feature. Moving forward, Capital on Tap will need to assemble a differentiated product lineup if it hopes to compete.

US-based corporate credit card provider Brex—which raised an impressive $425 million Series D round in April of this year—counts SMBs as 45% of its customer base. The fintech has ambitions to grow this cohort even further: It rolled out an SMB-focused, multi-purpose financial platform alongside its capital raise, and in May, it directed a nationwide marketing campaign at local businesses.

In addition, corporate card and rewards fintech Brex is making a nationwide push to attract local business to its multipurpose financial platform, and could expand its banking offering if its Industrial Banking Charter application is approved. Square could use its merchant base to grab market share from well-entrenched incumbents.

US-based Brex previously blazed this path in its home market by branching out from cards to offer an array of business banking services.

The American Express-owned lender added a high-yield checking account for small and medium-sized businesses, giving it an opportunity to cross-sell lending products and deposit accounts.

It counts Ally Bank, Brex, and Evolve Bank & Trust among its over 200 clients. Alloy plans to use its new funding to build out customer identity profiles that can be used to mitigate risk.

To this end, it has already entered into comarketing partnerships with the likes of American Express, Stripe, and Brex. But the Bezos investment could indicate future collaboration opportunities with Amazon, enabling Pilot to reach the etail giant’s millions of SMB clients.

It also puts Square at the forefront of the market: Few competitors offer these features, though firms like Brex are on its heels, and those that do are approaching them through partnerships rather than by building proprietary services, which might give Square more control over its product. This could help the provider execute on its growth plans.

Brex, a corporate card and rewards fintech, serves a specialized customer base—mainly tech and life sciences companies—and it recently applied to establish its own industrial bank. Beyond the international payment and card products it announced earlier this week, Revolut’s vision for its US business banking solution is unclear.

Corporate credit card and rewards fintech Brex recently announced a $49-a-month product that lets SMBs manage their finances in a single dashboard. US-based Pilot raised $100 million in March to help SMBs better manage billing, banking, expenses, and bookkeeping. And Amex is working to position itself as the go-to platform for SMBs, most recently by acquiring alt lender Kabbage.

On the other hand, Radius has also teamed up with dozens of B2B and D2C fintechs—including big names like Venmo, Billshark, Lemonade, NerdWallet, and Brex—to enable them to offer FDIC-insured financial products by holding deposits. In doing so, it has opened more sales channels for itself.