Fintech Highlights — December 2025

A quieter month overall heading into the holidays — fewer big swings, mostly incremental fundraising and steady follow-through on stories that broke earlier in the fall.

Wealthfront closed out the year's IPO wave. 

The robo-advisor priced at the top of its range, raising $485 million at a $2.6 billion valuation and listing on the Nasdaq under "WLTH" — capping a year that also saw Chime, Klarna, and Neptune Insurance go public, several to rockier starts than Wealthfront's.

Prediction markets went from curiosity to crowded. 

DraftKings became the first traditional sportsbook to launch its own prediction market, with rivals expected to follow fast. The move came just days after Coinbase sued three states over efforts to regulate prediction markets, arguing the authority belongs to the CFTC at the federal level. VCs backing Kalshi and Polymarket say they're not worried — the pool, in their view, is plenty deep for more than two players.

Payments consolidation continued in Europe. 

Dutch payments firm Mollie agreed to pay €1.05 billion for GoCardless, the London-based account-to-account payments company once valued at $2.1 billion by Permira and Blackstone.