The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings led a recent $80-million (U.S.) equity investment in Neo Financial Technologies, valuing the Calgary on-line financial upstart at a steep discount to its last financing. A triple-bylined item led by Sean Silcoff says that Neo did not reveal its lead investor when it announced the deal Nov. 11 and has rebuffed queries about its identity. However, a term sheet for the deal obtained by The Globe identifies Tencent as the investor, showing it committed to buy $50-million (U.S.) of the offering, which values Neo at $430-million (U.S.) before the receipt of funds, and $510-million (U.S.) after. The new valuation is at a steep discount from Neo's $185-million (Canadian) financing in spring 2022, which valued it at more than $1-billion (Canadian). Neo is one of several digital financial services start-ups seeking to challenge Canada's big banks. The company, created and led by three co-founders of Canadian food delivery service SkipTheDishes, has grown rapidly, surpassing $100-million (U.S.) in annual revenue in April. Among the investors mentioned in Neo's Nov. 11 release were the founders of Shopify (Tobias Lutke), Slack and Roblox.