Almost five months into the year, investment in FinTech is continuing to go from strength to strength. Last week, FinTech Global reported on 40 funding rounds in the industry.
Leading the way for the biggest FinTech funding round last week was CyberTech SonarSource, who raked in an eye-watering $412m.
There continues to be a growing uptake of investment in the CyberTech industry almost half-way into the year, with a number of companies raking in big money deals. The attention around cybersecurity is reaching a fever pitch in some industry areas, with the FBI recently alerting food and agriculture businesses to be prepared for potential ransomware attacks during planting and harvest seasons.
Key financing rounds in the CyberTech industry this week also included Strider Technologies, a risk intelligence startup, who pulled in $45m from a Series B.
Here are this week’s funding rounds.
SonarSource rakes in $412m
SonarSource, a code quality company, has raised $412m from a funding round co-led by Advent International and General Catalyst.
The round also saw participation from existing investor Insight Venture Partners. Following this raise, SonarSource has bumped its valuation up to $4.7bn.
Founded in 2008, Swiss firm SonarSource enables developers and development teams to write clean code and remediate existing code organically so they are able to focus on the work that matters to them.
SonarSource said it will use the new funding to grow its go-to-market team globally as it drives toward a $1 billion revenue target. It also plans to open new regional headquarters in Singapore to drive a push into the APAC market.
Data security platform Veza snares $110m
Veza, a data security platform, has launched out of stealth alongside the close of a $110m funding round.
The investment was backed by Accel, Bain Capital, Ballistic Ventures, GV, Norwest Venture Partners and True Ventures. Several angel investors also joined the round, including Mandiant founder and CEO Kevin Mandia, former Symantec CEO Enrique Salem, former Palo Alto Networks CEO Lane Bess and more.
Veza claims to be the first and only data security platform built on the power of authorisation. The platform, which supports both on-premise and cloud systems, helps security teams better understand sensitive nature of data, manage human identities, and service accounts across hundreds/thousands of disparate systems.
Starling bank fundraises £130.5m
British digital bank Starling Bank has completed an internal fundraise of £130.5m at a pre-money valuation of more than £2.5 billion.
Starling Bank is a fully-licensed and regulated bank that aims to give people a fairer, smarter and more “human alternative to the banks of the past.”
The bank offers personal, business, joint, euro and dollar current accounts alongside a children’s card. Starling also offers a B2B Banking as a Service and Software as a Service proposition, based on the proprietary technology platform that it uses to power its own bank.
The Starling Marketplace offers customers in-app access to a selection of third party financial services. Headquartered in London, the bank has offices in Southampton, Cardiff and Dublin.
Outfund reels in £115m Series A
Outfund, a revenue-based finance provider, has pulled in £115m from a Series A funding round of equity capital and debt.
The round included £100m in debt financing as well as a £15m capital injection from Force Over Mass, 1818 Venture Capital, Tribe Capital and PostFinance.
Following the new funding, Outfund is planning to invest over £500m of lending to over 5,000 firms over the next year, and will boost its lending limit to £10m per business.
Through its bigger reach and new funding, Outfund is set to loan over £500m in 2022 and is expected to fund more than 5,000 companies worldwide. In addition, Outfund also plans to double its team from 70 to 150 people by the end of the year.
Sustainability insights platform Higg lands $50m
Higg, a sustainability insights platform for the consumer goods space, has collected $50m for its $50m Series B funding round.
Silversmith Capital Partners and Galvanize Climate Solutions co-led the round, with participation also coming from Titan Grove and Buckhill Capital.
This capital injection will help the company expand into new consumer goods categories, such as outdoor, automotive, toys and home goods.
The company enables continuous improvement of supply chain sustainability for carbon, water, energy and labour impacts. Its platform helps design more sustainable products, expand worker wellbeing and identify suppliers with reduced impact across emissions, water, chemicals and waste.
Strider Technologies scores $45m
Strider Technologies, a risk intelligence startup, has raised $45m in a Series B funding round led by Valor Equity Partners.
The round also saw participation from DataTribe, Koch Disruptive Technologies and One9 Ventures. Following this raise, Strider has raised a total of $57m since inception.
Strider’s technology and intelligence solutions allow customers to visualise, manage and mitigate intellectual property theft and supply chain vulnerabilities. Currently, the firm serves businesses in the areas of aerospace, energy, government, pharmaceutical, defence and semiconductors.
According to Strider, it plans to use the new capital to improve its product line with new capabilities, hire new talent and expand globally.
Educational FinTech Financepeer secures $31m
Education FinTech startup Financepeer has raised $31m in Series B funding to fuel its mission of bringing quality and accessible education across India.
Financepeer specialises in education fee financing that enables educational institutions to manage their funds efficiently by paying student’s entire year’s fees up front while the parents get the option to pay back in easy EMIs.
In an announcement of the round on LinkedIn, Financepeer said the company has seen tenfold growth in the past year, adding “We hope to take our educational ecosystem to new heights where access to education is given to the masses!”
Recur Club brings in $30m seed
B2B FinTech platform Recur Club has raised $30m in a seed funding round, as a combination of equity and debt allocation.
Recur works with a “single obsession” to empower founders to focus on their business as they scale. The FinTech platform partners with companies by unlocking fast, flexible, transparent and non-dilutive capital at every stage of their growth journey and provides an ecosystem to amplify their growth.
The company said, “The trust placed in us by our investors have strengthened our resolve to become the most founder friendly platform to raise growth capital. With the introduction of a new asset class, Recurring Revenue, we strive to revolutionise financing and democratise access to capital for all founders.”
Funding Circle founder raises $30m for new app
Funding Circle founder Samir Desai has reportedly secured $30m to support the development and launch of his new app – Super Payments.
While there is little known about the new FinTech platform, the article reports it will aim to take market share from the payment industry’s biggest names.
Desai stepped down from his role of CEO at Funding Circle at the end of 2021 but remains as a non-executive director. He holds a 4.8% stake in the business.
Super Payments will not be competing with Funding Circle and the new company was approved by the latter.
ARMO raises $30m Series A
ARMO, a Kubernetes open-source security project, has bagged $30m in its Series A investment round.
With the capital injection, the company hopes to open additional offices, hire more internationally and expand its product and marketing teams.
ARMO is building Kubescape, which it claims is the first end-to-end open-source Kubernetes security platform.
The tool scans configurations files, Kubernetes clusters and worker nodes for misconfigurations and known vulnerabilities, and more.
Copper bags $29m from Series A raise
Copper, a US bank which set out to become teens’ bank account of choice, has raised $29m in Series A funding.
Launched in 2019, Copper describes itself as a teen-orientated banking service with a grounding in financial literacy. The bank also has set its sights on giving teens their first experience with investing and helping them learn how to build wealth.
The bank offers features like personalised debit cards, access to 50,000 ATMs and support for digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. Copper said Parents use its services to send money to teens and monitor their spending. Teens can set up direct-deposit for after-school and summer jobs and pay friends using convenient P2P transfers, while getting tips on finance fundamentals like dividends, budgeting and compound interest.
Copper said it will use the funding to expand its banking service into a full-featured, teen-friendly financial platform.
Source Defense raises $27m from Series B haul
Source Defense, a web application client-side protection provider, has raised $27m from a Series B funding round.
Founded in 2014, Source Defense claims it uses a first-of-its-kind, real-time sandbox isolation technology to provide a client-side website security solution focused on preventing malicious activity originating from website supply chain vendors.
The firm claims its platform provides organisations with both security and compliance in order to help companies keep users’ personal and financial information protected.
Source Defense has said it will use the new capital to speed up growth by investing in research and development, sales and marketing.
Smallstep Labs rakes in $26m across two rounds
Smallstep Labs, a security platform for DevOps, has scored $26m across the close of two funding rounds.
This capital injection will help Smallstep create new products for its community and accelerate the research and development of new features.
Founded by Mike Malone, Smallstep offers automated certificate management to give DevOps’ teams to establish zero trust. Smallstep’s aim is to help companies secure their entire infrastructure by identifying everything and everyone, identifying credentials, encrypting data and communications, and strengthening security policies.
Data encryption startup Enveil scores $25m
Enveil, a startup focused on data encryption, has inked $25m from a funding round headed by USAA.
Since its founding back in 2016, Enveil has raised a total of $40m in venture capital investment.
Enveil is a privacy enhancing technology firm that protects data in use. The company’s business-enabling and privacy-preserving capabilities for secure data search, sharing and collaboration project data while its being used or processed.
The company said its new funding will be used to expand sales, product development and marketing activity to capitalise on a growing global need for tools to manage computation against encrypted data in secure ways.
WealthTech Cogni inks $23m Series A
Cogni, digital banking platform aimed at enhancing consumer lifestyles, has raised $23m in Series A funding.
With a rise in demand for banking services offering a centralises suite of product and services, Cogni said it is focused on bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3 capabilities for an “optimal modern customer experience.”
Cogni said it will use the funds to continue to build the core Cogni technology and infrastructure, gain new users on the platform, expand its suite of products and hire new talent.
In the coming months, Cogni said it will focus on building out its Web3 capabilities to give users access to an even more comprehensive and compatible banking platform. Specifically, Cogni will offer a multichain wallet, as well as a high-yield savings account that the company claims will outperform most savings accounts currently on the market.
Intigriti bags €21.1m from Series B
Intigriti, a bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure platform, has raised €21.1m in its Series B funding round, which it claims is the largest funding for a crowdsourced security platform in Europe to date.
With these funds, the company hopes to accelerate its detection, reporting and validation of vulnerabilities. Capital will also be used to hire more than 200 employees across its UK, Europe and Singapore offices.
Intigriti connects organisations with ethical hackers to continuously test and improve their security through bug bounty programs and other crowdsourced techniques.
The company is releasing its hybrid pentest offering, which will let companies work with select researchers in individual engagements within an agreed timeframe but following a result-based rate, like bug bounty programs.
Ondo Finance rakes in $20m from Series A haul
Ondo Finance, which is building a decentralised investment bank, has raised $20m in Series A funding to accelerate the adoption of DeFi among mainstream investors.
Ondo Finance said it is building a decentralised investment bank focused on connecting stakeholders in the emerging DeFi ecosystem, including decentralised autonomous organisation, institutions, and retail investors.
As its first offering, the company built a novel primitive for decentralised structure products that offer choice between downside protection and enhanced returns.
Ondo said the funding will allow it to build out its team and support new product launches including its multi-chain expansion. Over the next few months, the company said it plans to launch several additional products with the aim of increasing the breadth, usefulness, and accessibility of its offerings.
RegTech First AML inks £15.6m Series B
New Zealand-based RegTech platform First AML has reportedly nabbed £15.6m in its Series B funding round alongside its launch in the UK.
Headline Ventures and Blackbird Ventures led the round, with commitments also coming from Bedrock Capital, Icehouse Ventures and Pushpay founder Eliot Crowther, according to a report from FinTech Futures.
First AML automates end-to-end AML and CFT processes. Clients can request a CDD/KYC case with one click, helping them identify customers and check they are who they claim to be.
It also boasts tools for risk assessments and record keeping.
Crowdz snares $10m investment
SME finance platform Crowdz has secured $10m in investment, led by Citi and Global Cleantech Capital, to expand its ability to bring accessible working capital to small businesses.
Crowdz said its platform offers an alternative financing solution for small businesses that often struggle to obtain traditional bank financing. Its technology enables small businesses to sell invoices to funders for financing, reducing cash flow bottlenecks and giving small businesses working capital to survive and thrive.
Crowdz and Citi said they plan to collaborate to give small and medium enterprises (SMEs) rapid and efficient access to the working capital needed to keep their businesses running. Citi has a longstanding commitment to expanding access to capital and inclusive financial services. Through its $200m Impact Fund, Citi deploys its own capital to make equity investments in “double bottom line” US-based private sector companies that are applying innovative solutions to help address some of society’s most pressing challenges.
FinTech Zenda closes seed on $9.4m
Zenda, a UAE-based FinTech focusses on family finance management, has raised $9.4m in seed funding.
Zenda said it is on a mission the help families thrive. Through its app, Zenda allows parents to pay fees directly to schools, whilst streamlining collections by enabling schools to accept and manage payments online. This means that parents no longer need to provide bank deposit slips as proof of payment because all transactions on Zenda happen in real-time. The startup also has an embedded financing option that extends tuition fee credit to parents on a flexible repayment structure.
Zenda was founded in June 2021 by Raman Thiagarajan and Haseeb Ahmed. The duo also founded nexquare, a management and data analytics systems for schools, educators and regulators.
ModusBox secures $7.5m from Series A
ModusBox, an infrastructure and integration tech firm for financial services, has closed a Series A investment round on $7.5m.
ModusBox claims it has taken on the challenge of improving lives by accelerating universal access to reimagined financial services. The firm has developed PortX, which is an integration-platform-as-a-servive for the financial services industry.
ModusBox said that today, PortX is an industry-leading technology for community financial institutions that unlock access to banking core data, eliminates vendor dependencies and creates simplified connectivity for the new wave of FinTechs are real-time payment networks that are ‘reshaping the global financial system’.
The company claims it will use the new capital to speed-up the development of its PortX products, drive key partnerships with advanced FinTech solutions and continue its contributions to the Mojaloop real-time payments ecosystem.
The funds will also scale the firm’s recruiting, marketing, customer success and engineering groups as ModusBox responds to rapidly increasing demand.
HomePace scores $7m
HomePace, which helps homeowners get early access to their home equity without taking on additional debt or interest payments, secured $7m in its Series A round.
The capital injection was led by LENIX, the corporate venture division of homebuilder Lennar. Other commitments also came from Bling Capital, NextView Ventures and Ride Ventures.
Capital will be used to release a new homebuyer solution, which will give homebuyers with funds upfront to use as part of their down payment when purchasing a home in exchange for sharing a portion of their home’s future value.
SiriusPoint backs Broker Buddha
Broker Buddha, a technology company that simplifies the commercial insurance application and renewal process, has raised $5m in a funding round led by SiriusPoint.
The round also saw participation from existing investor Vertex Ventures US.
Broker Buddha’s tech platform aims to transform the commercial insurance market by simplifying the application and renewal processes for insureds, brokers, and carriers. It offers an interactive smart form library with over 10,000 smart forms, and supports the renewal process by highlighting exposure fields and showing prior year values, as well as comparing data across submissions.
As a result, the company said, agents can be more efficient, create a better experience for their clients, and enable submissions of a much higher quality for carriers.
CoreChain Technologies rakes in $4.2m seed
CoreChain Technologies, a company that claims to be the first digital B2B payments network built on blockchain, has snared $4.2m in seed financing.
The round was headed by Ulu Ventures and also saw participation from Connecticut Innovations, Bloccelerate VC, New Form Capital, SaaS Venture Capital, Next Coast Ventures, Motivate Venture Capital and Angeles Investors. To date, CoreChain has raised $5.5m in total funding.
CoreChain claims it allows any ERP or business process automation software firm or banks to offer blockchain-based B2B payment and financing solutions to its enterprise clients. The company’s CoreChain Network also enables simple and secure digital B2B payments between buyers and their suppliers, levering enterprise Blockchain DLT to help businesses operate more efficiently.
CoreChain added that by transitioning firms away from inefficient legacy ‘paper check’ based solutions to a modern digital payments tech stack, the company is simplifying business procedures and helping them boost profits through automation and enhanced security.
PayTech PayByCar drives off with $4m seed
PayByCar, a Massachusetts-based mobile payments startup, has raised $4m in seed funding.
PayByCar is a FinTech startup specialising in pay-by-text solutions, which allows drivers to perform contactless payments on gas purchases at participating locations from their mobile device, without ever having to touch the pump screen or use cash, credit cards, or mobile apps.
Following PayByCar’s 2021 state-wide launch of its exclusive in-vehicle payment platform, the company said it has grown awareness through retail, transit, and FinYech partnerships across the nation, including partnerships with the E-ZPass Group, state DOTs, Global Partners LP, Star Systems International, and others.
WealthTech OneVest rakes in $3.8m venture funding
Canada-based OneVest, an embedded wealth management platform, has collected CAD 5m ($3.8m) in a venture funding round.
The capital injection will help the company hire more staff, grow sales and bolster its product development.
Founded in 2021, the WealthTech company offers digital wealth management services that can be embedded in consumer-facing products via APIs. Through this, FinTechs, credit unions, traditional banks and wealth managers can offer digitally native user experiences within weeks.
It claims to be Canada’s first wealth-as-a-service platform. Its features include APIs, white-labelled mobile apps and front-end widgets, fractional share allocation, tools for goal-based investing, thematic and responsible investing, personalised portfolios and alternative investments, and more.
FinTech Responsive secures C$3.5m Series A
Responsive, a FinTech company that leverages machine learning to help financial advisors to better serve and engage investors, has raised C$3.5m in a Series A funding round led by Co-operators.
Responsive provides productivity and insight solutions to advisor-led businesses that manage over $10bn AUM. Responsive said its “Prioritize” tool enables advisors to focus on the most valuable actions and conversations to grow client wealth and trust. Moreover, the company’s APIs and data tools help institutions innovate rapidly while maintaining platform flexibility and regulatory defensibility.
The investment will help Responsive expand to US and European markets, as well as commercialize their APIs and integrations to help advisory businesses and platforms rapidly adopt their solutions.
Singaporean Finbots.AI snares $3m
Singapore-based Finbots.AI, which helps firms better handle credit risk, has collected $3m in its Series A funding round.
This capital injection will help Finbots.AI accelerate product enhancement, marketing and sales, and customer support. The company is also looking to hire senior talent and expand its tam across its offices.
Finbots.AI was founded in 2017 by Sanjay Uppal and Shripad Keni who leveraged their deep financial services understanding to create an AI-powered credit scorecard system. The ZScore is equipped with machine learning algorithms that utilise historical traditional and alternative data to automatically build, validate and deploy real-time, high-performing risk models.
Volume rakes in $2.4m
Volume, which stylises itself as the transparent checkout startup, has scored $2.4m in its oversubscribed pre-seed funding round.
With the capital, the company plans to expand its UK operations, as well as grow across Europe and North America.
Volume claims to improve current open banking capabilities to reduce the long checkout process, whilst killing hidden fees.
It claims to be the first platform to leverage the variable recurring payment mandate to significantly speed up open banking-enabled direct account-to-account online payments. It also detects the preferred bank that shoppers pay with and relay them to to a biometric security check.
Charityvest inks $2.2m seed
Charityvest, which has builds tax-deductible charitable giving accounts, has released new investment capabilities after the close of a $2.2m seed round.
The capital injection will enable donors in their community to invest their charitable balances across efficient robo-advised portfolios featuring ETFs from Vanguard and Blackrock.
Its donor-advised funds allow users to make tax-deductible contributions of cash, stock or cryptocurrency into their fund and direct funds to over 1.4 million nonprofits across the US.
Charityvest has released a new low-fee portfolio where users can invest their remaining balance for tax-free growth to give more to charity over their lifetime, with all-in fees 50% lower than the leading provider in the DAF space, it said.
Rent payment firm Circa rakes in $2m
Circa, which claims to be revolutionising the way people pay rent, has reportedly collected $2m to grow the types of properties it supports.
The company is expected to raise more capital in the near future, according to a report from TechCrunch.
Tenants can choose to pay their monthly rent through either one, two or four instalments. Payments can be made through bank transfers, debit/credit cards or cash at a local retailer.
If the resident misses a payment, they can work on a plan to help catch up. Furthermore, paying rent helps the user build their credit score.
FinTech Moojo secures $2m pre-seed funding
German FinTech company Moojo has reportedly raised $2m in its pre-seed funding round.
With the fresh capital, the company plans to launch insurance and lending products.
Moojo was created to help freelancers and creators streamline their invoicing process to get paid faster. Its app enables the automation of invoices and edits, as well as meet German regulatory requirements.
Consumers can join the waitlist for the app, which will be available on Android and Apple phones.
InsurTech MotionsCloud secures $2m
InsurTech startup MotionsCloud, which leverages AI to automate insurance claims and inspections, has raised $2m in its recent round of funding.
MotionsCloud pointed to a report from Accenture that said satisfaction in the insurance industry is one of the lowest, and 83% of consumers dissatisfied with the claim handling process are planning to switch their insurance companies. Moreover, insurance firms’ claims processing costs represent up to 15% of total insurance claims paid out annually, caused by a large workforce and complex, tedious, manual processes.
In response to these problems, MotionsCloud has developed a secure AI-driven deep learning insurance claims automation engine that it said creates significant time and cost-effectivity for insurance companies and boosts customer experience. Its technology equips claimants or inspection teams with an automated tool that reduces the claims cycle from over ten days to three hours and saves up to 75% of processing costs.
MotionsCloud said the funding will be used to help the company pursue further expansion efforts. MotionsCloud empowers insurance companies with an automated property and vehicle inspection, making the process faster and more efficient. Established in Germany, the startup cooperates with European, US, and Asian firms.
Malaysian Payd snares $1.7m seed financing
Malaysia-based financial wellbeing platform Payd has reportedly bagged $1.7m for its seed round, which will help it grow its Southeast Asian operations.
This funding will help Payd build its branding, expand its team and accelerate its product development efforts. Capital will also go towards the launch of new products and services in the coming months.
Founded in 2020, Payd aims to empower financial wellbeing for employees. Its mobile app lets a user get early access to a portion of their salary as they earn it.
Its “all-in-one” mobile employee financial wellbeing platform also gives users budgeting tools to better manage their finances, insights to track their activities and guides to improve financial wellbeing.
CityFALCON closes crowdfunding campaign
The company raised the funds through the Seedrs platform, attracting support from 1,273 investors. It raised a total of £1.6m at a pre-money valuation of £10.4m – initially it targeted £200,000.
A total of 13.65% of CityFALCON’s equity was given to investors.
Relai collects €1.2m
Bitcoin savings app Relai collected €1.2m in private funding, ahead of its crowdfunding campaign.
Relai is launching a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube on 3 May and will run until 30 May. Investors can contribute from as little as €10, but those that invest €5,000 will receive 0% fees on transactions via the Relai app.
With the capital raised, Relai plans to scale its user base across Europe and build new products to make buying bitcoin even easier and quicker. It is also looking to launch a new feature that will expedite bitcoin’s transition to the mainstream.
Switzerland-based Relai was launched in 2020 and already has 24,000 active users across Europe. Through its mobile app, users can buy and sell bitcoin and establish automatic savings plans.
Estonian FinTech DriveX reels in $1m investment
Estonian FinTech startup DriveX has closed a $1m investment round to help with its European expansion efforts.
Capital from the round will help the InsurTech company expand across Europe and explore use cases within vehicle rental, leasing and sales processes.
Founded in 2019, DriveX aims to digitise vehicle inspection processes through AI-assisted technology. Its current focus in the auto insurance industry, which has an estimated worth of $880bn, it said.
Its technology automates pre-inspection processes, saving insurers up to 90% of inspection costs. Its image recognition technology ensures quality and reliability of input from insurance applicants on the condition of their vehicle.
Tuum closes €1m funding round
Estonian FinTech company Modular Technologies OÜ (Tuum) has raised €1m in a funding round that was backed by AS LHV Group.
LHV will invest the money in a convertible bond which will be converted during the next funding round into shares.
This investment aims to bolster the partnership between the two firms. They first entered a partnership in October 2021, which saw Tuum gain access to LHV’s services, including real-time pound and euro payments, virtual IBANs, currency exchange accounts and more.
Tuum provides a cloud-agnostic core banking platform to financial companies. Its modules include banking core, deposits and savings accounts, assets and collateral, lending, accounting, payments, cards and debt management.
Kryptview lands $650,000 pre-seed
Kryptview, a platform that provides peer-reviewed research for digital assets, has scored $650,000 in a pre-seed funding round.
FinTech Finance detailed that while the cryptocurrency industry is valued at almost $2trn, many investors must rely on fragmented data sources and informal channels to gather information about digital assets when researching tokens and digital assets. This is where Kryptview can help, as the company offers a research platform for crypto assets as well as rewarding its contributors for their efforts.
Founded in 2021, France-based Kryptview offers a peer-to-peer model and blockchain mechanisms to reward the best crypto-analysts while allowing regular users to get high-quality and community-validated information.
Laboremus Uganda collects funding
Laboremus Uganda, which builds a selection of financial technology tools for companies in East Africa, has reportedly received funding.
The capital injection was supplied by DOB Equity and FCA Investments, according to a report from FinTech & Finance News.
With the capital injection, the company plans to add new channels and verification services, including ID verification, customer KYC verification, KYC data capture for account opening and more.
Laboremus Uganda provides banks and FinTechs with the digital tools to collect, verify and analyse customer data so they can provide financial services to anyone.
Copyright © 2022 FinTech Global
