A total of $2.8bn was raised across last week’s 54 FinTech deals, of which, the top nine raised $1.5bn.
The US continued to show its leading position in FinTech, with four of the biggest nine funding rounds from the country. However, the remaining five companies were spread internationally. Germany’s Trade Republic pulled in the most, through a $263m Series C round. Other countries represented in the top nine were Sweden, India, the Netherlands, Indonesia and Israel.
Celebrities have often taken an interest in the FinTech sector, and this week saw filmmaker and actor M. Night Shyamalan contribute to the $220m investment round of Knock, a mobile platform aimed at simplifying the home buying process.
This week also saw a number of FinTech companies earn their horn, for example, Branch, a home and auto insurance technology company, reached a $1.05bn valuation. Similarly, CyberTech company Perimeter 81 hit a $1bn valuation after its funding round.
Here are last week’s funding rounds.
Neobroker unicorn Trade Republic extends Series C by €250m ($263m)
German neobroker Trade Republic has closed a €250m Series C extension round, which puts its valuation at €5bn (up from €4.4bn).
This fresh investment was led by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, with commitments coming from other unnamed backers.
The original Series C round closed on $900m in May 2021. The round was backed by Sequoia with participation from TCV, Thrive Capital, Accel, Founders Fund, Creandum and Project A.
Founded in 2015, Trade Republic was built to help Europeans manage their wealth. It offers investments into equities, cryptos, EFTs and fractional stock savings plans.
M. Night Shyamalan joins funding round of PropTech Knock
Knock, a mobile platform that aims to help homebuyers easily get the home they want, has scored $220m in a funding round.
The round was led by Foundry Group, with commitments also coming from Greycroft. Many of Knock’s existing investors also joined the round, including RRE, First American Financial’s venture arm Parker89, Company Ventures, Second Century Ventures, as well as filmmaker and actor M. Night Shyamalan.
Since it was founded in 2015, the company has raised a total of $900m in debt and equity.
Knock supplies homebuyers and agents with financing solutions in a transparent and convenient mobile app. Its Knock Home Swap service helps existing homeowners have access to 100% of the money needed to buy their new home before selling their old one.
The Knock Go service is designed to give first-time buyers to make an offer that’s competitive with cash by providing sellers with the certainty of a guaranteed, on-time closing.
Juni lands $206m in Mubadala-backed Series B
Juni, a financial companion for ecommerce, has closed $206m in Series B and venture debt funding.
The company – which has only been in existence for two years – secured $100m in a Series B led by Mubadala Capital with participation from EQT Ventures, Felix Capital and Cherry Ventures included.
Juni also reeled in $106m in venture debt financing from TriplePoint Capital, which is the leader in venture funding.
Juni is a financial management platform for ecommerce that brings together physical and virtual cards, credit cards, accounting, analytics and digital advertising platforms, giving businesses a ‘holistic view’ of their finances.
According to Juni, the funding will be used to fuel ecommerce business growth through Juni’s credit card. The company wil also use the funds to support its global expansion, continue to hire world class talent and focus on building a robust product to support its ecommerce customers.
Security vendor ReliaQuest to purchase Digital Shadows for $160m
ReliaQuest, a security operations vendor, has revealed it plans to acquire threat intelligence firm Digital Shadows at a deal being valued at $160m.
According to ReliaQuest, the deal adds contextual threat intelligence data to its GreyMatter platform as well as new technology to help firms quickly respond to cyber incidents.
The company said in a note on the planned acquisition that the deal gives security operations teams the ability to detect and respond to threats with real-time internal and external visibility.
ReliaQuest said it expects the new product line to drive down response time, provide context around threats and allow for an end-to-end view, all the while lessening the cost of visibility.
Branch lands $147m and joins unicorn club
Branch, a home and auto insurance technology company, has raised $147m in Series C funding and joined the unicorn club.
The round was led by Weatherford Capital, with participation from new and existing investors including Acrew, AmFam Ventures, Anthemis, Gaingels, Greycroft, HSCM Ventures, Narya, SignalFire, and Tower IV.
The funding brings Branch’s valuation to $1.05bn.
Branch launched in 2019 with a focus on leveraging the power of community to make insurance more affordable and has already helped members save an annual average of $548.
Now, with inflation at a 40-year high, Branch remains committed to bringing its instant bundled savings to consumers in every state. Branch said the equity financing round positions to accelerate its national rollout while scaling its differentiated distribution strategy which includes direct, agency, and embedded channels.
The announcement comes on the heels of an expansion into nine new states already in 2022, making Branch’s frictionless insurance available in 28 states.
Branch has grown its annualised written premium 1300% YoY in the last 12 months. In addition to its unprecedented geographic growth, Branch’s embedded insurance partner ecosystem continues to blossom as it offers instant insurance in moments consumers need it most. Branch has already partnered with key industry players across the mortgage, auto, and home security industries including Homepoint, OpenRoad Lending, and SimpliSafe to make it even more convenient for consumers to save on insurance.
Coralogix scores $142m in Series D raise
Coralogix, a data analytics firm, has closed a $142m Series D round that was co-led by Brighton Park Capital and Advent International.
The round also included participation from Revaia Ventures, Greenfield Partners, Red Dot Capital Partners, O.G Tech, Joule Capital Partners, Maor Investments and StageOne Ventures. Following the round, Coralogix has now raised a total of $238m.
Founded in 2015, Coralogix claims it is rebuilding the path to observability using a real-time streaming analytics pipeline that provides monitoring, visualization, and alerting capabilities without the burden of indexing.
The platform can be used for log management and analytics, infrastructure and application metrics, data tracing and security. For security, the platform provides threat detection, incident response and posture and vulnerability assessment capabilities.
Coralogix claims it has more than 2,000 customers with 10,000 DevOps and security engineers using its products.
The firm claims it will use the investment to expend its R&D, product and go-to-market teams around the world.
India’s CRED raises 4th investment in 18 months
India-based CRED, which rewards users for paying their credit card bills, has reportedly raised $140m in its fourth investment in the past 18 months.
The round was led by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, according to a report from TechCrunch. Commitments also came from existing CRED backers, including Tiger Global, Sofina Ventures, Alpha Wave Ventures and Dragoneer.
This fresh equity injection brings CRED’s valuation to $6.4bn, up from $4bn in October 2021.
CRED currently has over nine million members. Users earn CRED coins whenever they pay credit card bills on the platform, which can then be used to buy an assortment of rewards. These include products from Puma, Samsung, dineout, Myntra, cure.fit and more.
Not only can CRED be used to pay bills, but also monitor spending. Its mobile app provides category-based analysis of spending, detects hidden charges and tracks credit limits in real-time.
There is also a raffle where users can spend CRED coins to participate in competition for exclusive rewards.
Backbase pulls in €120m from Motive Partners ($126m)
Backbase, which created an engagement banking platform, has raised €120m in growth equity funding from Motive Partners.
The funding saw Backbase valued at €2.5bn.
Founded in 2003 in Amsterdam, Backbase is a financial technology company on a mission to re-architect banking around the customer. Its whitelabel engagement banking platform empowers banks and credit unions to rapidly digitise their customer-facing operations and create journeys that meet and exceed the expectations of today’s digital-savvy customers.
Backbase said most bank struggle with a patchwork of disconnected, point and channel solutions that were never designed to service customers holistically. The investment, the company explained, will allow it to double down on its vision for engagement banking and accelerate its mission of re-architecting banking around the customer.
Indonesian crypto trading app PINTU closes Series B on $113m
Indonesian crypto asset trading and investment app PINTU has closed its Series B on $113m.
The round was backed by Intudo Ventures, Lightspeed, Northstar Group and Pantera Capital.
With the capital injection, PINTU plans to release new features, add more traded tokens, support blockchain technology and build new products. Additionally, the company is looking to bolster its Pintu Academy educational program to increase the literacy and knowledge around the crypto space.
The company’s team has doubled since 2021, and it is continuing its hiring drive. Key positions are open within its engineering, business and strategy, and human resources departments.
PINTU claims to have two million customers, which are able to make simple and safe investments into cryptocurrency. It supports a range of cryptos, including bitcoin, Ethereum, tether, binance coin, compound, chainlink, dogecoin and many more.
Perimeter 81 becomes latest CyberTech unicorn
Israel-based Perimeter 81 has collected $100m in its Series C funding round, which was led by B Capital.
The round was also supported by Insight Partners, Toba Capital, ION Crossover Ventures, Entrée Capital and publicly traded Spring Ventures led by Aviv Refuah.
This funding round brings Perimeter 81’s valuation to $1bn.
Following the close of the round, Perimeter 81 plans to bolster its growth efforts and hire more staff.
Perimeter 81 is a network-as-a-service platform that empowers companies to secure their corporate network. It boasts instant deployment, unified management and a 360-degree visibility.
Its platform can be used for network security, zero trust network access, firewall-as-a-service, secure web gateway, VPN alternative identity management, device posture check and much more. Companies can ensure they are compliant with regulations, including Compliance Overview, ISO 27001 Compliance, HIPAA Compliance, Soc 2 Type 2 Compliance and GDPR.
Financial product API dev Codat picks up $100m
Codat, an API software developer, has received $100m in its Series C funding round, which was led by JP Morgan Growth Equity Partners.
Canapi Ventures and Shopify also joined the round, as did existing Codat backers Index Ventures and PayPal Ventures.
With the capital, the company plans to deepen its critical infrastructure to become the default means of sharing data for the small business economy. It claims its technology, similar to how the internet transformed the world, will underpin the flow of small business data, giving way to tools, capabilities and opportunities not yet seen or imagined.
It claims the effects of this have already been seen, with SMBS sharing and syncing data to other systems via Codat’s technology have grown on average 2.7 times faster than GDP in 2021.
Codat’s API is currently used by lending and payments companies to build integrated products for their SMB customers. For example, a neobank building a cashflow forecast in their app or a payment provider enabling merchants to sync transactions with their accounting software.
It claims to have over 200 clients, Brex, Jeeves, Pipe and Clover.
As part of the investment, Patrick McGoldrick, partner at J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners, will join the Codat board of directors.
Security analytics platform Devo Technology hits $2bn valuation
Cloud-native logging and security analytics platform Devo Technology has reached a $2bn valuation after the close of its Series F on $100m.
The investment was led by Eurazeo, a global investment firm with over $30bn in assets under management. Commitments also came from all existing investors, including Insight Partners, Georgian, TCV, General Atlantic, Bessemer Venture Partners and Kibo Venture.
Additionally, ISAI Cap Venture provided a strategic investment in the round.
The funds have been earmarked for growth in new regions and verticals, with a particular interest in the public sector and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. Devo Technology also hopes to accelerate the delivery of “autonomous SOC” and to foster new M&A efforts.
Devo, which is based in Massachusetts, provides companies the tools to collect all of your data without compromise and be prepared to defend their entire attack surface.
Devo recently acquired Kognos, an AI-powered threat hunting solution. This deal is helping Devlo establish the autonomous SOC, which boasts complete visibility, automation, analytics, and open access to community expertise and content.
Some of Devo’s recent milestones include nearly 100% growth in annual revenue and customer growth, and the launch of its Devo Exchange, a community-based application marketplace for Devo customers and partners.
Construction invoice loan company Constrafor raises over $100m for seed round
Constrafor, an invoice and contract management SaaS platform built for the construction industry, has raised over $100m for its seed round.
The exact size of the investment was not declared, but the round comprised both debt and equity. The equity was supplied by Fintech Collective, Village Global, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Commerce Venture and tech founders from Ramp, Uber and Paxos. The debt came from CoVenture.
It will use the funds to build new functionality and expand its subcontractor invoice finance offering, Early Pay Program (EPP).
Constrafor was built to alleviate the pain point many firms in the construction industry face, slow payments. Its platform offers streamlined documentation and information exchange, as well as financing to thousands of contractors through its EPP service.
The EPP tool lets subcontractors get paid for their approved invoices within 24 to 48 hours, boosting cash flows and combating costly traditional loans.
Immuta lands $100m from NightDragon-led Series E
Immuta, a leader in data access and data security, has secured $100m in a Series E funding round led by NightDragon.
Also taking part in the round were Snowflake Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, DFJ Growth, IAG, Intel Capital, Match Capital, Ten Eleven Ventures, Wipro Ventures and StepStone. To date, the company has raised a total of $267m since inception.
Immuta claims it enables organisations to discover, protect and monitor sensitive data so that users can access it – as long as they have the rights. The company offers customers the ability to secure their data in the cloud at a more granular level and easily enforce data security policies.
Immuta recently expanded into the Australian and New Zealand markets as well as the addition of new customers and new hires in the region. The company also expanded its partner network of top cloud data platforms with integrations to include companies like Amazon, Google and Azure.
The company recorded strong growth in 2021, which including boosting commercial annual recurring revenue by more than 100%, doubling its customer base and continuing its global expansion into EMEA and APJ.
Immuta claims it will use the investment to speed up product innovation, expand sales, marketing and customer success teams to meet growing global demand and deepen strategic partnerships within the cloud data ecosystem.
Open banking provider Bud collects $80m in Series B
Bud, an open banking provider, has raised $80m in a Series B funding round from TDR Capital.
According to AltiFi, Bud plans to grow its client portfolio, develop its models and build on its international expansion.
Ed Maslaveckas – Bud co-founder and CEO – said that while he could not share exactly where the company plans to expand next, he hopes the company is in two major new markets before the end of the year.
JupiterOne joins growing list of CyberTech unicorns
JupiterOne, a cyber asset attack surface management platform, has closed its Series C on $70m, which brings its valuation to $1bn.
Tribe Capital served as the lead investor, with commitments also coming from Intel Capital, Alpha Square Group, Sapphire, Bain Capital Ventures, Cisco Investments and Splunk Ventures.
This capital injection will enable JupiterOne to grow its go-to-market capabilities, deepen its engineering investments and increase product development to address market needs across attack surface management, including unified asset inventory, vulnerability management, and security posture automation.
Furthermore, funds will be used to extend the reach of JupiterOne’s partnership and integration teams, as well as scale its direct and channel sales efforts.
JupiterOne is a cloud-native cyber asset attack surface (CAASM) platform that helps enterprises easily map, analyse, and secure complex cloud environments. It claims to be a foundation for security programs, giving customers deeper security context and visibility into their cyber asset landscape so they can better prioritise security risks.
It integrates continuous cyber asset data for security operations and engineering, cloud security, configuration management, and compliance use cases.
CyberTech platform AppOmni scores $70m ahead of international growth efforts
SaaS security platform AppOmni has raised $70m in its Series C funding round, which was raised to support its product development efforts.
Software investment firm Thoma Bravo served as the lead investor, with commitments also coming from Scale Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures, ClearSky and Costanoa Ventures.
Capital from this round will help AppOmni bolster its product development, fuel its international growth and scale its go-to-market processes.
AppOmni supplies companies with centralised visibility, unmatched data access management and security controls that integrate with any SaaS environment. It supports includes Box, Confluence, Fastly, GitHub, Google Workspace, Jira, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Workday, Zoom and many more.
It currently protects more than 78 million users across a range of SaaS platforms and has secured over 230 million exposed data records.
The CyberTech company recently launched its Developer Platform, which enables security coverage for any SaaS application, whether purchased from a vendor or built in-house.
Middesk pulls in $57m to support businesses
Middesk, a software company dedicated to automated business verification and underwriting decisions, has raised $57m in Series B funding.
The round was co-led by Insight Partners and Canapi Ventures, with additional investments from existing investors Sequoia and Accel, as well as Gaingels.
Middesk said that new business are at a disadvantage and struggling to access important products like bank accounts, capital, and credit. The company said within the current climate, 50% of new businesses will fail in the first five years.
With its identity as-a-service APIs however, Middesk is looking to change that by making it easier for businesses to verify and underwrite other businesses.
With this investment, Middesk belives that it can accelerate trust between businesses and encourage more companies to work together by giving them access to the products and services they need to grow and thrive.
The company added the funding will be invested in new and existing products, providing the tools and data needed by banks, insurers, credit card companies, lenders, and payroll companies.
Indian unicorn Slice increases its valuation after fresh funding
Indian credit card company Slice has reportedly raised $50m in a fresh financing round, which puts its valuation between $1.5bn and $1.8bn.
The new round was led by Tiger Global, according to a report from TechCrunch. Other commitments came from GMO Venture Partners, Insight Partners and Moore Strategic Ventures.
Slice is also engaging with other investors to raise an additional $100m, the report claims, which cites a source familiar with the matter. The FinTech company became a unicorn in 2021 when it closed a $220m funding round, which was co-led by Tiger Global and Insight Partners.
The FinTech company offers a mobile app to simplify payments, with the ability to scan and pay instantly, or easily send money to friends. Its services are used by over 12 million people.
Foxen rakes in $44m for real estate market
Foxen, a provider of financial technology solutions for the real estate industry, has raised $44m in Series A funding.
The round was led by growth equity investor Summit Partners, with participation from Level Equity.
Foxen’s technology solutions centre on financial wellness, which it defines as “the improvement in the management of finances through technology.”
The solutions are designed to mutually benefit property managers, owners, and their residents. The company said its products were born of a market need for accountability and compliance in insurance coverage across the multifamily real estate market.
Foxen said rental housing provides homes to more than a third of US households, and while most multi-family property managers require renters insurance, compliance of this requirement is often not managed. Only about 57% of tenants carry an insurance policy, exposing renters to risk due to common incidents and leaving building owners susceptible to damage to the unit or property.
Foxen’s proprietary software solution is designed to integrate with leading property management systems to provide real time access to property and resident compliance data, with automated enrolment in Foxen’s insurance solution for residents who incur lapsed or cancelled third-party coverage.
Foxen said it will use the funding to accelerate development of its expanding product portfolio and fuel hiring across the organisation.
French crypto wallet Coinhouse closes second round this year ($42m)
France-based crypto wallet provider Coinhouse has reportedly collected €40m in fresh funding to support its European expansion.
The investment was supported by ODDO BHF Bank, True Global Ventures, Tioga Capital, XAnge Siparex Innovation, Raise Ventures, CF Partners, ConsenSys and Expon Capital, according to a report from Geeky.news. Capital also came from several unnamed family offices and French business leaders.
With the fresh funds, the company hopes to develop new products, accelerate its international expansion and help make crypto payments more accessible for individuals and companies.
Coinhouse helps consumers easily open a crypto wallet, where they can curate a portfolio of more than 50 cryptocurrencies. It also offers pre-made portfolios that meet the various levels of risks.
Users can choose between a defensive portfolio of low-risk assets or a fundamental portfolio that includes historical assets, such as bitcoin and Ethereum. There is also a balanced portfolio, which picks the most promising projects in the market, and the final option is an offensive portfolio, which seeks high-risk projects.
Coinhouse has quadrupled its team in less than two years, the report claims.
IoT CyberTech Ordr bags $40m
Ordr, a cybersecurity system for IoT devices, has collected $40m in funding, as it scales to meet the rising use of connected devices.
The funding round was co-led by Battery Ventures and Ten Eleven Ventures. Contributions also came from Northgate Capital, Wing Venture Capital, Unusual Ventures, Kaiser Permanente Ventures and Mayo Clinic.
Funds from the round will be used to bolster its sales and marketing efforts, with a keen eye on the healthcare industry. Ordr is also planning to capitalise on the increasing demand from manufacturing and financial services, expand its channel and partnership programs and accelerate investments in customer success.
Ordr claims to address two prise initiatives associated with a growing reliance on and adoption of connected devices: digital transformation and Zero Trust. As companies adds device connections, their attack surface increases and so does the potential for a data breach or ransomware attack.
To help companies avoid this, Ordr provides accurate asset visibility, automates and enforces zero trust policies and accelerates incident response by hours, with insights into devices and risks. Its use cases include real-time asset inventory, zero-trust segmentation, NAC acceleration, threat detection and response, compliance, and more.
The CyberTech company has experienced a 140% growth year-over-year in customer revenue.
Nava Benefits secures $40m for access to affordable healthcare
Nava Benefits, a modern benefits brokerage on a mission to bring affordable healthcare and insurance to all Americans, has raised $40m in Series B funding.
The round was led by Thrive Capital, with participation from existing investors Avid Ventures, Quiet Capital, and Sound Ventures.
New investors GV, K5 Ventures, and Homebrew also participated, alongside One Medical founder, Tom Lee; the former CBRE global chief financial officer, Jim Groch; and Maven Clinic’s VP of sales, Isha Vij.
Nava said the infusion of capital will be used to accelerate its efforts to bring the benefits playbook of Fortune 500 companies downstream to SMBs, improving healthcare literacy support for the employee while driving down costs for the employer.
Many Americans are struggling to access high-quality and affordable healthcare, Nava said. But while Fortune 500s have the resources to fill the care gap and offer new benefits, SMBs do not have the same support due to cost and resource constraints. Moreover, small and medium-sized businesses saw cost-per-employee increases of 9.6% in 2021, as compared to 5% for larger companies.
Nava said its technology and consulting offering level the playing field by reducing costs and exposing employers and employees at SMBs to a wide array of modern benefits, including primary care, mental health, fertility and adoption assistance, and a host of other offerings.
LHV UK raises capital to support its banking licence application ($36m)
LHV UK, a banking services provider to over 200 FinTech and crypto companies, has raised €35m in funding, as it applies for a UK banking licence.
Part of the funding will be used for its banking licence application. The company will also use the equity to hire staff across its London, Leeds and Tallinn teams.
LHV UK’s move for a UK banking licence is part of LHV Group’s plans to separate the business operations from its retail bank LHV Bank, which is based in Estonia.
The FinTech company provides infrastructure for accounts, payment schemes, agency banking, acquiring and open banking, and credit, liquidity and foreign exchange.
Vendor security firm Whistic bags $35m
Whistic, a vendor security assessment firm, has raised $35m in funding from a Series B round led by JMI Equity.
Also taking part in the round were Album VC, Emergence Capital FJ Labs and Forgepoint Capital. Following this round, Whistic has raised a total of $51m since inception.
Founded in 2015, Whistic focuses on assessing vendor security and then makes such information available to organisations looking to make informed decisions.
The company claims its vendor security network – which already has over 40,000 profiles that organisations can access on demand – boosts trust and transparency.
Fruitful emerges from stealth with $33m
Fruitful, a startup that aims to encourage healthy financial habits for its users, has raised $33m in equity funding from a seed and Series A round.
According to TechCrunch, Emigrant Bank led the company’s $8m seed round while 8VC led its $25m Series A. Neither financing was previously announced. The company also raised $4 m in a convertible note, which represented an oversubscription of the Series A.
Other contributors include Lux Capital, Founders Fund, Elad Gil, Hero Health founder and CEO Kal Vepuri, along with founders of Brex, Gemini, Tagomi and others.
When it launches later this year, Fruitful will provide members with a certified financial planner — many of whom have worked as a “guide” in the financial industry for companies such as Fidelity. The role of that guide is to give a member ongoing personalised advice for $98 a month on a variety of financial matters, from budgeting to establishing savings and investments to 401(k)s, buying a home, putting away funds for kids’ college and paying taxes.
The app is currently in a live beta.
According to Josh McManus, co-founder and CEO of Fruitful, the subscription model of the company is a core differentiator. It doesn’t charge passive management fees or sell third-party products or services.
Cloud data security firm Laminar bags $30m
Laminar, a public cloud data security provider, has raised $30m in a funding round that included participation from Tiger Global Management and Salesforce Ventures.
The funding sees Laminar almost double its funding to $67m in less than six months, after it previously snared $37m in November last year.
According to Laminar, the funding comes at a pivotal time for the company as its continues its first-to-market product rollout with the announcement of three new capabilities within its Cloud Data Security Platform. The firm also recently successfully completed its SOC 2 Type II certification, which ensures compliance with the leading industry standards for managing data, security and privacy.
Laminar claims it has seen ‘significant demand’ from CISOs and their security teams for its cloud data security solutions.
The latest round of funding will be sued to fund even faster product innovation as well as to grow sales and marketing to capture the market demand and for the build-out of its global team.
CybSafe scores $28m to change human cybersecurity behaviours
CybSafe, the CyberTech100 cybersecurity software company, has raised $28m in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to $40m.
The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from Emerald Development Managers and existing investors IQ Capital and Hannover Digital Investments (HDI) GmbH.
CybSafe uses behavioural science and data science to transform security awareness and human cyber risk management.
The investment is a result of CybSafe’s continued innovation and pioneering approach to managing human cybersecurity risk. Since its Series A, CybSafe has experienced significant customer growth, adding key enterprise accounts to its impressive roster of customers, now including Credit Suisse, Barclays Bank, HSBC, FNZ Group and Moody’s.
CybSafe said it will use the Series B investment to further its mission to support its customers in changing human behaviour and lowering cybersecurity risk with behavioural and data science, ultimately preventing security incidents. In addition, to accelerate its product development, it will expand its team, across all roles including cybersecurity specialists, behavioural scientists, data scientists, and software engineers. It will also focus on go-to-market activities expanding into new geographies, including the US market.
Worker’s comp startup Hourly.io nets Series A
Workers’ comp and payroll solution Hourly.io has closed its Series A on $27m, which will help it expand outside of California.
Glilot Capital Partners led the round through its early growth fund Glilot+, which has a capital pool of $180m. Additional backers include S Capital, MS&AD Ventures, J-Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners and Upshot Ventures.
In addition to nationwide expansion, the company hopes to scale its insurance services.
Hourly offers a single solution that compiles time and attendance, payroll, and workers’ comp insurance.
The company was born from co-founder and CEO Tom Sagi’s own experiences from running a small business. In a post announcing the funding, Hourly stated businesses traditionally use annual payroll estimates to calculate workers’ comp premiums. However, changes in staffing, workload, hours or pay can make the estimates vary significantly from reality. This results in businesses either over or underpaying their workers’ comp premiums, often by tens of thousands of dollars, it said.
MENA-based banking-as-a-service provider NymCard collects $22.5m
MENA-based banking-as-a-service provider NymCard has closed a fresh funding round on $22.5m to support boost its presence in the region.
The funding round was led by DisruptAD, Reciprocal Ventures and Shorooq Partners, with additional support coming from Chimera, DFDF, Knollwood, Endeavor Catalyst and OTF Jasoor Ventures.
NymCard currently has presence in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh, Cairo, and Karachi, and is planning to bolster its presence in these core markets with local partnerships. Funds will also be used to hire more staff.
Founded in 2018, NymCard’s platform enables FinTechs to plug-and-play ready finance into their applications through over 150 APIs. Clients can use this to quickly create a selection of payment services, including virtual and physical cards, corporate expenses cards, buy now, pay later, multi-currency, money transfers, tokenisation, card management and more.
Mobile identity verifier Incognia closes Series A
Mobile identity platform Incognia has scored $15.5m in its Series A funding round, which was led by Point72 Ventures.
The investment will help Incognia bolster its growth efforts.
The company, which launched its services in the US 18 months ago, protects over 200 mobile users across 20 countries. It claims to reduce the security friction for user authentication and fraud prevention on mobile applications, across FinTech, crypto, gaming, delivery and social platforms.
Its mobile app security utilises location signals and motion sensors on a device to build a privacy-first location identity that is unique to each user. It claims to be ten-times more accurate than facial identification and has a false acceptance rate of less than one in 17 million.
Identity fraud is becoming a behemoth, with losses reaching $52bn in 2021 and around 45 million US adults affected, according to Javelin Strategy and Research.
To combat the rising levels of social engineering fraud attacks, Incognia works silently in the background on mobile devices, using anonymised location behaviour to create a new form of digital identity that provides a frictionless UX with maximum security, it said.
Paris pet insurer Dalma pulls in €15m
Paris-based pet insurance startup Dalma has raised €15m in a Series A funding round led by Northzone.
According to a report by Sifted, Project A and Anterra joined Northzone. The round also saw participation from Global Founders Capital, alongside Frst and Kima Ventures, as well as angels such as Sam Edelson (ex-director of product management at Airbnb), Olivier Bonnet (CTO of ridesharing company Blablacar) and Julien Gigoi (chief actuary of InsurTech Luko).
Dalm` is a tech-enabled pet insurance provider looking to reinvent pet insurance. The company will use the funding to launch an app that will aggregate new services beyond insurance, including unlimited video calls, direct payment to vets and an ecommerce section selling pet goods.
The round brings total investment into the one-year old company to €17m. Dalma says it has generated €6m in revenue from 20k customers in just 12 months.
France-based SME lender Defacto picks up €15m
Defacto, a credit infrastructure platform, has raised €15m in a funding round, which was led by Northzone.
Other commitments came from Headline and Global Founders. The round was also supported by angel investors, including eFounders founder Thibaud Elzière, Spendesk founder and CEO Rodolphe Ardant, former Societe Generale deputy CEO Didier Valet and Lendable founder Victoria van lennep.
The FinTech company was founded in 2021 by Spendesk co-founder Jordane Giuly, Morgan O’hana, and Marc-Henri Gires, with the aim of giving seamless and instant financing to SMEs.
It provides loans and credit to SMEs through an embedded finance platform. Its API-based product enables third parties such as marketplaces, e-commerce platforms and others.
Since it launched in France, the company has established partnerships with over 15 B2B marketplaces, FinTech companies and e-commerce businesses. Defacto has also issued over €30m in short-term loans.
With the support of a €400m lending capacity, the company is now launching its solution in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.
Employment API dev Finch bags $15m
Finch, an employment API developer, has collected $15m in its Series A funding round, which will help it hire more staff.
Menlo Ventures served as the lead investor, with contributions also coming from General Catalyst, Bedrock, Sempervirens and Y Combinator.
Funds from the round will be used to hire staff, extend the reach of its connectivity and data products, and drive growth initiatives.
Founded in 2020, Finch has built an API that serves as a connectivity layer to streamline data transfers. It allows applications to compliantly request and securely access employment data stored in their customers; employment systems.
With this, companies can connect employment systems across HR, payroll, benefits, including infrastructure in applications across B2B FinTech, benefits, HR and enterprise verticals.
Its technology allows employees to tap into retirement savings options or find increased access to mental health benefits. On the other side, businesses can unlock millions in tax credits and automate compliance processes.
DefenseStorm reels in $15m from Series C
DefenseStorm, a provider of cloud-based cybersecurity, compliance and fraud technology, has raised $15m from a Series C financing round.
The round was led by a $5m investment from venture fund JAM FINTOP, alongside $10m in funds coming from existing unnamed investors. Following this raise, DefenseStorm has raised a total of $67m since its inception.
DefenseStorm provides cybersecurity, compliance and fraud solutions built specifically for banking to achieve and maintain cyber readiness. The company claims its GRID solution is the only co-managed, cloud-based and compliance-automated platform of its kind, operating as a tech platform and a service supported by experts in FI security and compliance.
The solution watches everything on a bank or credit union’s network and matches it to defined policies for real-time, complete and proactive cyber exposure readiness, keeping security and fraud teams smart and executives accountable.
Data infrastructure platform Vybe Network scores Series A
Data infrastructure solution Vybe Network has closed its Series A investment round on $10.5m.
The round was led by FTX, with commitments also coming from Sino Global, Staking Facilities, Panony, Tess Ventures, Contango, Canonical Crypto Fund and EBT Group.
Vybe Network enables the Solana blockchain community to query, index and exchange on-chain data to build Web3 dApps and analytics.
The FinTech company claims the capital will aid the decentralisation of data access and storage so any user, regardless of their background or proficiency, can participate in the network and monetise their data, power dApps and gain insights into Solana protocols.
Launched in 2021, Vybe offers software and infrastructure that empowers users to access and utilise both real-time and historical data from Solana. A core part of this is data indexing, where anyone can host and provide data to the network in a permissionless and transparent manner.
Access management solution Opal snaps up $10m
Opal, which claims to democratise access management, has scored $10m in its Series A round, which was led by Greylock Partners.
With the fresh equity, Opal plans to hire staff for its engineering and sales teams.
Other investors to the Series A include Box Group and Base Case VC. Several angel investors also joined the round, including Signal Science CEO Andrew Peterson, Abnormal Security CEO Evan Reiser, Replicated CEO Grant Miller, Segment CRO Joe Morrissey, Airplane CEO Joshua Ma, 1Password CTO Pedro Canahuati, Coinbase CSO Philip Martin and LDAP co-creator Tim Howes.
Opal is creating a platform for the holistic approach to access management, with a broad range of integration coverage. Its platform, which was founded in 2022, offers access insights, just-in-time access, user onboarding and offboarding, user access reviews and break glass access.
The company is trying to move access management beyond the IT-driven, group-based approach towards a more org-driven, dynamic and context-based approach. In Opal, user attributes, usage data, org structure, support tickets and on-call schedules all figure into access control decision.
Financial product service for gaming devs Sanlo bags Series A
Sanlo, which provides financial services to gaming and app companies, has collected $10m in its Series A, alongside the launch of a $200m investment fund for game developers.
The investment was led by gaming industry-focused venture capital firm Konvoy Ventures. Other investments came from Initial Capital, Portage Ventures, XYZ Venture Capital, London Venture Partners, Index Ventures, Fin Capital, GFR Fund and a number of angel investors.
In addition to the Series A, Sanlo established a strategic partnership with HCGFunds for a $200m growth capital fund to support game and app developers.
With the Series A funding, Sanlo plans to scale its team and build new products for its community.
Sanlo is building “friendly, transparent and easy-to-use” products for creators. Developers can apply for funding ranging from $1,000 to $100,000+. They simply share their monthly revenue and how much they need, sync data and then choose from various funding offers.
It also offers a dashboard so companies can monitor all of their cash flow and financials from a single location. Users can track all upcoming payments, know when a new payment is expected and monitor all other financials.
Crypto tax platform Cryptio closes Series A
Cryptio, an accounting, audit and tax software for cryptocurrency, has picked up $10m in its Series A round.
The investment was led by Point Nine, a seed-stage venture firm, with contributions also coming from BlueYard, Alven, Coinshares, Avantgarde Finance, Protocol Labs and Draper Associates.
Several angel investors also joined the round, including senior executives from Twitter, GoCardless, Fireblocks and Ledger.
With the capital, the company plans to bolster its go-to-market hiring, product development and expand its offering to publicly traded companies and institutions.
Cryptio is an enterprise-grade crypto accounting and reporting platform. Its software helps financial institutions, corporates and crypto-native businesses navigate the fragmented digital-asset landscape.
It claims to bridge the gap between blockchain and legacy accounting systems. Its features include aggregated transactions and assets in a single location, real-time retrieval of transaction history, automated auditing, automated DeFi tracking, GAAP & IFRS-compliant valuation system, automated labelling and transaction reconciliation and more.
Its services are used by over 200 crypto-native enterprises such as Consensys, Aave, DeFi Saver, and The Sandbox.
CyberTech 443ID arises form stealth with $8m seed
443ID, an identity and access management open-source intelligence cyber firm, has emerged from stealth and raised $8m in seed funding.
The round was co-led by Bill Wood Ventures and Silverton Partners.
443ID claims it is on a mission to bring the power of OSINT (open-source intelligence) to the identity security marketplace. The company’s technology allows users of identity and access management platforms to leverage the power of OSINT to make context-driven, risk-based decisions on how to authenticate, register and engage their respective users.
The new funding has allowed 443ID to hire experts that span identity and access management, cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, open-source intelligence and adtech sectors to build the firm’s OSINT identity graph powering its first products of OSINT Risk and SignalPrint.
HackNotice lands $7m in Series A haul
HackNotice, a company that enables employees to identify and defend against cyber threats, has bagged $7m in a Series A round.
The round was led by Strategic Cyber Ventures, a venture capital firm that focuses on funding firms that impact privacy, cybersecurity and company resiliency.
HackNotice claims thousands of employees use its platform daily to understand and protect themselves, their colleagues, families and business from cyberattacks.
The company’s platform enables employees to learn how hackers are threatening them, encouraging workers to collaborate with the security team and take action to prevent cyberattacks. The analytics and reporting tool in HackNotice gives security teams visibility into their risk on a per employee/department basis.
HackNotice will use the funding to expand the business and help firms fight the cybersecurity ‘epidemic’.
Gen-Z and millennial investing app FinTron scores Series A
Personal finance and investment app FinTron has scored $6.5m in its Series A funding round, as it looks to democratise personal finance for the mobile-first generation.
The round, which brings FinTron’s total capital raised to $10m, was supplied by AUA Capital Management, Connecticut Innovations, Sage Venture Partners and Webster Bank.
Funds from the round will help FinTron expand its organisation, hire more staff, and bolster its technology and product offerings. It is looking to release a new rewards engine, crypto trading capabilities, enhanced education and a neobanking offering.
FinTron aims to educate Gen-Z and millennial audiences about personal finance through educational programmes for thousands of high school and college students across the US.
Through its mobile app, users can conduct commission-free trading in over 2,000 stocks and ETFs. It also boasts budgeting tools and the ability to take things slowly by owning less than one share or buying stocks for as little as $5 apiece. To further support the gradual move into investing, the platform offers a fake investment service to get users experience with how everything works.
It claims to have acquired around 12,000 new users in 2021.
Privyr secures $6m for mobile-first customer interactions
Privyr, a Singapore-based startup that helps consumer-facing salespeople and businesses convert leads from their phones, has raised $6m in Series A funding.
According to a report by e27, the round was co-led by MassMutual Ventures and Vulcan Capital, with participation from Wavemaker Partners, bestselling author Nir Eyal, and Binance Investment Director Gwendolyn Regina.
The startup has previously raised US$900,000 from Wavemaker Partners, Entrepreneur First, and several angel investors.
Privyr builds a mobile-first sales productivity and workflow management tool. It aims to help salespeople and small businesses better engage and convert their leads into clients through WhatsApp, SMS, iMessage, and phone calls.
The startup also aims to make sales interactions more personalised and convenient, leading to much better customer experiences and sales conversion rates.
The company claims over 45,000 sales professionals across more than 75 countries use its product.
The new funding will be used to expand Privyr’s product capabilities, increase market penetration, and scale its team from less than ten employees to over 40 within a year.
Helping businesses prepare for climate change: Salient Predictions raises $5.4m
Salient Predictions, a Boston-based technology company that creates subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) weather forecasts and analytics, has raised $5.4m in a seed round.
The round was led by Wireframe Ventures. Participating investors also included Munich Re Ventures, Powerhouse Ventures, Endeavor8, First Star Ventures, and Blindspot Ventures.
Salient combines novel ocean and land-surface data with machine learning and climate expertise to deliver the world’s most accurate S2S weather forecasts from two to 52 weeks in advance.
The company said its core technology evolved from decades of research at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and MIT, led by co-founder and president, Ray Schmitt.
From finance and insurance to energy, agriculture and beyond, weather has a profound effect on an organisation’s ability to operate and deliver for its customers and stakeholders. Salient said that unlike other forecasting technologies, it provides insights and analysis on the kind of timescales that matter to business, from weeks to months and even seasons in advance. This knowledge helps Salient’s customers optimise performance, mitigate risk, improve resiliency, and plan initiatives with greater confidence.
InsurTech Overalls scores $4.6m
Overalls, a tech-enabled benefits company that combines concierge-like services with personalised financial protection to help people save time, money and stress, has raised $4.6m.
RPM Ventures, which has been investing in businesses revolutionising insurance and financial services for two decades, led the round. Other participants in the round include Frontier Ventures, angel investor and former NFL player Jerod Mayo, and various other existing investors. With cumulative funding of $8.6m, Overalls said it is poised to achieve its vision of making financial resilience obtainable by the masses.
Overalls pointed to a recent study by PwC which found that 63% of employees felt their financial stress had increased since the beginning of the pandemic and that 45% of those under financial stress had been distracted at work and an incredible 72% would be attracted to another employer who cared more about their financial well-being.
Yet, another recent study by SHRM and JP Morgan that polled Human Resource professionals found that 74% of employers had not added new benefits or extended existing benefits to help employees ease their financial stress.
Overalls said it is addressing this need by creating a personalised and dynamic insurance model and partnering with employers across the country to deliver well-rounded benefits for the modern workforce.
Founded in 2021 by FinTech veterans Jon Cooper and Emily Johnson at Redesign Health, Overalls’ InsurTech platform integrates with existing benefits programmes and enables companies to help their people save time, money and stress, while also improving adoption of voluntary benefits.
Talk360 scores $4m, gears up for pan-African payment platform launch
International calling app Talk360 has secured $4m in funding as it prepares to launch a new pan-African payment platform in mid-2022.
Talk360 enables people around the world to make reliable and affordable calls to any landline or mobile phone worldwide.
The seed round of funding was led by leading African venture capital investor HAVAÍC, 4Di Capital and several angel investors.
The angel investors included several unicorn founders and executives such as Gaston Aussems (ex-Mollie), Robert Kraal (ex-Adyen), Gabriel de Montessuss (President WorldPay International) and Marnix van der Ploeg (ex-Booking.com and EQT).
Talk360 was co-founded in 2016 by South African venture builder Dean Hiine, Dutch entrepreneurs Hans Osnabrugge and Jorne Schamp. With offices in South Africa, The Netherlands, India and Nigeria, it connected more than 2 million people in 2021.
While the Talk360 app is seeing rapid growth on the continent, with a growing number of paying users, the company said accessibility has been an issue for the 500 million underserviced people.
Users either don’t have online banking to buy Talk360 airtime, or their local currencies or payment methods are simply not supported. The new payment platform due to launch aims to address the continued issue of inaccessibility by providing users with the option to buy products and services using any currency and more than 160 payment methods. It will also be opened to other service providers.
Datia secures $3.4m for ESG reporting
Swedish climate FinTech Datia has raised $3.4m in a seed funding round to streamline ESG workflows.
According to a report by Tech EU, the investment was led by Berlin-based VC firm Nauta Capital, with participation from Accel Starter Ramzi Rizk, Zenloop’s founder Paul Schwarzenholz, Söderberg & Partners and Sting.
Founded in 2019 by Juan Manuel Serruya and Manne Larsson and headquartered in Stockholm, Datia aims to support investors in their sustainability work.
The startup offers sustainability calculations for hundreds of data points like carbon footprint, gender pay gap and energy usage on companies and funds. The company works with asset managers, wealth advisors, and platforms, allowing for measuring the impact of portfolios, regulatory reporting, and screening.
The funding will drive its expansion across Europe. It will also help to accelerate research and development of its ESG tools and sustainability data.
Realworld rakes in $3.2m
Realword, a mobile app that helps users navigate finance, health, work, and life, has raised $3.2m in funding.
The round was led by Fitz Gate Ventures, with participation from TTV Capital, Bezos Expeditions, Techstars, Knightsgate, The Helm and others. Notable angels and operators backed the team, including Olympic Gold Medalist Aly Raisman, Rent the Runway co-founder Jenny Fleiss, and Yext co-founder Howard Lerman.
Through its comprehensive library of “playbooks,” Realworld helps its users manage their finances, health care, living situations, insurance, and other important life decisions through personalised, actionable task lists.
Since its release in 2021, Realworld said its app has been top of the charts on the app store and has grown its user base over ten times.
CropSafe secures $3m to “revolutionise farming”
CropSafe, a platform which aims to revolutionise the future of farming, has raised over $3m in seed funding and opened a US headquarters in Los Angeles.
Capital firm Elefund led the fundraise, with participation from Foundation Capital, Global Founders Capital, V1.VC and Great Oaks Capital. Angel investors in this round of funding included Cory Levy, Josh Browder, and former head of strategy at Microsoft, Charlie Songhurst.
CropSafe allows farmers to create alerts and enable real-time modules from their marketplace to monitor the condition, health, and weather on their farm, which is monitored remotely through CropSafe’s network of global weather stations and orbital satellites. CropSafe helps growers take action on data, rather than leaving the complex job of interpretation to farmers.
Ebury backs KYC and payments platform LoopingOne in €800k seed
LoopingOne, a KYC and payments platform for marketplaces and platforms, has closed a €800k seed round backed by international trade FinTech Ebury.
According to Ebury, the investment aims to further develop the LoopingOne product and start the EMI application process at the Dutch Central Bank. An integration with Ebury, the firm claims, will give LoopingOne the capability to offer multi-currency services to its marketplace customers from the get-go.
Ebury added that the two companies established a partnership to build on each other’s resources and know-how to shape products and accelerate commercial activities.
World’s first carbon insurer Kita scores seed funding
Kita, the world’s first carbon insurer, has closed a “heavily” oversubscribed pre-seed round on £350,000, which was led by seasoned investor Insurtech Gateway.
Other commitments came from Carbon13, Climate VC and Echelon Capital.
This equity injection will help Kita accelerate its product build and hiring efforts to support the launch of carbon insurance products.
Kita was founded to tackle the biggest issues in climate change, which are stopping carbon emissions and removing existing carbon emissions from the atmosphere. The InsurTech company is focused on carbon removal, insuring “carbon delivery risk” to enable carbon removal solutions to scale.
Kita claims that most carbon removal solutions generate revenue by selling carbon units on the voluntary carbon market. To meet net-zero targets, this market needs to grow by over 15-times by 2030. There is a lack of transparency and consistent risk management, which is creating significant transaction risk and preventing growth.
As a result, Kita’s insurance products cover carbon delivery risk, removing a significant protection gap for both buyers and sellers in the market. By removing the risk, carbon removal projects can reach a higher price and attract inward investment.
ApolloX picks up seed round for its decentralised crypto exchange
Decentralised crypto exchange ApolloX has raised its seed round on an undisclosed amount.
The round was supported by Binance Labs, Kronos Research, Lingfeng Capital, SafePal, TokenPocket, 3Commas and LUX Capital.
This strategic funding will help ApolloX to exnad its current product and build new product lines in the ecosystem, including spot trading, predict-to-earn and DEX-as-a-service.
It launched in September 2021 and reached $158.87bn in trading volume by May 2022.
The company believes the DAO will help eliminate centralised leadership and empower the next generation of protocols to bring blockchain innovation to greater heights.
Over the coming year, ApolloX will execute its roadmap and improve the level of decentralisation. It also hopes to expand its strong network of partners with platforms and companies, including CoinMarketCap, PancakeSwap, and Banxa Holdings.
Business automation software CogniCor picks up fresh funding
CogniCor, which develops AI-powered business automation and learning platforms, has received fresh investment.
BNY Mellon Pershing chief information officer Ramaswamy Nagappan invested into CogniCor as part of a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE). Nagappan said, “I’m impressed with CogniCor’s unique value proposition of tapping into AI to create efficiencies in advisory and custodian relationships. The firm’s ability to leverage reusable knowledge graphs and develop specific use cases for this technology can address broken experiences across the financial services industry.”
The Californian company provides Fortune 500 financial firms with AI-powered front and back-office automation services to augment financial advisors’ productivity and redirect employee resources to more important tasks.
In addition to the funding, the company named fintech entrepreneur Toan Huynh to its advisory board. Huynh has previously served as an investor and advisor for early-stage startups, focusing on B2B, SaaS, FinTechs and InsurTechs.
She is also a founding member of Declare, which aims to close the gender and diversity gap in finance, venture and technology.
Passwordless authentication service 1Kosmos bags strategic investment
Passwordless authentication service 1Kosmos has received a strategic investment from Gula Tech Adventures.
The size of the investment was not revealed.
1Kosmos empowers passwordless access for workers, customers and citizens to securely transact with digital services. By unifying identity proofing and strong authentication, its BlockID platform establishes a distributed digital identity that prevents identity spoofing, account takeover and fraud.
Speaking on the investment, Gula Tech Adventures co-founder and president Ron Gula said, “Gula Tech Adventures made this investment because 1Kosmos is pioneering an approach based on the vision that a user’s identity and the authentication method they use to login to a system should be inseparable.
