Following two strong weeks of FinTech funding, the total raised by this week’s deals takes a noticeable dip.
There were 30 FinTech deals completed this week, with a total of $479.4m raised in total. This is a significant drop from last week’s deals where $1.1bn was raised collectively across 25 deals. It is an even bigger dip from two weeks ago when a total of $7.2bn.
The lion share of the funding was raised through the ten biggest deals, which pulled in a total of $333m. Germany-based savings and investment platform Raisin took the top spot for its €60m Series E funding round. Raisin wasn’t the only Germany FinTech company to raise capital this week. Li.FI, a multi-chain liquidity and data gateway, secured $17.5m in its Series A.
Germany has experienced a 47% drop in total funding last year compared with 2021, going from $6.4bn to $3.4bn. Despite this significant dip, the total investment volume for 2022 was still 70% more than 2020.
Of the top ten deals, the US accounted for five of these. These are SageSure, DataDome, LeapXpert, Britive and Orb. Other countries represented in the top ten deals were Germany (the previously mentioned deals), Thailand (Roojai), Singapore (Thunes), and the Bahamas (Centurion Invest).
Across all 30 deals, the US racked up the most representation. The country accounted for 15 of the deals. Singapore and the UK were the next most busy, with three deals each. Rounding off the countries were the Philippines, Israel, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Sweden.
In terms of sectors, PayTech proved to be the most popular this week. A total of six PayTech deals were completed this week. This was followed by marketplace lending with five, and RegTech, infrastructure & enterprise software and WealthTech with four deals each. There were three CyberTech and cryptocurrency companies to close funds this week and two InsurTechs.
PayTech has a strong presence in Europe. The sector accounted for 14.8% of all seed stage FinTech deals during 2022. Only two sectors experienced more activity last year, WealthTech and cryptocurrency.
Other notable stats about European seed deal activity are that the UK was home to the lion share of deal activity, with 27 deals completed (30%). The average European PayTech seed deal raised $6.5m in 2022.
Here are this week’s 30 FinTech deals.
Raisin nets €60m in Goldman Sachs-backed Series E
Raisin, a global savings and investment specialist, has raised €60m in a Series E funding round backed by Goldman Sachs.
The funding round also saw financial support from a new investor in the form of M&G’s Catalyst.
Raisin has been profitable for half a year and currently manages a total of €38bn assets under management for customers globally. In the past 6 months, AuM grew by more than 30%.
Raisin is experiencing high demand from consumers looking for competitive savings rates, and banks looking for attractive retail funding sources.
Through the new funding, Raisin claims it aims to give more consumers access to simple and convenient products by investing in new features, simpler processes and broader accessibility. Furthermore, the company aims to accelerate growth in the US market.
Catastrophe-exposed property insurance provider SageSure secures $50m
SageSure, a provider of catastrophe-exposed property insurance, has raised $50m to fuel its growth.
The revolving credit facility was secured in partnership with Wintrust Financial Corporation.
SageSure writes business on behalf of multiple leading carrier partners, including IAT Insurance Group, FedNat Insurance Company, Independent Mutual Fire, SafePort Insurance Company, and the recently launched SURE (SureChoice Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange).
Since its launch in 2009, SageSure said it has been modernising property insurance through its online quoting and binding platform and its risk modelling and scoring technology. SageSure offers more than 50 competitively priced insurance products in 14 coastal states on behalf of its carrier partners and serves more than 400,000 policyholders.
The funding will enable SageSure to increase underwriting capacity in the catastrophe-exposed markets it currently serves.
According to SageSure, the capital will also support quota share capacity with Anchor Re, a captive reinsurance vehicle, on behalf of SageSure carrier partners.
Supporting its carrier partners’ reinsurance placements has been a key part of the company’s strategy in navigating the hardest property catastrophe reinsurance market in the last 30 years. Leveraging Anchor Re is a vital pillar of that support.
Fraud and bot management platform DataDome collects $42m
DataDome, which has built an AI-powered online fraud and bot management platform, has closed its Series C funding round on $42m.
InfraVia Growth served as the lead investor. Commitments also came from Elephant, ISAI and other unnamed backers.
With the capital, DataDome will bolster its global commercial rollout, as well as its R&D efforts.
The RegTech company is on a mission to rid the web of bot-driven cyberattacks and fraud.
DataDome’s platform assesses the intent of a visit in real-time to detect and mitigate attacks on mobile apps, websites, and APIs. It claims to protect over 300 enterprises from account takeover, scraping, payment fraud, DDoS, credential stuffing and more.
The platform also offers threat analysis. This allows users to see when an attack happened, its duration, where it originated from, the domains and endpoints targeted and how it compares with other similar threats.
Thai InsurTech startup Roojai closes Series B
Thailand-based B2C InsurTech startup Roojai has closed its Series B funding round on $42m.
The investment was led by HDI International, the International Retail Insurance division of the German Talanx Group. Also joining the round was existing investor International Finance Corporation.
This Series B round included a $32m direct injection and a $10m secondary share transaction.
With the fresh funds, Roojai hopes to expand its products across non-motor verticals. It will also expand across Indonesia and across Southeast Asia, with an initial focus on the Philippines. To facilitate this growth, Roojai will seek both organic and M&A growth opportunities.
Roojai launched in Thailand in 2016 and expanded into Indonesia in early 2022. It offers various digital vehicle insurance, including car, extended warranty, motorbike and personal accident insurance. It also expanded to offer critical illness and cancer insurance.
This funding comes after a strong period of growth for Roojai. In 2022, the InsurTech experienced a 25% boost to its premium income, rising to $38m. It also increased its customer base by 40% to reach 150,000.
Cross-border payments company Thunes raises $30m, so far
Thunes, a cross-border payments FinTech company, has reportedly raised $30m in an ongoing Series C funding round.
The capital was supplied by London-based hedge fund Marshall Wace, according to a report from PYMNTS. Thunes did not outline what the total size of the Series C round is or who any of the other backers are.
In a statement to PYMNTS, it said, “Our conversations with global investors are constant and ongoing, and as we continue to engage with them, we see a strong interest in Thunes’ capabilities, as well as a belief that the cross-border payments sector will continue to grow and see strong demand.”
Headquartered in Singapore, Thunes is building a global payment infrastructure to improve payment experiences. It offers a simple connection to APIs that allow businesses and customers to send and receive payments from all parts of the world.
Its features include cross-border payments, business payments, virtual accounts, mass payouts, collections and a business hub.
Crypto exchange Centurion Invest raises $25m from GEM Digital
Centurion Invest, a global ecosystem for financial and payment solutions, has received $25m in fresh funding through a structured token subscription agreement.
The capital was supplied by GEM Digital, a Bahamas-based digital asset investment firm that sources, structures and invests in utility tokens listed on over 30 CEXs and DEXs globally.
Funds from the round will allow Centurion to bolster its global expansion efforts by enhancing its products and services. Capital has also been earmarked for onboarding experts and skilled talents across Europe, North America, Southeast Asia and Africa.
Centurion’s mission is to extend crypto and digital assets adoption to B2C and B2B users around the world.
Headquartered in Estonia, Centurion Invest allows users to buy, sell and trade cryptocurrency. It boasts a community of over 10 million users and over 300 different cryptos available to trade.
One of its features is the CIWallet, which allows users to build a portfolio, swap, stake, refer, manage the card and more. Its CIX is a global Visa debit card that has no annual fees and has low transaction fees, it claims. Users can track the spending of the card with real-time notifications, it can also be used with Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.
Centurion Invest operates in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Canada, Southeast Asia and LatAm.
Communication compliance startup LeapXpert raises $22m
LeapXpert, which stylises itself as the responsible business communication pioneer, has netted $22m for its Series A+ funding round.
Rockefeller Asset Management served as the lead investor, tapping its Technology Ventures Group. Uncorrelated Ventures, the Partnership Fund for New York City also joined the Series A+ round.
This capital will be used to meet the increased demand from the financial services industry, as well as grow in other industry verticals and bolster its partnership network. The RegTech company also hopes to further the development of its LeapXpert Communications Platform with more vertical modules, a new public SaaS solution and more integrations.
The LeapXpert Communications Platform claims to be the first comprehensive communication and compliance solution for enterprises that successfully reconciles extremely flexible client communication with recordkeeping compliance, adherence to information security, and data governance.
Clients can leverage the technology to give employees a single corporate identity for business communication through iMessage, WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram, WeChat, Signal, LINE and voice calls.
All employees’ business communication can be recorded while their personal messages remain private. Meanwhile, clients communicate natively on their preferred messaging app.
This platform can also natively integrate with Microsoft Teams, allowing employees to communicate compliantly.
Cloud identity security platform Britive lands $20.5m Series B
Britive, a cloud identity security platform, has secured $20.5m in a Series B funding round headed by Pelion Venture Partners.
Also participating in the round were Liberty Global Ventures, One Way Ventures and Crosslink Capital.
The investment comes at a time of strong momentum marked by more than 300% year-over-year revenue growth fuelled by major customer wins across financial, retail, high-tech and other industry verticals.
The company will use the funding to support surging customer growth and soaring interest in the company’s dynamic and intelligent privileged access management platform.
Modern pricing platform Orb scores $19.1m in Series A
Orb, a pricing platform, has landed $19.1m in total funding across Series A and seed funding rounds.
The Series A round – headed by Menlo Ventures – brought in $14m and a 2021 seed round headed by Greylock amounted to $5.1m.
Also taking part in the raise were base case capital, Data Community Fund, Essence VC, FOG Ventures, Scribble Ventures, South Park Commons and SV Angel.
Orb’s powerful pricing platform spans the end-to-end revenue workflow, from robust metering capabilities, to flexible pricing and packaging iteration, to streamline invoicing, to reporting and revenue recognition.
Orb powers billing for high-growth B2B technology companies including Airbyte, Dune, and Materialize, saving them engineering costs and enabling them to unlock more revenue. Revenue is a company-wide effort, so Orb’s solution is designed to accelerate all stakeholders toward their goals.
Through the company’s platform, Orb claims SaaS firms can now accurately bill for any flexible pricing model.
LI.FI scores $17.5m in CoinFund-led Series A
LI.FI, a multi-chain liquidity and data gateway, has raised $17.5m in a Series A fundraise co-headed by CoinFund and Superscrypt.
The round also includes participation from Bloccelerate, L1 Digital, Circle, Factor, Perridon, Theta Capital, Three Point Capital, Abra, and almost 20 angel investors.
LI.FI claims it abstracts away the most crucial financial infrastructure to move in and out of any position on any chain — the one gateway to access all DeFi which helps TradFi save valuable go-to-market time, research, integration, and maintenance overhead, to avoid sunk costs in this fast-changing infrastructure environment for developers working on projects including but not limited to dApps, Web3 & other protocols.
LI.FI said the proceeds from this raise will be used to accelerate development of LI.FI’s offering across more blockchains, DEXs, cross-chain bridges and more.
It will also bolster sales, business development, marketing and other capabilities with the new funding.
The company said it has become a leader in cross-chain liquidity aggregation, quickly rising to handle almost 100% of all cross-chain swap activity on MetaMask.
Filipino FinTech startup Advance raises $16m for pre-Series A
Filipino FinTech startup Advance, which helps employees get early access to their salary, has raised $16m in its pre-Series A funding round.
Vietnamese venture capital firm Do Ventures and tech-powered investment and alternatives platform Lendable served as the lead investors to the round.
Phoenix Holdings, Kaya Founders, Foxmont Capital, Oyster Ventures and Crossocean Ventures made their first investments into Advance through the pre-Series A. Existing shareholders, Wavemaker Partners, Next Billion Ventures, Integra Partners and Accion Venture Lab, also joined the round.
Alongside the funding round, Advance announced it has expanded into Vietnam through the acquisition of BravoHr. The FinTech company offers digital solutions for employee engagement, as well as benefits and rewards. Its clients include McDonalds, L’Oreal and AstraZeneca.
This pre-Series A funding round will enable Advance to build new financial products and offer its services to more partners in the Philippines and Vietnam.
Launched in 2018, Advance provides salary advances and other financial services to underserved employees in the Philippines, where nearly half of the population are unbanked. In five years, the company is used by 200 companies in the country, including Sitel Philippines, Inspiro, Cebuana Lhuillier and ePerformax.
Through the platform, employees can access a portion of their salaries through a flexible credit line. In addition to the loans, Advvance’s mobile app offers financial wellness and education products to help users bolster their financial journey.
Texan FinTech StellarFi nets $15m to improve credit scores
Texan FinTech company StellarFi, which helps users build credit scores by paying bills, has reportedly collected $15m in its Series A funding round.
Existing StellarFi investor Acrew Capital served as the lead investor, according to a report from TechCrunch. StellarFi did not reveal its new valuation, but the company’s founder Lamine Zarrad said it was a significant ‘up round’.
Commitments to the Series A also came from Trust Ventures, ATX Venture Partners, Dream Ventures, Interplay, Accomplice Ventures, Vera Equity, FJ Labs, Fiat Ventures, Gaingels, Kelmhurst, Oyster Funds, Hilltop Ventures, Permit Ventures, Kindergarten Ventures, J2 Capital, Socially Financed and Kapital Ventures.
Prior to its collapse, StellarFi was set to raise $5m in venture debt from Signature Bank for runway extension. The Texan FinTech company hopes to secure debt from another institution.
With the Series A capital, the FinTech company hopes to establish a marketplace that can link members to lenders.
StellarFi helps consumers automatically boost their credit score by paying bills. It does this by charging a subscription of either $4.99 or $9.99 to manage a member’s bills or recurring payments, such as rent. By consolidating the payments, it helps the customer track their payments and keep up with them. StellarFi then reports those on-time payments to credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, TransUnion and Innovis.
Employee benefits FinTech Zorro secures $11.5m in seed round
Zorro, which is optimising health benefits experience for employees, employers and brokers, has launched out of stealth alongside the close of an $11.5m seed round.
The investment was co-led by Israel-based venture capital firms Pitango and 10D.
This capital injection will allow Zorro to bolster its R&D efforts as well as scale its customer operations.
Zorro claims that the current way of offering benefits is complicated, opaque and burdensome.
For employers and brokers, offering benefits results in unpredictable budgets, endless administration, and a distraction from the core business. While for employees, the health benefits are generic and too often, completely out of their control.
The Zorro platform analyses employers’ benefit objectives to create a top-down predictable budget and benefit allowance per employee or group of employees.
It offers an end-to-end insurance management solution that offers a single comprehensive platform. On top of this, it serves as a financial companion that analyses employees’ healthcare needs, family situation, risk tolerance and other personal characteristics. It will then build a recommended benefit bundle that consists of health insurance, supplemental coverages, specialised digital health solutions and other financial value-add services.
Zero-trust content security startup Votiro bags Series A
Votiro, a zero-trust content security company, has collected $11.5m in its Series A funding round, which was led by Harvest Lane Asset Management.
With the funds, Votiro hopes to grow its marketing and sales capabilities, with a focus on North America. It will also advance data detection, disarming and analytics services.
The CyberTech company claims to be revolutionising file security and safety through its enhanced data detection and analytics capabilities and making them accessible as browser- and cloud-based services.
Votiro claims that weaponised files are the most common and evasive attack vectors into businesses. These can enter through multiple enterprise, cloud, portal, 3rd party and collaboration channels.
Files can also carry sensitive business data that can be compromised in use and pose operational and compliance related risks to an organisation.
To protect firms, Votiro offers threat prevention and data privacy solutions to reduce complexity and enable enhanced security outcomes.
Customer loyalty FinTech Bink scores £9m ($11m)
Bink, a FinTech company focused on customer loyalty, has reportedly raised £9m in a fresh funding round.
According to a report from Sky News, existing investors in Loyalty Angels, which trades as Bink, have agreed to provide £7.5m in new capital. They will also underwrite an additional £1.5m of investment.
This fresh capital will provide Bink with the cash needed to operate until the first quarter of 2024. Bink has reportedly made a number of cost-cutting measures to support its position.
Lloyds Banking Group previously bought a minority stake in Bink in early 2022, kickstarting a partnership between the two. The size of the deal was not disclosed, nor was the valuation of Bink.
This was not the first time a UK bank bought a stake in the loyalty card provider. Barclays invested around £10m into Bink in 2019. This investment also launched a partnership, which provided seven million UK banking customers access to the Bink app.
Bink claims to turn payment cards into loyalty programmes and customer IDs. It currently has partnerships with Iceland and Harvey Nichols and is reportedly in talks with Leon and Itsu.
Payments technology developer SKUx scores $11m
SKUx, a payments technology and consumer engagement platform, has secured $11m in its Series A funding round to help it scale its product offerings.
The round was led by an unnamed strategic family office investor that is focused on FinTech and payments. Other commitments also came from Advection Growth Capital and other strategic investors spanning CPG, retail, and healthcare.
SKUx claims to be transforming how consumer payments and incentives are delivered, redeemed, settled and reported. Its SKUPay solution transforms how item-specific incentives and consumer payments, such as product-based payments, are delivered, redeemed, settled, and reported.
Stratyfy rakes in $10m to advance AI-driven lending offering
Stratyfy, a machine learning solutions innovator that mitigates risk and enables inclusive lending for financial institutions, has bagged $10m in funding.
The round was co-headed by Truist Ventures and Zeal Capital Partners and saw participation from The 98, FIS, Mendon Venture Partners and Barry Glick.
Stratyfy claims it is on a mission to accelerate financial inclusion by providing greater transparency and less bias to critical financial decisions that impact millions of people.
The firm’s patented machine learning platform enables financial institutions to instantly assess credit risk, fraud, and bias, allowing traditional banking services to safely open doors for underbanked consumers and drive impact at scale.
Stratyfy plans to use the new funding to fuel innovation that uniquely addresses the challenges financial institutions face when adopting AI-driven decision-making.
Identity security firm Spera nets $10m seed funding
Spera, an Israel-based cybersecurity startup offering protection from identity-driven threats, has scored $10m in seed funding.
The round was led by YL Ventures with participation from Google, Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, Zendesk, Akamai and others.
Spera claims it is the first identity security posture management solution delivering end-to-end identity attack surface management, risk reduction and identity threat prevention, detection and response.
Spera’s platform creates a real-time, continuously updated, risk and context-based inventory of identities and access across cloud and on-prem environments. This inventory is then rapidly analysed, assessed and normalised, arming security teams with critical granular insights for remediating and preventing identity-driven attacks.
The company’s ‘trust-but-verify’ approach to identity security empowers security teams to leverage identity as a business strength while ensuring that identity security perimeters aren’t jeopardised by ineffective processes or human error.
Crypto-native infrastructure platform Conduit bags $7m
Conduit, a remote crypto-native infrastructure platform designed to support and accelerate the builders in crypto, has landed $7m in seed funding.
The round was headed by Paradigm and saw participation from Robert Miller, Ludwig Pettersson, Dan Romero, Guillaume Poncin, Joshua Ma, and Lakshman Sankar.
Conduit claims it brings decentralised finance to the mainstream by enabling FinTechs, neobanks, and exchanges to go-to-market with crypto-based product offerings, quickly, easily, and at a fraction of the cost of building in-house.
Conduit gives FinTechs an early-mover advantage to maximise new revenue opportunities from crypto-based product offerings. The firm’s customizable, plug-and-play API makes it possible for FinTechs to build a range of innovative and differentiated crypto-based products within days, starting with high-yield savings accounts.
Conduit said it helps offset the cost and risk associated with implementation, adding that its approach allows FinTechs to streamline regulatory compliance and minimise go-to-market hurdles.
The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts.
Personal finance app Playbook snares $7m in Series A
Playbook, a California-based personal finance app focused on Gen Z and Millennials, has secured $7m in a Series A funding haul.
The round was headed by Telstra Ventures with further participation from fellow investor Atomic.
Founded in 2020, Playbook claims it is the app for growing money with tax advantages and automation. The firm said it will help users build a financial plan and take advantage of every tax benefit available.
The company said it allows users to connect their bank account and to discover tax advantages, and then helps to craft a customised financial plan that is fully automated.
Playbook is already used by employees in companies ranging from Google, Salesforce, EY and Amazon.
The company said it is also launching Playbook for Work, which offers dedicated support teams, and in-depth reporting so businesses can understand utilisation.
Playbook said it intends to use the newly raised capital to expand its offering.
Right-Hand Cybersecurity lands $5m in Series A raise
Right-Hand Cybersecurity, a firm focused on human risk management for cybersecurity, has scored $5m in a Series A funding round.
The round was led by former PayPal executive Jack Selby and Arizonan venture capital business AZ-VC.
Right-Hand claims it takes a human-centred approach to cybersecurity that improves employee behaviours in real-time that are otherwise prone to cascade potentially devastating cybersecurity breaches.
Right-Hand’s Human Risk Management platform aggregates employee security behaviours and alerts in real-time from its existing platform, and other market leading Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR), Email Security and Identity and Access Management (IAM) technologies and assigns different behaviours a risk score that can be easily interpreted among key stakeholders to gain visibility into employee risk in plain business terms.
The firm’s platform then analyses the collated employee data to generate real-time interactive and adaptive training that enables individuals to master cybersecurity behaviours that keep their organisations and themselves safer online.
Right-Hand plans to continue expanding its platform integrations across the most commonly adopted technologies in their customers’ environments to help the data from each disparate product play a key role in improving employee behaviours and lowering their risk tendencies.
The company claims it will expand its operations across the U.S. and Asia-Pacific while investing heavily in its Human Risk Management platform that efficiently integrates with other commonly adopted and relied upon security solutions.
Cega bags $5m to create DeFi exotic structured products
Cega, a decentralised finance application, has raised $5m in funding to accelerate DeFi exotic structured products.
The round was led by Dragonfly Capital with continued participation from Pantera Capital and Robot Ventures (Tarun Chitra and Robert Leshner). This brings the startup’s total seed funding raised to $9.3m.
Since its launch in June 2022, Cega has been on a mission to become a leading provider of DeFi crypto structured products.
Cega built a decentralised application that combines basic options (with advanced options characteristics to create packaged “structured” offerings for DeFi users. Its first exotic options structured product is the fixed coupon note, which is a basket of puts with knock-in barriers.
According to Cega, this exotic structured product benefits retail investors by offering superior yield, built-in downside protection, and compounded returns. It also benefits market makers by providing a discounted hedge for their portfolio as well as allowing proprietary gains through hedging trades.
Supply chain finance FinTech Finverity scores $5m
Finverity, a digital ecosystem for trade and supply chain finance, has secured $5m in a heavily oversubscribed equity funding round.
The investment was backed by first time Finverity investors Outward, Acrobator Ventures and s16vc founders fund. Returning investors included B&Y Venture Partners and a group of unnamed UHNWIs.
With the capital, Finverity plans to increase the size of its team from 40 to 60 employees. It is also looking to open offices in Dubai, Poland and Kenya.
Finally, the company is working to expand its technology to cover almost the entire range of funded trade finance and working capital products.
Finverity has experienced a boom of growth over the past year, culminating in its revenue growing by 15-times across the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.
Founded in 2017 by Viacheslav Oganezov and Alex Fenechiu, Finverity is on a mission to make the global financial system inclusive to everyone. Since then, the FinTech company claims to have built the world’s first truly digital ecosystem for trade and supply chain finance.
The company connects companies in need of working capital optimisation and institutional investors looking to access the alternative asset class through the selling of invoices.
Web3 protocol Polytrade secures seed funding
Polytrade, a global trade focused Web3 protocol, has secured $3.8m in its seed funding round.
The investment was led by Alpha Wave, with commitments also coming from Matrix Partners, Polygon Ventures, Singularity Ventures, GTM Ventures and CoinSwitch Ventures.
The aim of Polytrade is to streamline supply chains through real-time data. Polytrade founder and CEO of Polytrade Piyush Gupta explained that the biggest challenge within the global supply chain is the lack of transparency. One of the causes of this is the dependence on manual processes and paperwork.
To fix the problem, Polytrade enables SMEs and large organisations to seek working capital financing options. Targets for 2023 are to increase its trade financing book size to $50m.
According to its website, users can deposit stablecoins on the Polytrade lender pool to finance Real-World Assets that are backed by insurance and earn double digit yields.
With the support of the fresh capital, Polytrade hopes to build various models that will help bring the entire trading supply system onto the blockchain.
Advice and client engagement platform Lumiant secures $3.5m
Lumiant, an advice and client engagement platform, has raised $3.5m in seed funding to support its US expansion and platform enhancements.
Funding came from Australian financial planning firm Invest Blue and US-based wealth management firm Savant Wealth Management, bringing Lumiant’s total capital raised to date to approximately $9m.
Founded in Sydney, Australia, and launched in the United States in May 2022, Lumiant offers a client experience platform that helps advisors uncover “what truly matters to clients and their family members.”
Its cloud-based solution provides advisors with the tools to design and stage memorable, measurable and scalable transformational values-based advice experiences. Its modules help transform qualitative client conversations into quantifiable outcomes, visualising the impact and value of advice. Currently, more than 60 advisory firms use Lumiant’s enhanced advice experience to deepen their relationships with clients and prospects.
According to Lumiant, the funding came on the heels of a strong growth year. The company said the new capital will support Lumiant’s continued US expansion, as well as the buildout of its mobile development and engineering teams, with the aim of bringing the Lumiant experience to Android and iOS in the coming months.
The new round of funding has already seen Lumiant bolster its engineering and mobile development ranks, as well as employ Phil Pilgrim as its new head of corporate.
Digital lending platform Presta secures $3.3m pre-seed
Presta, a provider of an end-to-end digital lending platform for the loan origination processes, has raised $3.3m in pre-seed financing.
The round was headed by Distributed Ventures with participation from Zeal Capital Partners, Matchstick Ventures, The Fund, TechStars, and Jumpstart Ventures.
Founded in 2022, Presta helps lenders accelerate their loan application and determination processes while also providing a more modern and streamlined experience for borrowers.
According to FinSME, the company offers an all-in-one platform that includes CRM, intake, underwriting, closing, servicing and reporting functionality – bringing together functions that are often managed via separate systems today.
The company helps lenders meet their customers where they are by offering digital tools to build pipelines and appeal to digitally native customers.
Presta claims it intends to use the funding to support the growth of its digital platform and expansion of its team.
Swedish FinTech Open Payments raises €3m growth round
Open Payments, a Swedish FinTech company, has collected €3m in a growth funding round led by Industrifonden, Sweden’s venture capital fund.
Also joining the round was Sony Financial Ventures – Global Brain’s venture capital fund.
With the fresh capital, Open Payments hopes to scale its business and product development efforts, as well as expand into Europe.
Open Payments claims to be one of the leading open banking platforms in the Nordics with a focus on B2B transactions. Its platform empowers online banking functionality to be shifted from the online bank to the customers’ business systems and interfaces, allowing the end user to approve direct payments without logging into their online bank.
Additionally, the platform connects to commercial banks via APIs to enable payments, account reconciliation and cash management for embedding directly in client applications like ERP systems, payment providers and FinTechs.
Pan-African neobank Payday nets $3m seed
Payday, a pan-African neobank issuing global accounts to Africans, has scored $3m in a seed funding round headed by Moniepoint.
Also taking part in the round was HoaQ, DFS Lab’s Stellar Africa Fund, Ingressive Capital Fund II and a range of angel investors. This brings Payday’s total investment to date to $5.1m, following a $2m+ pre-seed round in 2021.
Payday was developed to support African remote workers, freelancers and digital professionals with frictionless, borderless payments, enabling global payment processing from over 130 countries.
The startup permits those on the continent and in the diaspora, to send and receive money in USD, GBP, Euros and 20 other currencies, allowing Africans to work remotely for international organisations, and be paid and withdraw money in the currency of their choice regardless of location.
Currently operational in Nigeria, Rwanda and the UK, Payday offers its 330,000+ users virtual Visa and Mastercards, which can quickly be generated using the Payday App.
The new capital raised will be deployed to secure operational licensing in the UK and Canada, while building out operations in the United Kingdom, where the company has recently been incorporated. Funding will also be used to boost talent acquisition as the startup’s team complement expands from 35 to 50 employees, as Payday looks to further fuel the future of work through borderless payment alternatives in major currencies.
Accounting platform Translucent nets £2.7m financing
Translucent, a UK-based accounting software platform, has secured £2.7m in a pre-seed round headed by Wise and LocalGlobe.
According to UKTN, Michael Wood founded Translucent last year after noticing the complexity associated with multi-entity companies dealing with financial data across multiple platforms.
The publication noted that Translucent is a platform to layer on top of existing accounting software, such as Xero, Quickbooks and Sage, and present all of the relevant data in a single space.
The pre-seed also saw participation from ex-Xero executive Craig Walker, who co-founded and served as CTO of Xero, and Gary Turner, the co-founder and former managing director of Xero UK.
Dutch stock exchange for SMEs NPEX raises €2m
NPEX, a Dutch stock exchange for SMEs, has secured a €2m financing round that was led by existing shareholders, including CEO Mark van der Plas.
Marking their first investment into NPEX was Icecat Capital, which had a 10% participation. Icecat is an all-in-one platform for content and syndication, with the aim of improving online shopping experiences. It offers structured and rich product content optimised for e-commerce environments, integrated cloud solutions to manage digital assets, and seamless integration of product content.
With the fresh capital, NPEX hopes to bolster its position in the market and expand its services.
NPEX brings entrepreneurs and investors together for financing, impact and financial returns. It provides SMEs the opportunity to raise capital by issuing bonds and depositary receipts of shares. These are then tradable on the NPEX stock exchange.
The company claims to have helped SMEs raise over €170m in total.
Income verification startup Payscore raises funding
Payscore, which is automating income verification for property managers and consumer lenders, has secured an undisclosed amount of funding.
The investment was led by ff Venture Capital of New York, with funds also coming from SeaChange Fund, Hamilton Ventures and Seattle’s Alliance of Angels.
The company’s founders, Mark Fiebig and Stephen Arifin, noted that the industry’s historic reliance on pay stubs to verify income caused problems. The inaccurate and unfair income assessments are frequently delayed and leave operators exposed to fraud and liability risk.
To combat this, Fiebig and Arifin built Payscore. Arifin said, “Eliminating waste from an old-school process ignites the engineering team every day. We’re delivering efficiencies and accuracy like no one else in the industry.” He added that the platform has stripped away at least an hour in the time spent processing each candidate and accelerated the process while minimising an operators’ liability exposure risk due to fraud.
The company analyses consumer-permissioned data to ensure every applicant is evaluated fairly and objectively, even if income is cash-based, such as tips, or fluctuates due to commissions.
Payscore claims to remove a root source of fraud by integrating directly with financial institutions, reporting 100% bank-verified data and removing the need to collect and evaluate financial documents.
Compliance company SmartRIA secures strategic investment
Compliance management software provider SmartRIA has closed a second strategic investment from Dynasty Financial Partners and MarketCounsel.
The size of the investment was not revealed.
SmartRIA believes the deal underscores the partnership between the companies and reinforces their commitment to supporting SmartRIA’s continued expansion into enterprise compliance management.
Through the partnership with Dynasty and MarketCounsel, SmartRIA has curated a list of new enterprise functionality that is specifically designed to meet the need of compliance requirements within large organisations.
With the equity, SmartRIA plans to accelerate the development and implementation of enterprise functionality that addresses the needs of large financial institutions.
SmartRIA offers an all-in-one compliance platform for RIAs. Through a dashboard, compliance teams can get a holistic view of the firm’s compliance calendar. It also allows them to keep track of compliance workflows and procedures.
