Credit facilities dominate this week’s 33 FinTech deals, making up seven of the top ten deals.
A total of $990m was raised across the 31 FinTech deals this week, of which, $845m was raised by the ten biggest deals.
The largest deal this week was raised by US-based marketplace lending company Achieve.
The digital personal finance solution provider raised a $225m debt facility from an O’Connor Capital Solutions and an ‘unnamed multi trillion-dollar asset manager.’
This week’s seven biggest deals were all debt deals, with Capital on Tap raising $112m, Nelo, Sezzle and Koyo raising $100m each, Stash securing $52.6m and Anonos bagging $50m.
In terms of countries, the USA dominated this week. Seven of the companies to raise the biggest deals were from the US. These are Achieve, Sezzle, Stash Financial, Anonos, Banyan, Landis and IronVest.
The other countries represented were the UK (Capital on Tap and Koyo) and Mexico (Nelo).
As for sectors, it was a relatively split week. Sectors represented in the biggest deals were marketplace lending (Achieve, Koyo), infrastructure and enterprise software (Capital on Tap & Banyan), PayTech (Nelo and Sezzle), RegTech (Anonos and IronVest), WealthTech (Stash Financial) and Landis (PropTech).
FinTech activity has slumped in the past quester. A recent report from FinTech Global found that total InsurTech deal activity had dropped by 20% in Q3 2022.
This is very much the trend in the FinTech sector. Data from FinTech Global has found that UK FinTech investment could drop by 32%, South Korean FinTech investment is set to halve, new FinTech announcements hit a new low in August, and many research reports that show a downturn in the sector.
However, it is not all doom and gloom, with this being the 33 companies that were able to raise funds this week.
California FinTech Achieve lands $225m debt facility
Achieve, a California-based FinTech which provides digital personal finance solutions, has secured a $225m debt facility.
According to a report from FinTech Futures, O’Connor Capital Solutions and an ‘unnamed multi trillion dollar asset manager’ provided the debt facility.
Founded in 2002, Achieve has positioned itself as a leader in digital personal finance, with the aim of helping everyday people thrive.
The company offers digital financial solutions including home equity loans, personal loans and debt resolution, as well as financial education.
“From the single parent trying to catch up on bills to the entrepreneur trying to make their dreams a reality, we provide innovative, personalised financial solutions to move them towards a better financial future,” the company said.
Ralph Leung, CFO at Achieve, said the firm utilises “modern technology powered by deep data and analytics” to deliver personalised offerings to users.
Achieve said it plans to use the new funds to invest in its platform technology, boost its marketing and fuel the research and development of new solutions.
Capital on Tap bags £100m ($112m) from revolving credit facility
Capital on Tap has secured a £100m corporate revolving credit facility with Atalaya Capital Management.
According to FinTech Finance, the credit facility will be aimed at providing small businesses in the UK and the US with a central hub to manage all aspects of their business finances.
Since launching a decade ago, Capital on Tap has provided over £4bn of funding to more than 200,000 small businesses.
This revolving credit facility is the first that will be used to enhance Capital on Tap’s quickly evolving product offering.
FinTech Finance highlighted that Capital on Tap provides an all-in-one business credit card and spend management platform built to save small businesses time and money with instant access to funds, flexible repayment options, accounting integrations, unlimited free 1% cashback, and as many employee cards as they need.
Through the funding, the firm will build out its central finance hub for small business owners in the US and the UK. This will include a full accounts payable suite to manage bills and expenses as well as a credit score builder to help new firms establish business credit.
Open banking-powered lender Koyo raises £100m
Open banking-powered lender Koyo has reportedly raised £100m in debt and £5m in its Series A round.
The debt capital was supplied by Atalaya Capital Management, according to a report from AltFi. The equity was supplied by existing investors, including Forward Partners, Frontline Venture and Atalaya Capital Management.
Koyo, which launched in 2020, was built on the idea that access to competitively priced financial products and affordable credit is taken for granted and many do not have access to it.
The platform uses open banking data rather than credit agency scores to underwrite risk for lending to consumers.
It offers loans from £1,500 and £12,000 within 48 hours.
The FinTech company relied on its existing investor base to supply the capital. Speaking on this decision, Koyo founder and CEO Thomas Olszewski told AltFi,
“This is a bad environment for fundraising. We have four venture capital funds already invested in Koyo, so it’s a lot easier to tap those people for funds, rather than running the whole process and going out.
“I expect there will be fundraisers in the future, where we bring in kind of new outside investors. But this time around, I think it’s great to have a supportive group of investors already invested in the company.”
Koyo recently named David Cain as its new chief financial officer. Prior to this role, Cain has worked at Jaja Cepa, Rothchild and JP Morgan.
Mexico-based PayTech app Nelo raises $100m
Nelo, which offers a consumer payments platform for online purchases in Mexico, has secured a $100m credit facility.
The credit was supplied by Victory Park Capital, a global alternative investment firm specialising in private credit.
With the funds, Nelo plans to further its expansion efforts.
Its flagship product is an all-in-one app that allows customers to pay in instalments at any online merchant. This is supported by a partnership with Mastercard.
Nelo claims its app is the first of its kind in Mexico and allows users to finance everyday necessities like utility bills, cellular plans, and other e-commerce purchases.
The app has supported over three million purchases to-date.
BNPL Sezzle secures $100m credit after meger falls through
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform Sezzle has entered a $100m credit facility agreement with affiliates of Bastion Management II.
This facility will support Sezzle’s business in the US and Canada, and replaces a prior facility with Goldman Sachs Bank USA and Bastion.
Sezzle said these funds provide it with greater flexibility and extends its funding into 2024.
The BNPL company allows consumers to buy products and pay for them over four interest-free payments.
Beginner’s investing app Stash Financial bags $52.6m debt
Stash Financial, a beginner’s investing app, has reportedly closed a $52.6m debt offering, which came from a dozen of investors.
The capital was supplied by a mixture of existing and new investors, according to a report from CoinDesk.
Stash is an investing app for beginners that helps Americans build diverse investment portfolios.
Its mobile app boasts automated investing, with users simply answering questions at the creation of the portfolio. It will create a diverse portfolio, including investments into US companies, emerging markets, foreign markets, bonds and cryptocurrencies.
Users can invest into stocks and EFTs with no added commission fees. They also receive personalised investing advice and dividend reinvestments.
Anonos lands $50m to support data-driven enterprises
Anonos, a provider of technology that resolves the conflict between data use and protection with accuracy, has raised $50m in funding.
The financing was backed by the company’s intellectual property (IP) portfolio, facilitated by Aon and led by GT Investment Partners.
The company said it will use the growth funding to scale customer success and expand partnerships, sales and marketing for its Data Embassy software platform.
The Data Embassy software platform combines patented statutory pseudonymization, synthetic data and other privacy-enhancing computation techniques that make it easy for organisations to control the level of identifiable data that they process.
Anonos said streamlined approvals and workflows mean more data can be approved faster for more use cases with lower risk, while also ensuring the highest level of compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Schrems II and other global data privacy and security requirements.
This additional capital brings Anonos’ total funding to $70m, including $20m in prior funding led by Edison Partners.
Banyan closes Series A for item-level receipt data platform
Banyan, which is democratising access to item-level receipt data, has raised $43m in its Series A funding round, which was led by Fin Capital and M13.
The investment included $28m in equity and $15m in venture debt.
Other backers to the round include FIS Impact Ventures, Bridge Bank, Interplay and TTV Capital. Also joining the round were More than Capital, Manifold, Motivate Venture Capital, Elizabeth Street Ventures, and Gaingels along with angel investors.
Banyan hopes the Series A capital will help it accelerate its technology and infrastructure growth to better serve banks, FinTechs, hotels and merchants.
Its network enables retail and financial institution participants to leverage item-level enriched data capabilities to reinvigorate the shopping offer and loyalty space. It also enables them to enhance consumer engagement and financial health and streamline business expense management.
Over the past year, the FinTech company has onboarded tens of thousands of merchant participants to its network. These range from Fortune 150 companies to convenience stores. Banyan has processed over $400bn GMV, to-date.
Landis secures Series B on mission to make more homeowners
Landis, which is helping renters to become homeowners, has closed its Series B funding round on $40m.
GV, which was formerly Google Ventures, served as the lead investor. Additional contributions came from existing backers Sequoia Capital, Jay Z’s Roc Nation fund Arrive, the National Association of REALTORS’s Second Century Ventures, Operator Partners, Signia Ventures and Team Builder Ventures.
This capital will help Landis bolster its growth and expand its coaching program.
Landis stated that $2m has been earmarked specifically to expand the breadth of its coach program. Its coaching services offer personalised and consistent one-on-one support as clients work towards improving their credit history and building their savings for a down payment. When a client hits their goals, they can get a mortgage and become homeowners.
The platform works by Landis buying a home on behalf of the client, who then rents the home from Landis. During this time, the client prepares for a mortgage with Landis acting as a personal coach. When ready, the client can repurchase the home from Landis.
Landis claims that its pre-set buyback prices give clients certainty over their down payment targets.
IronVest rises from stealth with $23m seed funding
IronVest, a biometric, account-access security firm, has secured $23m in seed funding as the company comes out of a period of stealth.
The round was led by Accomplice and saw participation from Ulysses, Joule Ventures, Our Crowd, Trust Ventures and a number of strategic investors.
According to Security Week, IronVest offers a security-first approach that uses a decentralised infrastructure to protect personal data. The company uses patent-pending, decentralised biometric fraud prevention technology to ensure only the correct person can access sensitive accounts and data during sign-in and through a session.
The company’s technology protects users’ personally identifiable information by offering ‘on-the-fly’ use of masked email addresses, phone numbers and virtual credit cards to protect user privacy and reduce the personal data footprint vulnerable to data breaches.
The new investment will be used to further expand the team, accelerate its go-to-market efforts to meet growing consumer demand.
ChainSafe rakes in $18.75m from Series A
ChainSafe, an R&D firm specializing in blockchain and web3 infrastructure, has bagged $18.75m in a Series A funding round.
The round was led by Round13 and saw participation from NGC Ventures, Jsquare, Digital Finance Group, Sfermion, HashKey Capital and Fenbushi Capital.
Founded in 2017, ChainSafe has since become one of the leading multi-chain research and development firms.
One of the company’s flagship products is web3.unity, which is a software development kit for connecting unity games with the blockchain. Web3.unity is designed to reduce complexity and introduce a new level of ownership to gaming.
The firm’s cross-chain bridging technology has secured over $600 million in cross-chain token transfers, and this experience is being leveraged in a new cross-chain interoperability project where ChainSafe acts as the leading contributor.
According to ChainSafe, this investment will help the firm fuel the adoption and sustainable growth of the web3 ecosystem.
World’s first mobility FinTech company Moove secures debt
Moove, which stylises itself as the world’s first mobility FinTech company, has raised £15m in debt funding.
This capital was supplied by Emso Asset Management.
These funds will be used to fuel its UK operations, after the successful launch of its new app in August.
The company launched an EV rent-to-buy model in London, which offers access to brand-new, zero-emissions vehicles to mobility entrepreneurs for a flat weekly fee. The fresh facility will help Moove scale up to 10,000 vehicles by the end of 2025. It also hopes to become the largest EV partner on Uber’s platform in London.
Moove was founded by British-born Nigerian entrepreneurs Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi and launched in Nigeria in 2020 to democratise access to vehicle ownership. Its services are available in nine markets across sub-Saharan Africa and India.
Its alternative credit scoring technology offers access to vehicle financing to customers that are traditionally excluded from financial services.
SettleMint bags $16m for its blockchain application development kit
SettleMint, which has developed a high-performance low-code platform for blockchain application development, has raised $16m in its Series A.
Molten Ventures and OTB served as the co-lead investors of the oversubscribed Series A. Medici Ventures, a blockchain-focused fund, also joined the round, as did Fujitsu Ventures, Allusion, and Bloccelerate.
With the capital, SettleMint plans to solidify its position in Europe, MEA, India and Singapore. It is also looking to enter Japan.
Funds will also be used to make enhancements to its platform to meet the requirements of customers.
SettleMint was created to simplify the development and implementation of complex blockchain applications. Its tools are used by banks, financial services providers, global retailers, manufacturers and innovators in the public space.
Mercantile launches with $15m Series A to support small businesses
Mercantile, an industry-specific credit card platform designed to meet the unique needs of small businesses, has launched with $15m in Series A funding.
The Series A round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from seed investors First Round Capital, General Catalyst, SV Angel, Operator Partners, Box Group, and others.
The round sees the company’s total funding amount to $22m.
By creating customised credit card programmes based on industry-specific needs and partnering with leading industry organisations, Mercantile said it returns more relevant benefits and rewards to cardholders than any other card out there.
Mercantile is starting in the healthcare sector and will soon expand to other markets. Initial partners include the American Optometric Association, the Opticians Association of America, the Academy of Doctors of Audiology, and the Medical Group Management Association.
With this capital, Mercantile said it plans to further invest in product development, as well as build out its partnership and go-to-market teams.
DeFi platform Exponential lands $14m
Exponential, a US DeFi investment platform, has secured $14m from a funding round led by investor Paradigm.
Also taking part in the round were Haun Ventures, FTX Ventures, Solana Ventures, Circle Ventures, Robot Ventures, Polygon, A* Capital, Global Founders Capital, Launchpad Capital and Norwest Venture Partners.
Alongside these companies were over 80 angel investors from companies like Wealthfront, Brex and Plaid.
Founded in 2021, Exponential is an investment platform that claims it makes it easy to discover, assess, and invest in DeFi yield opportunities. The firm believes that by simplifying DeFi investing, anyone can access high-yield opportunities previously reserved for banks.
The company has locations in San Francisco, California and Miami, Florida.
Exponential intends to use the funds to further expand operations and its development efforts.
Safely bags $12m for short-term home rental protection
Safely, a provider in short-term home rental protection, has raised $12m to scale its insurance platform.
The round was led by LAGO Innovation Fund with participation from Highgate Technology Ventures, Greenlight Re Innovations and other existing investors.
With the rise of booking platforms such as Airbnb and Vrbo, Safely said the short term rental market has been growing rapidly. Homeowners are using and monetising their homes in new ways.
However, many homeowners are concerned about property damage and liability exposure. Safely aims to address this by screening each guest, thereby reducing the likelihood that the homeowner will incur a loss.
Safely also embeds commercial insurance protection directly into each reservation through its partnerships with the industry’s leading property management systems.
When a claim is made, the property manager can submit it in minutes on Safely’s platform, which pays nearly all claims within two business days. Safely has accumulated more than two million nights’ worth of data, building a robust view of risk factors within the short-term rental market and the broader sharing economy.
UK FinTech Ordo locks in £10m investment
Ordo, an open banking and request-to-pay FinTech, has secured £10m in a Series A funding round led by Equinox Systems.
Founded in 2018, Ordo allows users to receive real-time payments for a single flat fee of 20p, no matter the amount.
The company also offers 24/7 instant payments. Users are only required to register and link their online banking and no recurring payments or monthly fees.
Ordo allows businesses to request payments for single and recurring bills – via call centres, email, text or any other messaging platform a business uses – by composing open banking over the faster payments rails.
Finextra highlighted that the investment is fuelling expansion across a range of sectors including credit and lending, wealth management, government, utilities, property and foreign exchange.
CyberTech OutThink lands $10m in seed funding
OutThink, a security-focused company, has scored $10m in a seed funding round headed by investor AlbionVC.
Also taking part in the round was TriplePoint Capital, Gapminder, Innovate UK and Forward Partners.
The company’s latest raise brings its total funding to $11.4m, following a £1.2m seed funding round back in 2020.
OutThink claims its brings the world’s first cybersecurity human risk management platform and is the ‘evolution’ of traditional security awareness training.
The OutThink SaaS platform has been developed specifically to identify, measure human risk and affect behaviour change. The software provides business with an analytics dashboard to monitor and identify weak areas in security such as forgetting to lock a computer.
The company said that 91% of data breaches are due to human behaviour. Its software is used by the likes of NatWest, Rothschild, Danske Bank and Whirlpool.
Data security platform Velotix closes Series A
Velotix, a data security platform that governs, logs, and controls compliant access to data throughout the data access lifecycle, has closed its seed round on $10m.
Capri Ventures served as the lead investor.
This capital will enable Velotix to further its product development, scale its organisation and expand its offering globally. This will further its mission of maximising business value by removing unnecessary silos and making data attainable, while minimising security risks.
Velotix has come out of stealth, following the development of its AI-powered platform.
The data security company is designed to help companies that struggle to be privacy-driven to streamline secure access to data by automatically managing their policies.
It is powered by an AI-driven policy engine and continuously creates, updates and maintains organisational data protection policies based on exceptions, regulations, and user behaviour.
Volare Finance closes seed for its options protocol for crypto
Volare Finance, which specialises in a web3 options protocol for crypto volatility markets, has closed its seed round on $6m.
Master Ventures Investment Management (MVIM) served as the lead investor. Other backers include SR, Arrington XRP Capital, Spark Digital Capital, GSR Markets, Huobi Ventures and others.
With the funds, the company hopes to bolster the development of its options trading model in the blockchain ecosystem.
Volare Finance offers a DeFi option protocol for European options, option combos and exotic options. It allows investors to adopt standard or custom option strategies portfolios as well as clients tools for hedging, speculation and yield enhancement.
Through its technology, Volare Finance aims to reduce the friction traders face in options trading and make it a more accessible trading style for all.
Maplerad emerges from stealth with banking-as-a-service
Nigeria-based Maplerad has reportedly raised $6m for its seed round, as it establishes a global banking-as-a-service platform aimed at Africa.
The company has launched out of stealth and is valued at $30m, according to a report from TechCrunch.
Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund led the round, with commitments also coming from Golden Palm Investments Corporation, ex-Venmo COO Michael Vaughn, Fintech Fund, Kuda CEO Babs Ogundeyi, Armyn Capital, Dunbar Capital, Strawhat Investment, Polymath Capital, Unpopular Ventures, Sean Mahsoul and MyAsiaVC.
The founders of Maplerad, Miracle Anyanwu and Obinna Chukwujioke, have also invested in the company.
Maplerad will use the seed capital to acquire more customers, gain additional licences, hire more staff and bolster its presence across Africa.
Whilst in stealth, the FinTech company processed millions of dollars each month for over 100 businesses on its platform. These included a few banks, Pastel, Spleet, Crowdforce and many others.
Maplerad started its journey in 2020, when the first product was launched, Wirepay, the report said. This app enabled international payments in fiat or cryptocurrency. The service has now shifted into an all-in-one finance product that enables users to receive, hold and make payments, as well as pay bills and create virtual cards.
Wirepay raised $125,000 in a pre-seed round last year from OnDeck, Golden Palm Investments and Greenhouse Capital.
The Maplerad platform is a banking-as-a-service infrastructure that enables firms to implement financial services into their product. The embedded financial services include payments, issuing, accounts and FX, and can be built within minutes.
Embedded payments firm Paytrix scores £5m
Paytrix, an embedded payments company for high-growth vertical software platforms, has bagged £5m in new funding.
The financing was led by Hambro Perks and saw participation from Fin VC, Better Tomorrow Ventures, The FinTech Fund and Bain Capital Partners as well as a range of angel investors.
Paytrix’s all-in-one full stack solution offers a payments curation layer that enhances payments infrastructure as businesses grow, helping them to scale smoothly.
According to Paytrix, its technology absorbs the risk, infrastructure buildout and complexity that comes with managing payments in-house.
The company’s solution offers payment acceptance, banking-as-a-service and real-time payout solutions to businesses spanning marketplaces, ecommerce, the gig economy and Web 3.
Perch locks in $4m in Series A financing
Perch, a Canadian FinTech that aims to help consumers build wealth through real estate, has bagged $4m in a Series A round.
The round was headed by Second Century Ventures and saw participation from B.E.S.T Funds, Ontario Centre of Innovation and REALTORS.
Founded in 2018, Perch claims it helps people manage their home investments with its analytics-driven digital platform – from buying, to mortgage renewals, and refinancing.
Alongside the firm’s dedicated support of a team of real estate and mortgage professionals, users can collaborate and take control of their homeownership journey. Perch currently operates in all provinces and territories across Canada.
According to Perch, it intends to use the newly raised capital to continue scaling and growing its operations team.
Otonomi bags $3.4m for parametric cargo insurance
Otonomi, an InsurTech and parametric cargo insurance platform, has raised $3.4m in a funding round.
According to a report by Reinsurance News, the round was led by ATX Ventures, followed by GSR Ventures, Greenlight Re Innovations, Punja.VC, Altari Ventures, Soundboard Venture Fund, Blackhorn VC, Bering Waters, REFASHIOND Ventures and a number of specialised angels and syndicates.
Founded in 2020 by Yann Barbarroux and fellow co-founder and CTO, Jeremy Sutton, Otonomi set out to transform freight insurance.
The company provides parametric cargo delay insurance that unlocks claim resolution in 45 minutes, as opposed to 45 days that freight carriers may be used to.
The Brooklyn-based InsurTech said it operates on customer-centric principles: automated operations, algorithmic underwriting and process transparency.
This is all the more important given the supply chain issues experienced globally since the pandemic.
Disruptions in manufacturer operations and uncertainties in shipping lines, compounded by explosive growth in demand, have inflicted immense strain on the logistics and insurance sectors. Shipment delays and interruptions affecting 62 million metric tons of cargo have become the bane of the industry.
Hello Divorce rakes in $3.25m in oversubscribed seed
Hello Divorce, the legal FinTech platform for more affordable divorces, has raised $3.25m in a seed funding round led by The Artemis Fund.
The round also saw participation from Lightbank, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, CEAS Investments, Gaingels and the CEO of Clio Jack Newton.
Founded in 2018, Hello Divorce has developed a platform that allows customers to complete the divorce process exclusively online, complemented by self-service tools, extensive legal and financial resources and integrated expert help from financial advisors, mediators, and lawyers when needed.
The firm said users benefit by spending one-tenth the cost of the average divorce and completing the process in a third of the time, which gives families more time to regroup and thrive.
Hello Divorce’s revenue has grown 100% year over year, with record growth in the third quarter of 2022. The complete divorce tech platform is live in California, Colorado, New York, Texas, and Utah, with other key states in the pipeline.
According to the firm, it will use the funds to further expand nationally and dive deeper into the divorce lifecycle, creating tools and services that offer a bridge to financial independence and emotional well-being
Hello Divorce will also develop its modular platform to scale to a broader range of customers and innovate tech in key areas of opportunity in the family law space to solve problems throughout the lifecycle of divorce.
SecondSight secures $3m, exits stealth to shake up cyber insurance
Cyber insurer SecondSight has exited stealth with the launch of its AI-driven platform and an oversubscribed $3m seed round.
The funding round was led by Tim Crown, co-founder of Insight Enterprises, with participation from Indiana Ventures, Cook Ventures, and Flywheel Fund, among other investors.
SecondSight is an AI-driven platform that brings telematics to digital risk. With a rapidly growing customer roster, SecondSight said it expects the new funding to accelerate market adoption and impact to the cyber insurance industry.
With its platform for ‘inside-out’ underwriting, SecondSight said businesses and cyber insurance providers can see the true digital risk with complete clarity, enabling cyber insurance providers to be able to quantify risk severity based on the digital assets and liabilities of an organisation.
SecondSight’s platform autonomously discovers, classifies and analyses an organisation’s entire landscape of digital assets, the unique risk profile for each digital asset across thousands of different risk factors, and the real business costs that would be incurred if a digital asset was compromised.
The company said it aims to go both broader and deeper than external risk control audits to inventory and classify all digital assets, analyse thousands of facets of risk, and calculate dollarized impact.
Nexta bags $3m to disrupt Egyptian FinTech
Nexta, an Egyptian startup looking to disrupt the Egyptian FinTech scene with its banking app, has secures $3m.
According to a report from TechCrunch, Nexta secured the funding from eFinance Group, a state-owned provider of digital payments solutions.
This fundraise also follows the $2m pre-seed round Nexta announced this March, which Egyptian early-stage VC Disruptech led.
Founded by Ahmed Hisham in 2021, the company describes its offering as an “immersive banking experience that champions your lifestyle. Increasing your quality of life through our genuine and mindful banking experience.”
Nexta focusses on streamlining money management and making financial tasks more simple, fast and affordable, and as such continually updates it suite of features.
Last year, Nexta obtained a provisional license from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) and will look to fulfill further requirements and meet certain obligations before obtaining the CBE’s final approval for the agent banking license it needs to launch its services in the country.
Netherlands-based cybersecurity app Guardey raises €2.2m
The capital was supplied by an unnamed group of Dutch entrepreneurs and investors, according to a report from Silicon Canals. These investors see a need for helping small enterprises to defend themselves from cyber threats.
Guardey has developed cybersecurity tools which currently protect thousands of SMEs. Its plug and play solution works whether the teams are in the office, at home or anywhere else.
Users simply connect securely from any device and the platform will instantly warn them when there is a virus, malware or suspicious activity detected. The platform, which encrypts the user’s connection through a VPN, also examines all communication and completes real-time assessments.
The company is looking to introduce gaming features soon, Silicon Canals claimed. These will be weekly challenges that aim to educate users on how to detect phishing or other cybercriminal activity.
LuckTruck bags $2.4m to serve commercial trucking
LuckyTruck, a tech-enabled retail insurance agent focused exclusively on trucking, has raised $2.4m in a seed extension.
The round was led by Candid Insurance Investors, an angel network of top P&C insurance industry CEO’s, this round brings LuckyTruck’s total funding to $6.5m.
Parker Beauchamp of Markd, an insurance focused venture capital firm, also made a significant contribution to the round.
Launched in 2019, LuckyTruck describes itself as a modern insurance platform for commercial trucking.
LuckyTruck said it has experienced unprecedented growth in 2022. The company’s team has grown from 25 employees in January to 60+ in October.
Further, the company has grown to 700+ active customers in just 4 short years.
LuckyTruck said it is the only retail agent that brings together all the essential pieces of the insurance purchase and management processes in one easy-to-use digital platform, leveraging data and automation to take the friction out of all aspects of the customer journey.
As a part of the raise, industry titan and former advisor/board member to LuckyTruck, Julie Zimmer, is joining the team as CEO. Julie brings over 30 years of experience in insurance and InsurTech, most recently, serving as Head of Insurance at Flexport. Prior, she served as chief operations officer at Embroker and ran HUB International’s middle market team globally.
Plum secures £1m in crowdfund so far
Plum, a London-based smart money app, has raised £1m so far in the first eight hours of its crowdfund.
According to a report from Bdaily News, more than 3,700 people have invested so far, from nationalities spanning the UK, Greece, Cyprus, France, Bulgaria, Belgium and Spain.
Further share allocation has been made available and crowdfunding is still open to new investments for five more days.
Plum was founded in 2016 by Victor Trokoudes (ex-Wise). The company is on a mission to improve financial resilience and make people better off over their lifetime
Plum announced it would launch its third crowdfunding round earlier this month, after it secured £5m in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank.
Since its last crowdfund 12 months ago, the company has launched commission-free investing, expanded into new European markets, enabled crypto trading and launched a debit card.
Following these developments, Plum has grown its customer base to 1.4 million, an almost 50% increase in the last year, and helped people set aside £1.4bn.
Plum said it plans to use the additional finances from Silicon Valley Bank UK and the forthcoming crowdfunding round to accelerate its European expansion, refine its products further to best serve its customer’s needs and build an even faster, more cohesive app.
Singapore InsurTech unicorn bolttech bags Series B
Singapore-based InsurTech bolttech has secured Series B funding in a round led by Tokio Marine.
The investment values bolttech, Singapore’s homegrown InsurTech unicorn, at an up-round valuation of approximately $1.5bn.
The Series B comes one year after bolttech closed the largest ever Series A funding round for an InsurTech, which saw a total of $247m raised.
bolttech has positioned itself as a world-leading embedded insurance provider.
The company is a global B2B2C InsurTech that leverages its insurance exchange to connect insurers with distributors and their customers.
With licenses to operate in more than 30 markets throughout Asia and Europe and all 50 US states, bolttech’s platform aims to provide businesses inside and outside the insurance industry everything they need to offer insurance products to meet their customers’ evolving insurance and protection needs in the digital age.
bolttech said it has achieved rapid growth since its inception in 2020. The company now quotes approximately $50bn worth of annualised premiums through its technology-enabled insurance exchange.
Globally, bolttech’s insurance exchange connects over 800 distribution partners with more than 200 insurance providers and offers in excess of 6,000 product variations.
ChAI closes seed to boost its commodities price risk insurance
Commodities AI (ChAI), which is insuring commodities price risk, has closed its seed round as it expands into new markets.
The size of the investment was not disclosed. Among the investors was Insurtech Gateway.
This investment will help ChAI to create commodity risk insurance products that support smaller companies that are underserved by existing risk transfer solutions.
ChAI is an AI-driven commodity intelligence company that supplies real-time commodity price forecasts to global audiences, including raw-material businesses and key supply chain providers.
The company stated that in the current market, supply chain providers require long-term forecasting to address global food security challenges.
ChAI’s mission is to help organisations capture more margin, optimise hedging and reduce exposure across the commodities market. Its AI technology analyses thousands of data sets to identify what variables are driving market prices, predict raw material costs, highlight risk exposure and help clients purchase the necessary commodity products effectively.
The platform initially launched in 2019 with the vision of creating a parametric insurance product that would protect clients from drastic changes in commodity prices.
Its market intelligence tool can price insurance premiums and simulates underwriting portfolios.
Retail enablement company Zid closes Series B
IMPACT46 served as the lead investor to the round. Commitments also came from Aramco’s venture capital arm Waed Ventures and Endeavour Catalyst. Previous investors Global Ventures, Elm Company, Arzan and MSA also joined the round.
Zid will use the capital to expand into new markets in Saudi Arabia and in the region. It also plans to enter new retail verticals and build more innovative solutions to modernise the sector.
Founded in 2017, the FinTech company launched by enabling retailers to sell and grow their own online channels online. It has since expanded its mission, which is now to modernise the retail sector.
The retail enablement company has released products to support shipping and payments. Its technology allows retailers to sell, ship and process payments from a single dashboard.
Some of the milestones Zid has achieved include doubling its revenues from subscription and transactions and a 50% increase in orders made via Zid’s merchants by over seven million lifetime consumers. Its merchant network currently sits at over 7,500 stores across 19 different categories from small to large merchants in the retail sector.
