This week saw a total of 27 deals take place in the FinTech industry. With the exception of the top two deals, these were mainly of modest value.
Synk, a Japanese CyberTech, and European FinTech Novicap were clearly in the lead this week, with $196m and $213m raised each, respectively.
After the two frontrunners, deal values diminished significantly, with the next biggest round amounting to $52m. This was raised by US artificial intelligence accounting company Vic.ai.
Many of the deals this week were also later-stage fundraises, with 50% of the top ten deals being Series B or further.
The lack of high value deals is hardly surprising given the tough economic climate. This trend has also meant we are seeing fewer companies reaching the highly coveted unicorn status.
Recently, FinTech Global research reported that last year investments poured into the tech markets, driven by the increased demands from the pandemic. Out of the 457 new unicorns recorded last year, a third were FinTech businesses.
However, this year with the increased talks of a recession looming and collapse in public market valuations, the number of new unicorns has fallen off a cliff.
Nothing illustrates this better than the recent FTX collapse given the company was the highest valued new unicorn in the FinTech sector in 2022. Those trends have spooked investors and as a result new unicorns births have collapsed in the second half with just one being recorded in November.
CyberTech unicorn Snyk sees slight dip in valuation
CyberTech unicorn Snyk has slightly dropped to $7.4bn valuation following the close of its Series G funding round on $196.5m.
The company’s previous funding round was a $75m Series F in 2021. It had raised the capital at an $8.6bn valuation.
QIA (Qatar Investment Authority) served as the lead investor to the Series G, with existing investors boldstart ventures, Sands Capital and Tiger Global, also deploying funds. The Series G also welcomed first-time Snyk investors, Evolution Equity Partners, G Squared and Irving Investors.
Snyk has earmarked the capital to drive ‘noteworthy’ product innovation, with the team looking to enhance and expand its offering. It will grow both organically and inorganically via strategic acquisition, it said.
The CyberTech unicorn has experienced a strong 2022. One of these milestones includes exceeding 2,300 customers, including AB InBev, Comcast, Dun & Bradstreet, Manulife and Salesforce. In the past year, Snyk customers fixed more than 5.1 million vulnerabilities, it added.
Other notable milestones include 70% of current customers now leveraging multiple elements of Snyk’s Developer Security Platform, launch of its SnykLaunch event and aiding user remediation of over 11.5 million security issues in 2022.
Novicap lands €200m debt facility
Novicap, a European FinTech providing end-to-end working capital solutions, has raised a €200m debt facility from Fasanara Capital.
According to Novicap, the capital raise, which enables the company to further accelerate its growth and deliver more impact for thousands of SMEs, mid-market firms and public administrations, will be used to bolster its credit portfolio and support the development of new market-leading solutions for its customer base.
The funding comes at a time when Novicap’s technology platform has exceeded the €1bn milestone in transaction volume as of Q3 2022, and follows the firm being listed as one of the 1,000 fastest-growing European companies, according to the Financial Times and Statista, for the third year in a row.
The new funding agreement with Fasanara implies an additional capacity of over €1bn of financing volume per year for Novicap.
It also reinforces Novicap’s message to its target customer segments that while the traditional banking sector may be tightening credit availability in today’s market environment, Novicap’s technology-enabled credit solutions are a reliable alternative.
Vic.ai scores $52m in Series C raise
Vic.ai, an AI accounting firm, has landed $52m in a Series C investment round led by GGV Capital and ICONIQ Growth.
Also participating in the round was Cowboy Ventures and Costanoa Ventures. Following this round, Vic.ai has raised a total of $115m since its inception.
The company claims its AI platform has already helped thousands of accounting firms and enterprise companies revolutionise their accounts payable operations by automating invoice processing.
Vic.ai said that by processing invoices 24/7 with up to 99% accuracy, it is boosting customers’ total productivity by 500% and providing key data insights through its intelligence dashboard.
The firm said that in its next phase of growth it will expand its AI solution to include corporate credit cards, bill pay and purchase orders, providing a holistic spend intelligence offering that helps customers optimise their non-payroll costs and make more informed spending decisions.
Vic.ai will also offer new capabilities for secure and optimised payment execution as well as AI-based three-way PO matching in early 2023, with card transactions following later in the year.
Darwin CX nets $38.4m to expand operations
Darwin CX, a Toronto-based provider of a SaaS platform for the subscription economy, has scored $38m in funding.
The round was headed by First Ascent Ventures and Felicitas Global Partners with participation from Metropolitan Partners Group and Liam Lynch.
According to FinSME, Darwin CX provides SaaS platform for subscription economy that helps brands accelerate acquisition and retention— and increase loyalty— through customized check-out pages, targeted audience offerings, real-time A/B testing, and best-in-class analytics.
The solution platform enables clients to control over customer data in order to tailor the best possible customer experiences.
In addition, the Canadian Darwin CX integrates with third-party applications and fulfilment providers.
Darwin CX intends to use the newly raised capital to expand operations, build strategic channel partnerships and continue investing in its product roadmap.
Digital lender NeoGrowth lands $36.2m
NeoGrowth, a Mumbai-based digital lender focusing on medium to small enterprises, has raised $36.2m in a Series D equity round.
According to a report from VC Circle, the round was led by Dutch development bank FMO as well as existing investors.
NeoGrowth is also backed by investors, namely Omidyar Network, Lightrock, Khosla Impact, Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund – Quona Capital, IIFL Seed Ventures Fund, WestBridge and Leapfrog Investments.
The company provides small businesses with loans through the analysis and underwriting of daily digital payments sales data to assess risk. The platform helps to finance companies that might not have access to traditional banks.
NeoGrowth’s application can be competed online and allows lending products for both online sellers and in-person retailers.
Its lending activities also focus on the financial inclusion of first-time entrepreneurs, women business owners, and underserved small businesses. The company offers loans to companies across a multitude of segments and has its presence at around 25 locations in India.
NeoGrowth reportedly has an AUM (assets under management) of Rs 1,600 crore, and claims to have connected with over 1,50,000 MSMEs since its inception and disbursed around $1bn in loans.
Cybersecurity SaaS platform Field Effect bags $34.5m
Global cybersecurity SaaS platform Field Effect has secured $34.5m in a funding round from Edison Partners and Round13 Growth Fund.
Field Effect was founded to supply SMEs with cybersecurity tools, with most existing solutions aimed at large enterprises with huge budgets and deep security expertise.
Its Field Effect Covalence solution monitors, detects and actively responds to cyber threats across endpoints, cloud services and networks.
While its Field Effect Cyber Range is a simulation-based cybersecurity training platform used to grow individual skills, rehearse incident response, and train teams.
Speaking on the deal, Round13 Growth Fund general partner Alex Yanitsky said, “The shift to remote work along with the increase in cyber attack sophistication has created a new set of cybersecurity challenges for SMEs which Field Effect is uniquely positioned to help solve.
“We are extremely impressed by Matt and his team and believe that Field Effect can become the leading provider of cybersecurity software to SMEs.”
Field Effect claims that it has built the most sophisticated cyber threat monitoring platform in the world. Solutions offered by the platform include incident response, managed cybersecurity, phishing simulations, secure IT operations, simulation training environments and virtual CISO service.
RegTech Acin receives big name backing in recent Series B
Acin, an operational risk control data network, has closed $24m in a Series B funding round backed by a flurry of multinational banks.
The round was backed by a strategic consortium of industry-leading banks, comprised of JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, Lloyds Banking Group, Citi and Barclays.
Also taking part in the raise was other investors incluing Notion Capital, Fitch Ventures and Talis Capital.
Acin claims its platform empowers financial institutions to digitise their operational and non-financial risk analysis, using ‘groundbreaking’ data analytic capabilities.
Acin has established a network that calibrates data and facilitates the sharing of best practice between firms, underpinned by a standardised library of risks and controls.
The results, Acin claims, revolutionise the understanding and management of firms’ operational and non-financial risk positions accelerating their journey to become safer and more efficient. Minimising operational risk capital is a shared industry ambition and Acin’s solution is a key building block.
According to Acin, the funding will enable further strategic product development in partnership with investing banks and existing clients. It will also enable Acin to expand and accelerate into new areas across the financial services industry.
Payments automation firm Plooto snares $20m Series B
Plooto, an end-to-end accounts payable and accounts receivable automation software platform, has scored $20m in a Series B raise.
The round was led by Centana Growth Partners as well as participation from investors Luge Capital and FINTOP Capital.
While building their first company, the founders of Plooto experienced the pain of operating a growing business firsthand. In 2015, the firm began by building a payments platform for small businesses to achieve greater control, convenience, and visibility over their financial practices at a reasonable price point.
Today, over 8,500 finance teams as well as accountants and bookkeepers use Plooto’s cloud-based financial solutions. Turbocharged by the adoption of remote-first work, Plooto continues to grow at a rapid pace.
According to the company, the newly raised capital will be used to drive customer expansion, introduce new product lines, ramp up hiring and help Plooto customize its offering for more businesses, accounting and bookkeeping firms.
Trilio lands $17m and names new CEO
Trilio, a provider of cloud-native data protection, has secured $17m in funding to drive further innovation and growth in the cloud-native application resiliency market.
The round was led by SKK Ventures and saw participation from Gensis Accel, .406 Ventures, T-Mobile Ventures, Jack Egan, Raiven Capital and Wayra Telefónica Innovation. This brings Trilio’s total capital raised to $36m million.
Trilio claims it is a leader in cloud-native data protection for Kubernetes, OpenStack and Red Hat Virtualization environments.
The firm’s TrilioVault technology is trusted by cloud infrastructure operators and developers for backup and recovery, migration and application mobility.
Trilio will use the capital to increase focus on product development, engineering and customer operations.
The company also announced the appointment of enterprise software executive Massood Zarrabian as CEO. Zarrabian was formerly Chairman and CEO of BA Insight.
Bondaval secures $15m for the future of B2B credit
Bondaval, a London-based B2B receivables and mini bonds FinTech reimagining the future of B2B credit, has raised $15m in Series A funding, led by Talis Capital.
The Series A round, which brings the total raised to more than $25m, also saw participation from Bonaval’s existing investors, Octopus Ventures, Insurtech Gateway, TrueSight and Expa, as well as its new partners Talis, FJ Labs and Broadhaven Ventures.
Founded in 2020 by am Damoussi and ex-England Rugby 7s captain Tom Powell, Bondaval is on a mission to redefine the future of B2B credit.
The startup’s FinTech product allows B2B financiers to rationalise credit and insurance underwriting, processing and cost.
Bondaval’s offering includes MicroBond, a no-cancellation financial instrument wholly underwritten through its digital platform without the customer putting down collateral. MicroBond is used by blue chip FTSE 100 and S&P 500-listed companies including oil majors Shell and BP to provide receivables coverage.
The company will use the funding to support a recruitment drive to extend its existing 20-person team, located across its branch offices in London and Austin, Texas. Proceeds will also help Bondaval enter more sectors and use cases, while refining its core FinTech IP.
Following the Series A raise, Octopus Ventures investor Tosin Agbabiaka predicted Bondaval would become a “category-defining” credit and insurance B2B platform.
Talis Capital’s GP Thomas Williams will join the board of directors.
Crypto insurance company Evertas secures $14m
Evertas, a crypto insurance company, has raised $14m in Series A funding to bring a “much-needed” risk transfer to the under-insured Web3 world.
The round was led by Polychain Capital.
Other participants in the round included SinoGlobal Capital, CMT Digital Ventures, Foundation Capital, Morgan Creek, Bloccelerate, Matrixport, and Hashkey. Individual investors include Balaji Srinivasan, Andrew Keys, Colleen Sullivan, Tom Howard, Patrick McDonald and David Roebuck.
In addition to $5.8m seed financing, puts the company’s total outside investment at $19.8m. Evertas said it will use the funding to expand underwriting capacity, add key personnel and further develop proprietary enabling technologies and standards.
Evertas was founded in 2017 by CEO J. Gdanski and president Raymond Zenkich. The company is focused on covering the full spectrum of crypto risks for institutional holders of cryptoassets and blockchain technology, including exchanges, custodians, traditional financial institutions, funds, family offices, corporations, miners, and ultra-high net worth individuals.
Based in Chicago, vertas can write and service policies insuring custodial cryptoassets and blockchain infrastructure.
Uniqus Consultech lands $12.5m Series A
Uniqus Consultech, a global platform that provides ESG and accounting and reporting consulting, has launched its operations and bagged $12.5m in a Series A.
The round was led by Nexus Venture Partners and also saw participation from fellow investor Sorin Investments.
Uniqus aims to transform consulting by integrating technology and using a cloud delivery model to serve clients across national boundaries.
The company stated that it will eliminate auditor independence conflicts by not providing any audit services and has created an attractive equity stock option pool to enable high-quality talent to participate in its value creation.
Uniqus will initially focus on the US, India, and Middle East geographies, which represent a $15bn addressable market opportunity.
Uniqus’ ESG practice has deep experience and skills to assist clients with their end-to-end ESG needs, including the overall ESG strategy, climate action goals, global & Indian reporting frameworks, technology, and implementation support.
The company’s accounting & reporting practice comprises leaders and professionals with proven expertise in all areas of the finance function and is designed to assist clients across their accounting, financial reporting, capital markets and merger transactions reporting, regulatory reporting, internal control, and automation requirements.
According to Uniqus, the funding will primarily be used for investments in technology and scaling the business operations and teams in the US, India and the Middle East.
Indonesia-based Paper.id scores $12m
Indonesia-based payment and invoicing solution Paper.id has reportedly raised $12m in its Series B funding round, which was led by Go-Ventures.
Other commitments came from Skystar Capital, Living Lab Ventures, the investment arm of local real estate company Sinar Mas Land, BM Capital and Redbadge Pacific, according to a report from DealStreetAsia.
The report claims that Go-Ventures invested $4m into the round, so far. Skystar Capital deployed $500,000, BM Capital invested $553,527, and Living Lab Ventures deployed $300,279.
Paper.id supplies companies with digital payment, invoicing, expense tracking, inventory and financial statement needs. A user can establish reminders for bills, create and send invoices to others, keep track of due payments and ensure they are not missed.
Additionally, clients can view real-time financial reports. These are automatically created and include business invoices, income statements and bookkeeping reports.
The FinTech company previously closed its Series A funding round in 2019 on an undisclosed amount. Capital came from Golden Gate Ventures and Modalku.
It raised the funds to extend the reach of its services and bolster its invoicing and bookkeeping system.
Opensee lands €11m to boost real-time data analytics
Opensee, a platform that helps business users at financial institutions analyse granular data in real-time, has scored €11m in a Series A.
The round was led by Omnes Capital and also saw participation from Societe Generale Ventures and Laurion Capital.
According to Opensee, recent regulatory changes have multiplied the underlying data requirements for financial institutions by 10-fold or more.
Founded in 2015, Opensee is a company that provides financial institutions with real-time big-data analytics solutions. The firm’s mission is to empower business users to autonomously exploit data at unprecedented scale and granularity as well as tackle critical, large data-intensive use cases.
Opensee helps financial institutions improve their business requirements, such as risk monitoring, trade execution quality management, and helps them respond more effectively to regulatory reporting while achieving cost and operational efficiencies. The business alsos helps transform your big data challenges into competitive advantages by bringing advanced analytics.
RegASK nets $10m in Series A to accelerate growth
RegASK, a global RegTech SaaS firm, has raised $10m in a Series A funding round led by Monograph Capital.
The round was joined by SPRIM Global Investments alongside a slew of other different investors.
RegASK claims it makes regulatory information relevant, curated and easy to access for businesses, enabling them to cut through the clutter and complexity of an ever-growing number of new regulations.
The firm uses AI to stay ahead of the fast-changing regulatory environment. RegASK’s technology platform routinely monitors, curates and automatically summarizes regulations around the globe for biopharma, CROs, consumer health, medical device and food companies.
The platform further provides in-depth insights into regulations and pending regulatory changes, and connects businesses with over 400+ subject matter experts in 100+ countries for strategy and planning.
South Korean investing app Tessa collects $9m
South Korea-based Tessa, which allows users to buy, trade and collect art, has reportedly received $9m in funding from Kyobo Securities.
As part of the investment, Tessa will launch cooperation projects with Kyobo Life Insurance Group, according to a report from Korea Tech Desk.
This investment capital will also enable Tessa to strengthen its investor protection and expand its operations.
Speaking on the deal, Tessa CEO Kim Hyung-jun told Kore Tech Desk, “With this investment, we have secured both customer base and business stability. We will strive to comply with laws and regulations and strengthen investor protection while doing our best to create a safe fractional investment ecosystem.”
Tessa is an art collecting platform that allows users to buy, trade and earn returns on co-owned units of artworks.
One of its offerings allows users to buy ‘blue-chip’ artworks from leading artists for as little as $1.
Interpres Security comes out of stealth with $8.5m
Interpres Security, a firm focused on helping companies optimise their security performance, has emerged from stealth with $8.5m in seed funding.
The seed financing round was headed by Ten Eleven Ventures.
The Interpres Security platform offers a customised, continuous and threat-informed analysis of an organisation’s detection and mitigation capabilities and provides automated security engineering directives based on this evaluation, enabling a hardened security posture.
After experiencing a systems breach firsthand at a classified security operations center, members of the company’s security founding team developed a new threat centric methodology to validate the effectiveness of all of the security vendors in the environment.
According to Interpres, this approach proved successful, and the same methodology later became the genesis for its automation of these capabilities into its new platform.
Interpres currently integrates the MITRE ATT&CK framework to prioritise threat coverage based on the adversaries most likely to target an organisation, the malware and techniques those adversaries use, and the prevalence of those attacks as seen in the wild.
From here, the platform recommends mitigations, telemetry collection strategies and detection logic best suited to fill the prioritised gaps in coverage across the enterprise to detect and mitigate threats most likely to target the organisation.
It does all this while utilising the organization’s existing investment in cybersecurity products and solutions. Once the defense ecosystem is optimized, Interpres maintains this state through a situational awareness dashboard that detects drift in configuration and changes to risk posture while offering detailed board-level reporting.
API security firm FireTail lands $5m early-stage funding
FireTail, a company that specialises in API security, has closed $5m in an early-stage financing raise.
The round was led by Paladin Capital Group and saw participation from Zscaler, Secure Octane, General Advance and a range of high-level cybersecurity executives.
FireTail enables organizations to maintain continuous visibility over their APIs, monitor for threats and prevent breaches with a unique, end-to-end focus on the application layer of cloud-native applications.
The company claims it is engaged with a number of early adopters across North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe, with hundreds of APIs secured and millions of events observed. FireTail is helping early-access customers to build a quick and complete API inventory, and then find and eliminate API security issues.
Vertical Insure secures $4m for its embedded insurance platform
Vertical insure, the embedded insurance platform for vertical SaaS platforms, has raised $4m in seed funding.
The round was co-led by Rally Ventures and Dundee VC.
Vertical Insure provides vertical SaaS platforms with embedded, white label insurance products that can be deployed to their current customer base.
The company offers customised insurance options that are 100% built around each business and its customers, resulting in added value and new revenue without any extra overhead
According to Vertical Insure, the US insurance market was valued at over $1.3trn in 2021. This means there is an “enormous demand” for the safety net that good insurance provides. However, the company said outdated technology and legacy practices have resulted in complex processes and expensive, cookie-cutter coverage. Companies and individuals end up with basic offerings that leave many needs unmet.
Vertical SaaS platforms offer a solution to this. Vetical Insure said that customers can run their entire businesses on these platforms and typically will first look to them for expanded products and services.
With Vetical Insure’s offering, SaaS companies can offer customised insurance options at the “click of a button”, resulting in added value and new revenue without any extra overhead or IT bandwidth.
Walnut Insurance bags $4m for embedded insurance infrastructure
Walnut Insurance, a technology company that provides infrastructure for embedded insurance, has raised $4m in a seed funding round.
The round was led by ATB Financial and NAventures, National Bank of Canada’s corporate venture capital arm.
Other investors included Harvest Venture Partners, Highline Beta, and N49P.
Founded in 2020, Walnut is a Canadian and US InsurTech that set out to build technology infrastructure to power embedded insurance for retailers, financial services, and consumer platforms.
Walnut’s platform aims to make insurance simple and convenient, creating greater accessibility for underserved audiences across life, home, renters, auto, and embedded product lines.
The company said it has “broken down barriers” that historically have prevented businesses from being able to build an insurance offering into their product.
Walnut recently partnered with Neo Financial, a Canadian FinTech, to help the company tap into the over $160bn Canadian insurance market.
SensCy nets seed round to help others with cybersecurity health
SensCy, which is helping SMEs bolster their cybersecurity health, has secured $4m in its seed funding round.
The oversubscribed funding round was backed by Secure Octane Investments, ID Ventures, Wakestream Ventures and Michigan Rise. Several unnamed angels also participated.
SensCy’s supplies SMEs with education, sound policy, best practices and a better understanding of their cyberhealth. This includes regular reports and alerts to real-time threats.
Through this, clients can reduce the risk of falling victim to a cyber-attack, but also improve the response process if an attack does occur.
One of the company’s products is SensCy Score. This is a numeric representation of the effectiveness of an organisation’s cyberhealth. By using various data points, the algorithm calculates a personal score, with an ideal score being at or above 800.
Oyster bags $3.6m to level up personal insurance
Oyster, an insurance technology company that provides personal insurance through point-of-sale and post-purchase experiences, has raised $3.6m in funding.
The round was led by New Stack Ventures.
It also saw participation from Global Founders Capital, Conversion Capital, Cambrian Ventures, SNR VC, Kearny Jackson, Valia Ventures, Interlace Ventures, and V1 VC, alongside a group of angels including Garrett Koehn, president of CRC Insurance, Gokul Rajaram, executive at DoorDash, Eugene Marinelli, founder of Blend, and Joe Schmidt, partner at a16z.
Founded in 2021 by Blend, Stripe, and Strategy& alumni, the Oyster team set out to redesign personal insurance from the ground up, creating an accessible experience that modernises insurance for everyday consumers.
Oyster’s technology leverages proprietary data to handle insurance end-to-end, in one unified platform.
For consumers, Oyster offers affordable rates tailored for each product line. The company provides full coverage from theft, loss, and accidental damage with deductibles as low as $0. In contrast, standard homeowners and renters insurance typically have high deductibles, low single-item limits, and exclusions for category-specific risks. The company works to deliver a win-win scenario for merchants and consumers, understanding what each side of the transaction needs to be satisfied with providing or receiving insurance.
PayTech Native Teams bags €2m
Native Teams, a work payments platform for remote and flexible workers, has raised €2m in a seed round.
The round was led by Eleven Ventures, one of the leading early-stage VCs in South-East Europe.
The round also saw participation from other leading funds including Croatia-based fund Fil Rouge Capital, Haatch Ventures from the UK, and US fund Quake Capital.
Native Teams helps freelance, remote and flexible workers (plus their employers or clients) manage their work payments while staying compliant with local laws.
The company is focused on what it calls “the modern employee”, where the advantages of localised work payments also include other fundamental benefits such as access to healthcare, pension plans, and basic tax compliance.
Native Teams said the funding will allow it to continue pursuing its fast-growth trajectory, including a particular focus on localising its services into even more markets prior to a full global rollout during 2023.
The raise, Native Teams added, has already seen the company launch in Nigeria as an initial foray beyond Europe. The team will also soon be introducing its first South American location.
NFT financing marketplace NF3 scores $1.65m seed
NF3, a community-first NFT swaps and financing marketplace, has recently closed a $1.65m seed funding round.
The round was headed by Infinity Ventures Crypto and Spartan Group and was supported by DWF Labs and Saison Capital. Several angel investors also took part in the raise.
NF3 was founded in an effort to create a better collecting and trading experience for people to interact in the web3 space.
NF3 Exchange (NF3x) will feature NFT swapping, bartering and financing features, enabling users to exchange their digital collectibles with others in a secure and intuitive environment. Collectors looking to ‘upgrade’ their collectibles to ones with rarer traits have the option of making a trait-wide offer package or contact existing owners on the platform using the build-in chat function.
NF3 Exchange will first launch on the Ethereum blockchain, with support for Tezos, Polygon and Solana NFTs next on the roadmap. The platform will allow NFT collectors to have complete control over their digital assets, while offering peer-to-peer financing options including “Buy now, Pay later” to capture these opportunities as they emerge in Web3.
NF3 also announced the launch of ApeCoinStaking.io in partnership with Solidity.io earlier this month to build an Apecoin staking platform for Bored Ape Yacht Club communities around the world.
Butter Insurance lands $1.3m for its subscription-style insurance model
Butter Insurance, a Sydney-based InsurTech startup which offers subscription-style insurance policies, has raised $1.3m in pre-seed funding.
According to a report from Business News Australia, the round was backed by Flying Fox VC, Quokka Ventures, FB10X adVentures and Startmate.
Founded in 2021 by former lawyers Steph Skevington and Cassie Bell, Butter Insurance allows its users to view and manage their insurance policies, track claims and update payments from one central web-app.
The platform aims to democratise access to insurance, particularly for young people and renters, by offering subscription-style insurance policies at checkout.
Butter Insurance said it plans to launch its direct-to-consumer offering this month, which will allow consumers to insure electronics such as iPhones and laptops within sixty days of purchase via its platform.
Bell said, “Insurance is the un-sexy corner of financial services that has been ignored for too long. Our goal is to provide more tailored ways for people to insure only the things they care about. Whether that’s their laptop, jewellery, snowboard, the customer is in complete control.
“By partnering with retailers and using open banking integrations, Butter aims to make the process of taking out insurance seamless and simple. You get the flexibility of a single-item policy, and the convenience of purchasing through any store at checkout.”
Butter Insurance also recently secured its first major partnership deal with Australian Payments Plus (AP+).
This partnership brings together Australia’s three domestic payment providers: BPAY Group, eftpos Australia and NPP Australia. It marks the first time an insurance solution will be embedded within the Australian payments system.
The collaboration will see Butter Insurance integrate with eftpos’ eQR Digital Marketplace, an alternative payment option that allows consumers to make payments with their smartphone by scanning a QR code.
Another Sydney-based insurance startup, Upcover, recently raised $4.7m in a seed funding round to further its mission to simplify insurance for Australian small businesses.
Dominique Cerutti backs WealthTech startup 1fs Wealth
1fs Wealth, which helps investors control their investments and collectables from a single platform, has received an investment from angel investor Dominique Cerutti.
Alongside the investment, Cerutti will take a seat on the company’s advisory board, alongside other senior figures from the banking world.
Cerutti brings decades of experience and expertise within global capital markets. He spent 20 years at IBM and headed NYSE Euronext, the third-biggest operator of stock exchanges in Europe. He also served as the CEO and chairman of Altran before joining Adarma as chairman.
1fs Wealth empowers investors to consolidate their assets, control risk, manage ownership and analyse portfolio performance.
Speaking on the investment, 1fs Wealth CEO Bobby Console-Verma said, “This investment is a huge show of confidence in the 1fs Wealth team, our platform and future growth plans. Dominique joins us at a pivotal time, as we look to target rapid growth in key markets, including the UK, Europe and US.”
1fs Wealth is used by wealth owners and family offices across the world. Its partners include Plaid, Textron, Envestnet Yodlee, Salus, Alpha and more.
The company previously closed its seed round in December 2021. It was backed by 14 investors.
Hotel payment software startup Selfbook nets funds
Selfbook is a hotel payment software platform that offers direct bookings and payments, and has received a strategic investment from Amex Ventures.
The company enables hotels to transform their booking reservation system to provide their customers with a one-step checkout experience directly on their websites. Its solution can be implemented with a single line of code and allows users to integrate digital wallet support and enable payment services such as Google Pay and Apple Pay.
Its technology also groups multiple services, such as restaurant reservations, spa appointments and activities, into a single payment flow to easily drive upsells.
Selfbook is continuing its growth efforts across the hospitality space and hopes to broaden its reach in the travel industry.
Speaking on the deal, Selfbook co-founder and CEO Khalid Meniri said, “The American Express brand is synonymous with global travel and payment security, and we are thrilled to have Amex Ventures be part of our investor base.
“As hotels around the world continue to use Selfbook to offer a guest-first booking experience and secure payments, the investment from American Express will help us deepen our global presence and provide even more effective payment tools for our partners.”
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