There were 33 FinTech deals this week, with smaller deals making the largest portion of these, with 18 deals for $10m or less.
As for the biggest investments, Yieldstreet raised the most. It collected $400m in a credit facility from Monroe Capital. The company creates funds with lower minimums and helps open access to private markets. This deal made up around 37% of the total capital raised by FinTech companies this week. A total of $1bn was raised across the 33 deals.
US companies led the top ten deals this week, representing five companies. These were Marketplace lending companies Founderpath and Truework, PayTech platform Central Payments and CyberTech startup Fortress Blockchain Technologies.
The other counties represented in the top ten were Mexico (Clara), the UK (Capify), Argentina (Geopagos), Canada (Properly) and the UAE (Grizley.fr). As for sectors, the top ten varied. Marketplace lending represented three of the top ten deals and was followed by PayTech, which marked two of the top ten deals. The remaining ten comprised infrastructure & enterprise software, PropTech, CyberTech and cryptocurrency companies.
The lack of big deals, compared to previous weeks, could be a sign of the tough financial market. The cost of living, soaring inflation rates, war in Ukraine and post-pandemic environment has put the financial market into troubled times. It is having an impact on individuals and businesses.
Earlier this week, Dozens announced it has closed its current account and savings tools services. The company, which has now transitioned to a B2B model to survive, noted the pandemic and changing market parameters has forced it to close its consumer side.
FinTech Global recently spoke to several players in the FinTech space about whether the sector should be worried. A report from the Financial Times claimed that almost a trillion dollars has been wiped from the valuation of FinTech companies. Some of those FinTech Global spoke to said firms should be worried. Lars Seier Christensen, chairman of the Concordium Foundation and founder of Saxo Bank, “I would say FinTech is already in turmoil. Valuations are way below 12 months ago, and cash burning early-stage FinTech companies are finding life very difficult.”
However, others said that while FinTech companies should be worried, it will not be as effected as other sectors. Martin Cook, head of FinTech and partner at law firm Burges Salmon, said, “On the whole, I’m still bullish about the opportunities for the FinTech market. At a time of inflation, and with cost of living and cost of business increases, surely the need for financial tools and access to funding – particularly where they can be delivered with speed and convenience via digital means – is needed as much as ever?”
Earlier this week, Aveni released a report on how companies can reduce costs in a high inflation environment. One of the solutions it offered was examine operating models and switching to automation to help improve the processes.
While the sector is going through a tough time, here are the 33 companies to raise funds this week.
Investing platform Yieldstreet nabs $400m credit facility
Direct-to-consumer investing platform Yieldstreet has closed a $400m credit facility from Monroe Capital.
This is the largest financing Yieldstreet has raised to date and for any alternative investment platform in the industry, it claimed. This capital will help it scale over the coming years.
The funding will enable investors to access a significant number of new opportunities for returns with low correlation to the stock market, which were previously exclusively available to institutions and ultra-wealthy individuals.
This capital has been earmarked for pursuing several new and compelling investment opportunities that widen the scope and offerings available on the Yieldstreet platform. The New York-based firm is seeking diverse asset classes, including real estate, private credit, private equity, art and more.
Founded in 2015, Yieldstreet has helped open access to private markets by creating funds with lower minimums and compelling these opportunities through more traditional channels. It claims to have attracted over 400,000 users and more than $3bn in funding.
Goldman Sachs backs LatinAm startup Clara
Latin American technology startup Clara, which offerings corporate expense management solutions, has secured up to $150m from Goldman Sachs.
Founded in 2020, Clara said it is shaping the future of how companies manage their finances, while helping their customers to be more successful. Clara’s products include business credit cards, an expense management system, as well as a SPEI payment and transfer platform; are already being used by some of the fastest growing startups and companies in the region.
Clara currently works with more than 6,000 companies in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia and intends to double this number by the end of the year.
The financing involves an initial line of credit of $50m with the option of increasing to $150m.
Clara said this milestone is a sign of the confidence that international markets have in the potential of technology startups and in the future of this sector in Latin America, even during a challenging time.
B2B lender Founderpath raises $145m in debt and equity
B2B lender Founderpath, which helps businesses get access to short-term cash, has reportedly raised $145m in a mix of debt and equity.
The company has deployed over $60m in capital to 130 SaaS founders since its launch in 2020, according to a report from TechCrunch. In the past year, it has deployed $50m, with more than half of that happening in the last four months.
Forbright Bank led the $135m debt deal, while Singh Capital Partners led the $10m equity injection. There were also commitments from ZoomInfo, Brandwatch, Truebill, Par Tech and others.
Founderpath was founded by Nathan Latka after firsthand experience on giving up too much of a stake in a startup he had founded.
The B2B lender is aimed at bootstrapped SaaS founders and helps them transform their monthly subscriptions into upfront cash. It claims to be the only company that will offer more than 12 months to pay back, has a discount rate as low as 8% and lets people prepay at any time without any penalties or fees.
Truework secures $50m to enable faster lending decisions
Truework, a FinTech company that provides income and employment verification, has raised $50m in Series C funding.
Truework aims to help modern lenders in the mortgage, auto, and consumer lending sectors efficiently verify income and employment while empowering consumers with safer and more accurate data.
G Squared led the round, with participation from returning investors Sequoia Capital, Activant Capital and Khosla Ventures. New investors included Indeed, Human Capital, and Four Rivers Group.
Truework said it will use the capital to support planned product development, additional hiring, and foster the company’s continued growth as an efficient, secure and user-friendly platform for income employment.
The core of the company’s mission is to streamline the lending process for both lender and borrower. Truework digitises and simplifies the income and employment verification process for banks, lenders, payroll providers and HR departments.
Truework’s mortgage customers include 20 of the top 25 lenders, like Fairway Independent Mortgage, Caliber, Guaranteed Rate, Citizens Bank and LoanDepot.
Capify unveils £40m ($48m) fund to help SMEs manage finance challenges
Capify, a specialist SME lender, has launched a £40m fund for UK smaller businesses to help manage operations through difficult trading conditions.
According to Capify, the fund has been specially created in response to real and growing concerns about access to finance from traditional lending sources and the impact that has on SME business’ ability to deal with the effects of inflation.
The new funding, Capify added, aims to alleviate some of the potential crippling cash crunch crisis and provide a much-needed lifeline for businesses struggling with increasingly challenging conditions.
The fund can also be accessed by companies wanting to invest in their operations and realise their growth ambitions. Funding of up to £500,000 will be open to SMEs across a range of sectors that are already trading.
Riverwood backs Geopagos for Latin American expansion
Geopagos, a payment acceptance infrastructure in Latin America, has raised $35m in a round led by Riverwood Capital.
The round also saw participation from Endeavor Catalyst.
Operating across 15 countries in Latin America, Geopagos provides infrastructure as a service, offering a complete end-to-end digital solution for clients.
Geopagos said it will use the funds to accelerate product development, including further investments behind its omnichannel offering, new forms of acceptance, and opening up its API platform
FinTech API developer Central Payments closes $30m round
Central Payments, a developer of the Open FinTech API Marketplace, has closed a $30m growth equity round.
This deal spins the company out from the Central Bank of Kansas City and will support its growth trajectory.
Castle Creek Capital served as the lead investor, with commitments also coming from Launchpad Capital.
Founded in 2014, Central Payments develops payments technology and issuing solutions for FinTech and embedded finance businesses. Its API marketplace is a banking-as-a-service platform helping banks with embedded issuing capabilities.
It offers a host of different products, including virtual accounts, debit cards, prepaid cards, payroll, mobile deposit, savings accounts, real-time account validation, NFC, cashback rewards, bill payments, ACH, real-time payments, remittances, budgeting, and much more.
Properly scores C$36m ($28m) for its real estate mission in Canada
Properly, a provider of tech-enabled real estate solutions in Canada, has raised C$36m.
Properly says it offers a “new approach” to real estate, by providing a suite of products and services that give more control, transparency and peace of mind.
The round was led by existing partners including Parker89, Bain Capital Ventures, Prudence, FJ Labs, Golden Ventures, Intact Ventures, Max Ventures, AlleyCorp, Interplay, Industry Ventures and others.
Properly supports customers across multiple stages of the buying and selling process from the initial online search, to securing financing, to transacting on a home.
Since its launch in Toronto in 2020, Properly said it has supported over C$1bn in transactions. This round brings its total funding to C$192m, which the company said makes it the best funded and fastest growing real estate startup in the country.
The Canadian startup said this capital will enable it to continue on its mission to create a stress-free real estate experience for all Canadians.
Following the close of the round, Properly said it will further its investment in technology and expand its offering of products and services that solve critical problems for customers, which have previously been ignored by the traditional real estate industry.
Crypto investing app Grizzly.fr collects $26m
Crypto investing platform Grizzly.fi has raised $26m in its ‘Community Fair Launch’, a launch strategy aimed at attracting attention of high-profile DeFi investors.
Grizzly.fi claims this is the best performing launch on the Binance Smart Chain without a launchpad.
The FinTech company collected four-times more than the previous record holder and makes it the 10th biggest BNB holder.
Following the close of the funds, the team plans to continue the development of its ecosystem and support the adoption of its product offering.
Grizzly.fi claims to differentiate itself from the market through its focus on usability, security and scalability.
Its crypto platform simplifies investing in the DeFi space and aims to disrupt the industry through yield farming.
Fortress Blockchain Technologies closes seed round
Fortress Blockchain Technologies has closed its seed round on $22.5m, which was led by Ayon Capital.
Other contributions to the round came from Soaring Investment Management, Fortress’ founder Scott Purcell, and a few select super-angel investors.
This capital injection will enable Fortress to continue to write software, extend its regulatory services globally and deepen its sales and operational teams. It currently boasts a team of 84 full-time product managers and software engineers.
Fortress is aimed at the ongoing development of API-embeddable, user-friendly NFT and crypto wallets, as well as API-driven and white-label minting engines for fungible and non-fungible tokens. Additionally, the company has invested into regulatory initiatives.
The FinTech company is now in its go to market phase.
Fortress is a one-stop-shop for Web3 infrastructure, enabling users to build embeddable wallets, minting engines, payment processing, compliance tools and more.
LiveEO bags €19m ($19m) to bring satellite analytics to insurance
LiveEO, a provider of satellite analytics for infrastructure, has raised €19m in funding, which the company will use to fund its entry into new markets such as insurance.
LiveEO’s core product is an infrastructure monitoring suite powered by satellite imagery. The company uses artificial intelligence to analyse Earth Observation data, and gives operators of railways, power lines and pipelines actionable information on the risk posed by vegetation, ground deformations, or third parties.
In addition, the software enables customers to optimise the maintenance programmes of core infrastructure assets, making them increasingly resilient to climate change. In turn, this reduces travel disruptions, power outages and supply chain delays.
The round was led by MMC Ventures and includes €17m of venture capital, as well as further funds from the European Commission and Investitionsbank Berlin.
All existing shareholders continue to back the company and have participated in the round, including Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures (DvH Ventures), Helen Ventures, Matterwave, and motu ventures. Segenia Capital and Hannover Digital Investments (HDInv) have joined the round as new investors alongside MMC.
LiveEO said the capital will accelerate its global market expansion for its infrastructure monitoring products and fund entry into new markets such as insurance.
New investor HDInv under leadership of Ulrich Wallin, will support product development and go-to-market for the insurance sector, where LiveEO’s solutions can contribute to better-informed decision making and a preventative approach to insurance.
Cybersecurity startup Spin Technology raises Series A
Cybersecurity startup Spin Technology, an all-in-one SaaS data protection platform, has closed its Series A funding round on $16m.
Blueprint Equity led the round, with commitments also coming from Santa Barbara Venture Partners and Blu Venture Investors. As part of the deal, Blueprint Equity managing partner Sheldon Lewis, Santa Barbara Venture Partners managing partner and founder Dan Engel, and Blu Venture Investors partner Robert Struble will join Spin Technology’s board.
With the capital, the company plans to accelerate growth, expand its SaaS offerings and hire more staff to its marketing, sales and engineering teams.
Spin Technology offers an all-in-one SaaS data protection platform that is specifically designed for mission-critical SaaS apps. One of its offerings is automated ransomware protection for SaaS environments that provide two hours incident response against ransomware attack on SaaS data, reducing recovery costs by up to 90%.
Another solution is automated risk assessments of cloud SaaS apps and browser extensions reducing the manual efforts of SecOps teams and helping businesses increase their cybersecurity posture. Other features include data leak prevention, and backup and recovery.
Its all-in-one dashboard provides a single view of cybersecurity and data protection to cloud SaaS environments based on next-generation AI and machine learning.
WealthTech Father bags $15m
WealthTech company Father has raised $15m in a Series A funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
The round also saw participation from Khosla Ventures and MassMutual Ventures as new investors. They joined existing investors, Moneta Venture Capital, Context Ventures, and Cota Capital.
Founded in 2019 by Taylor Matthews and Brad Genser, Father considers itself a “new kind of financial institution,” which combines expert advisors and cutting edge technology to deliver a comprehensive, personalised client experience.
This round saw Father’s total amount raised increased to $22m, and boosted its valuation to $50m.
The WealthTech said this funding will facilitate its continued growth and innovation in the wealth management space.
In the first half of 2022, Father nearly quadrupled its assets under management to over $250m and doubled its staff size to over 50 employees across the country, including advisors, engineers and product team members.
Modern Life bags $15m to back insurance advisors
Modern Life, a tech-enabled life insurance brokerage for advisors, has exited stealth with $15m in seed funding.
Thrive Capital led the round with participation also from 12 unicorn founders from Hippo, Plaid, Reddit, Flatiron Health, Newfront, At Bay, Vouch, Cedar and Lattice.
Modern Life was founded by seasoned FinTech veterans Michael Konialian and Jack Arenas. Konialian previously worked as vice president and general manager at CoverWallet, and Arena was previously co-founder and CTO of $900m-valued FinTech Petal.
The company aims to digitally streamline advisors’ practices and expert brokerage support by providing technology solutions to this end.
Leveraging Modern Life’s technology, advisors nationwide can compare quotes from top carriers in minutes, perform data-driven underwriting assessments, manage clients from an integrated dashboard and receive comprehensive deal support.
For advisors, the pandemic disrupted in-person meetings and medical exams, increased accelerated underwriting limits and resulted in the highest rate of new business growth in decades as mortality fears increased, Modern Life said. The company’s mission is to help advisors navigate these challenges and changing landscape and meet unprecedented demand.
Amongst Modern Life’s offering is an integrated dashboard allowing easy management and visibility of client submissions and back office administration for appointment and commissions, as well as a full suite of insurance suite of insurance products including permanent life, term life, long-term care and disability.
Crypto wallet Ultimate closes its Series A on $12.8m
Ultimate, which offers a crypto wallet designed for decentralised finance, has raised $12.8m in its Series A round.
Lightspeed Venture Partners served as the lead investor. The round was joined by existing investors Speedinvest, Rockaway Blockchain Fund, Backed, Inflection, Discovery Ventures, Fabric Ventures and newly added Anagram.
Ultimate’s mission is to bring decentralised finance to the masses. Its mobile app offers access to a curated set of DeFi protocols, which are natively integrated to provide a seamless investing and trading experience.
Through the app, users can also buy and sell tokens, track and follow wallets, watch portfolios and NFT collections and more.
It currently has over 300,000 beta users registered to its waitlist. The platform plans to launch the beta in the coming days. It will then aim to hold a public launch later this year.
Homeowner portal Milestones secures $10.3m
Milestones, an all-in-one portal for navigating home ownership, has raised $10.3m in Series A funding.
The company is striving to make it easier for consumers to buy, move, sell and manage their home.
Updater, the national leader in moving technology, led the round. The raise comes after three years of product development in stealth mode and will help fuel a rapid go-to-market strategy. Other strategic investors in the round include Second Century Ventures (the strategic investment arm of the National Association of REALTORS®), Peerage Capital, McLaughlin Ventures, WAV Group Ventures, T3 Partners, Sellers Shield, as well as individuals and other large brokerages.
Milestones said it is the first technology firm to deliver a home ownership portal similar to consumer offerings for managing healthcare, personal finance and education.
The company monitors the value of your home, provides search for home for sales and can even help manage the transaction when a consumer is ready to sell their home, at no cost.
However, Milestone said its most valuable offering is having the support of their real estate advisors in managing home ownership between transactions.
Ghana-based Zeepay bags $10m investment
Ghana-based PayTech company Zeepay has reportedly raised $10m in a funding round.
The capital injection was led by Symbiotics BV, which supplied $9m to the round, according to a report from Tech Moran. The remaining $1m was supplied by an unnamed Mauritius-based fund.
Zeepay is currently looking to increase its annual turnover from $1.5bn in 2021 to $200bn over the next five years.
The FinTech company offers a suite of financial services. Its features include cash payout, remittance, ATMs, digital wallets, cards, bank accounts and digital token access.
In 2020, Zeepay received an electronic money issuer (EMI) licence from the Bank of Ghana. This accreditation allows the company to offer a variety of services, such as peer-to-peer. Transfers, payments and digital remittances, cash in and cash out, and more.
The company became the first non-bank financial services company to receive this type of licence.
Findity receives SEK102m ($10m) backing from Creades
Swedish investment firm Creades has invested SEK102m in FinTech firm Findity to become the company’s largest owner.
Creades invests in listed and private companies and other current holdings include Avanza, Instabox, Apotea and Mentimeter.
Findity claims that more than 30,000 customers use Findity’s products to manage expense claims, entertainment, mileage and per diem. The firm also offers its product as a white label, where partners such as American Express use its tech for their own expense management solutions.
Findity has grown by more than 40% annually in the last few years. With a strong position in the Swedish market, Findity is currently expanding to new markets. The product is available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and USA.
CredAble secures $9m to support SMEs
CredAble, which aims to help SMEs tackle working capital and credit challenges, has raised $9m.
The capital came from Axis Bank and CredAble’s existing investor OAKS Asset Management.
CredAble says it is “reimagining working capital financing” by providing liquidity programmes for enterprise eco-systems using state-of-the-art technology platforms, digital KYC and onboarding, deep ERP and bank integrations, along with digital documentation and transaction management.
CredAble provides comprehensive working capital financing solutions to corporates across Asia in areas of Payables Financing, Receivables Financing and Securitisation, Debt Capital Markets and SME Financing.
Privya arises from stealth with $6m seed funding
Privya, a firm focused on data privacy, has bagged $6m in a seed funding round backed by Hyperwise Ventures and several angel investors.
Alongside the funding, the company also launched a data privacy-focused code scanning platform.
According to Security Week, Privya offers a code scanning platform designed to identify data protection issues and violations during the development process, before they make it into production.
The platform analyses the manner in which sensitive data is handled in code, as well as the type of collected data and how data is being used, stored and sent to third-party services.
Privya’s scanner searches for information on the collection of personal and sensitive data, flags compliance violations and also provides risk scoring to help automate enforcement and compliance with the data privacy regulations.
Privya claims its platform also maps all services, storage systems and applications, to deliver complete visibility into how data is handled.
Pensions app Penfold closes Series A on £7m
Digital pensions platform Penfold has collected £7m in its Series A funding round, following the launch of its workplace pension platform late last year.
Bridford Group, which invests into tech, sustainability and biotech, served as the lead investor.
The Series A was also opened to retail investors through a crowdfunding campaign, which reached 190% of its goal from over 900 contributors.
Penfold launched the Series A to expand its workplace pension division, which has attracted 150 businesses in its first ten months. Clients include Cuvva, Elvie and Attest.
The workplace pension scheme provides employees with greater control and access to their pension. Its mission is to help everyone save more for retirement.
Its mobile app allows users to combine their pensions, set goals, adjust contributions and pick from a selection of investment plans.
Mesh Security launches CyberTech platform from stealth
Israel-based cloud CyberTech platform Mesh Security has launched out of stealth alongside the close of a $4.5m seed round.
The seed round was led by Booster Ventures with the participation of additional investors.
Mesh Security claims to have the industry’s first zero trust posture management solution. Its platform makes it simple for companies to implement a comprehensive zero trust architecture security in the cloud.
Its platform is a ‘single source of truth’, which helps companies implement zero trust security. Without the need of agents, Mesh can map a company’s entire cloud XaaS estate within minutes, with full contextual visibility and analysis of the current zero trust posture.
It immediately prioritises sensitive assets and critical risks and allows organisations to build automated processes to bridge any gaps that enable continuous security and compliance. It also monitors anomalous activities in real-time and can automatically take action when assets might be under attack.
The company was founded by Netanel Azoulay and Omri Hering, who have a shared 15 years of experience designing resilient distributed cloud networks during their military service.
India-based payments firm MobiKwik closes debt line
India-based payment service MobiKwik has reportedly secured INR 35 crore ($4.3m) in debt from Blacksoil Capital.
MobiKwik issued 700 non-convertible debentures at INR 500,000 ($6,279) apiece, according to a report from Entrackr. The FinTech company is allegedly valued at $1bn.
The company was allegedly eyeing an initial public offering but has postponed it due to the tough financial market. It had filed a Draft Red Herring Prospectus in July 2021 for its IPO to raise $255m.
MobiKwik, which was founded in 2009, is a payments services provider. It offers instant bill payments, bank transfers, loans, wallet transfers and access to mutual funds.
Galoy lands $4m for bitcoin-native banking
Galoy, which develops bitcoin-native banking software, has raised $4m in funding to further its open source core bitcoin banking platform.
Galoy’s bitcoin-native banking software enabling organisations to plug into the Lightning Network and launch bitcoin banking services.
Hivemind Ventures led the investment round with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Timechain, El Zonte Capital, Kingsway Capital, Trammell Venture Partners, AlphaPoint and other leading Bitcoin investors.
The GaloyMoney open source core banking platform includes a secure backend API, mobile wallets, point of sale apps, an accounting ledger and administrative controls.
According to Galoy, the platform significantly reduces the development burden of building on bitcoin.
Companies, cities, community projects and countries using the Galoy platform can customise, deploy and contribute to a range of features, including a web wallet for use in-browser across devices and merchant point of sale applications for accepting bitcoin.
Old Street Digital scores $2.8m in seed funding
Old Street Digital, an institutional asset manager, has raked in $2.8m in a seed funding investment round.
The round saw participation from Plassa Capital as well as from venture capital and angel investors across Europe, Asia and the US as well as senior executives from the UK Asset Management market.
OSD is building an institutional asset manager bringing the best of active, fundamental research-driven portfolio management to crypto.
EasyDMARC closes seed funding to combat email phishing
EasyDMARC, a B2B SaaS solution that improves email authentication and prevent email phishing, has collected $2.3m in seed funding.
Acrobator Ventures served as the lead investor, with commitments also coming from Formula VC and an unnamed US-based public security company.
This capital injection will help the RegTech company expand and bolster its efforts in fighting cybercrime, it said.
Its services, which are used in finance, education, nonprofit and healthcare, guard domain and email infrastructure from phishing attacks. Its software improves visibility of business email environments, business identity control, secure operations and communications and improved email deliverability.
The company has secured 30,000 businesses from 130 countries and in the past two years, it has mitigated over 82 million threats.
YouSet scores $2.1m for home and auto insurance
YouSet, a startup aims to optimise the process of buying and comparing home and auto insurance, has raised $2.1m in an oversubscribed pre-seed round.
YouSet is an InsurTech that aims to make buying home and auto insurance quick and painless by comparing alternatives for its users.
Its technology encourages insurance companies to compete for each customer, allowing them to buy the policy online and in under four minutes.
To date, the company has seen over 75,000 Canadians using its platform, which it claims saves them 29% on average on their insurance premium.
The funding comes primarily from angel investors who between them have 270 years of experience in the insurance industry. These executives include Don Fox (former executive vice president at Intact), Neil Mitchell (former managing director at Marsh Canada) and Mike George (founder of Trisura). Other investors include tech veterans such as Joe Canavan (principal of Canavan Capital), Nicolas Bouchard (founder of DuProprio) and Michel Lozeau (chairman of Anges Québec).
YouSet said the funding will allow it launch an “aggressive” growth strategy designed to multiply sales, both in its home province of Quebec and also across Canada. Alongside the funding round, the company has just launched its digital offering in Ontario.
In addition, part of the capital will be used for recruiting to further grow YouSet’s team.
Airswift picks up $2m for crypto payment solutions
Airswift, a FinTech startup pioneering Web 3.0 native payment solutions, has raised $2m in a pre-seed funding round led by CE Innovation Capital (CEiC).
Airswift aims to pioneer crypto payment solutions for business and consumers globally. Co-founded by CEO Dr. Yan Zhang, a successful entrepreneur in crypto, e-commerce and FinTech, the company provides a web 3.0 native omnichannel payment gateway crypto-funded prepaid cards, and on/off ramp services that connect businesses with consumers.
With blockchain technology at its core, Airswift is building payment infrastructure native to Web 3.0. This includes an easy-to-use on-chain payment gateway that allows merchants to accept both crypto and fiat currency, enabling frictionless purchases with digital assets. Airswift said it plans to launch its initial product by September 2022. The company said this would make it one of the first full-stack payment gateway solutions that facilitate digital asset acceptance around the globe.
This funding round comes amid a time of severe market uncertainty surround crypto. Airswift said however, that this indicates that investors remain confidence about Airswift’s model despite this, and are positive about the future of payment solutions that power the use of digital assets.
CEiC said it firmly believes blockchain enabled payment solutions are a fundamental technological innovation that could create a paradigm shift in the financial services industry worldwide. The FinTech investor added that the market is in its infancy, with huge potential for growth.
Appital raises additional funding ahead of product launch
Appital, which stylises itself as the ‘Equity Capital Marketplace’, has raised an additional £1.7m in funding.
The capital was supplied by Frontline Ventures and a group of unnamed angel investors.
This investment follows last year’s £2.5m round, which was led by Frontline Ventures.
Appital is preparing for the launch of the ‘world’s first’ algorithmic bookbuilding platform, which is in partnership with pan-European MTF Turquoise.
Its platform enables the buyside community to originate and participate in liquidity discovery, price formation and execution opportunities in multiple days ADV in publicly listed equities. Institutional investors will have full transparency and maximum control over the bookbuilding and deal distribution process and drive liquidity in the marketplace.
The company recently completed successful integrations with EMS providers FactSet, FlexTrade and TS Imagine. It also integrated with executing brokers ein and Instinet, in anticipation of Appital’s imminent launch.
Through its partnership with Turquoise, buyside firms will be able to execute all deals through the Turquoise MTF, via a single point of access with straight-through processing to over 20 settlement ventures.
RiskSmart releases its risk management platform in UK
Integrated risk management platform RiskSmart has launched in the UK following the close of a £1m investment.
The equity was supplied by NPIF Maven Equity Finance and other unnamed institutional investors.
RiskSmart was founded by Ryan Swann and Michael Aldred with the aim to simplify small and medium-sized businesses. It claims these businesses have been underserved by complex and expensive platforms, frameworks and manual processes.
By leveraging data and AI, RiskSmart provides clients with tech-led, automated and centralised tools to manage risk.
Data-powered InsurTech Riskwolf closes its first funding round
Riskwolf, which turns real-time data into insurance, has reportedly collected €685,000 in its first external funding round.
The pre-seed round was led by Switzerland-based SICTIC. Commitments also came from a series of angels and professional investors across Europe, according to a report from EU Startups.
This round boasts more than ten investors from six countries and three continents.
Proceeds of the round will help Riskwolf expand its product line, bolster its technology platform and hire more staff. It currently has team members in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Slovakia, the UK, Singapore and India.
The Swiss InsurTech company enables insurers to build and operate parametric insurance for digital risks. By leveraging real-time data and dynamic risk modelling, insurers can build and operate parametric coverage for digital risks.
Indonesia-based digital wallet DANA raises funding
Indonesia-based digital wallet DANA has closed a funding round from Sinar Mas and leading e-commerce company Lazada Group.
DANA is on a mission to improve financial inclusion literacy in Indonesia. It claims that 43% of the country’s population is estimated to be unbanked and digital payments are helping more people get access financial services.
Consumers using the app receive a digital wallet that lets them complete bank transfers, make payments, withdraw money and more.
The company’s technology has wide developer integration options and enables easy self-onboarding for merchants. It is accepted by over 18 million merchants on the QR Indonesia Standard (QRIS) network.
Offline and online merchants can self-onboard within an hour and gain access to a range of payment instruments.
Since its launch in 2018, DANA has grown to process an average of ten million transactions each day and has a team of 900 employees.
The company claims to have more than 115 million users in Indonesia and is the most downloaded finance application in the country for 2021.
UAE-based payroll and HR solution Bayzat bags funding
Bayzat, a UAE-based payroll and HR solution, has reportedly raised funds from The Mohammed Rashid Innovation Fund (MBRIF).
This investment capital will enable Bayzat to expand its team, with a focus on bolstering its technical development team, according to a report from Wamda. Over the coming year, the FinTech company also plans to release new features and employee benefit offers.
Bayzat is also in the process of expanding across the GCC and other international markets, with a focus on Saudi Arabia.
The FinTech company offers an all-in-one HR and employee benefits platform. Companies can automate HR, payroll and insurance processes to redirect resources on more important tasks.
Its payroll services let a company pay in multiple currencies, generate payslips and automate gratuity payments in a few clicks. As for insurance, the platform offers easy-to-understand medical policies and gives access to manage the company’s group health insurance. It also boasts real-time employee additions and deletions, health benefits and analytics.
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