The biggest ten deals of the week raised a combined $1bn, as 31 FinTech deals were closed this week.
The top ten deals represented the lion share of this week’s total funding. The other 21 deals raised a total of $208m.
It was a diverse week for the sectors and countries which received funding. The biggest funding round was raised by Italian PayTech company Satispay, which raised $314m and became the newest FinTech unicorn company. The company offers mobile payment services and aims to become the every-day payment solution for consumers across Europe.
The second biggest deal of the week was raised by UK-based Liberis. The company raised £140m in financing from Barclays Bank and BCI Finance as it looks toward expansion. Liberis company leverages machine learning to offer embedded business finance options to companies.
As for the remaining top ten, three companies were from the US (Workstream, AccessFintech and GoHealth). The others were from Spain (SeQura), the Bahamas (Velas Network), 3Commas (Canada), Signzy (India) and Shaype (Australia).
As for the sectors represented in the top ten, there were three from infrastructure and enterprise software (Workstream, Signzt and Shaype), two from PayTech (Satispay and SeQura) and one each from marketplace lending (Liberis), blockchain (Velas Network), InsurTech (GoHealth), WealthTech (3Commas) and Data & Analytics (AccessFintech).
Here are this week’s 31 FinTech deals.
Satispay becomes Italian unicorn with €320m ($314m) raise
According to a report from EU Startups, the round was led by Addition. The raise also saw Greyhound Capital, a shareholder since 2018, increase its stake in the company.
Other participating investors included Coatue, Lightrock, Block Inc., Tencent and Mediolanum Gestione Fondi SGR.
Satispay describes itself as the mobile payment network alternative to credit and debit cards.
Satispay’s mobile payment super network was launched in 2013 with the goal of becoming the every-day payment solution for consumers across Europe and has received significant market attention since its previous Series C round.
The Satispay app allows users to pay in physical and online stores and exchange money between friends, as well as benefiting from a range of other services such as phone top-ups, bill payments, pagoPA and auto vehicle tax stamps, donations, gift envelopes and savings
Today, 3 million consumers and 200k merchants use Satispay, including small stores but also big brands such as Esselunga, Auchan, Benetton, Carrefour, Boggi, Trenord, Eataly, McDonald’s Tigotà, Autogrill, Trenitalia and many more.
The Italian unicorn offers users a simple, immediate and secure payment experience, and merchants a transparent and advantageous pricing model, with no activation fees or monthly fees.
Barclays backs Liberis in £140m ($156m) financing round
Embedded business finance platform Liberis has raised £140m in financing from Barclays Bank and BCI Finance as it looks toward expansion.
Liberis is also backed by investors such as FTV Capital and UK-based venture builder Blenheim Chalcot. Following this round, Liberis has raised a total of £350 since inception.
Liberis’ platform applies machine learning to understand a customer’s risk profile and maximum funding options available to them, enabling higher volumes of origination. This has allowed them to fund almost $1bn to over 21,000 SMEs across the UK, Europe, and the US, in over 50,000 transactions.
The company will use the new funds to scale its platform, offering fair and increasingly flexible finance solutions to more small businesses through its growing global partner base.
BNPL platform SeQura receives €150m ($147m) senior financing
BNPL platform SeQura has received €150m in senior financing through an asset-backed agreement with Citi.
Additionally, existing financing partner Chenavari continues its support for SeQura, bringing the total financing potential up to €200m.
This new facility will increase the company’s overall funding capacity and support SeQura’s international expansion across Southern Europe. It will also support the development and launch of new and innovative payment solutions.
The company stated the agreement will significantly reduce SeQura’s funding cost and will allow SeQura to further its investment into strategic and high-growth initiatives to support its mission of being the preferred partner to merchants.
Based in Barcelona, the BNPL company offers digital payment solutions with a focus on Southern Europe and Latin America. Its services include ‘pay now’, ‘buy now pay later’ and ‘pay in three’.
Velas Network raises $135m to support blockchain adoption
Velas Network, which aims to boost blockchain adoption, has raised $135m in fresh funding, alongside a partnership with Bahamas-based digital asset investment firm GEM Group.
This capital will enable Velas to accelerate its ecosystem growth and further the development of its blockchain.
Launched in 2019, Velas is on a mission to improve everyone’s lives by making advanced and disruptive technologies more accessible. The company claims to be the fastest blockchain with Ethereum VM compatibility.
It also claims to be one of the most efficient blockchain networks for secure, interoperable, extremely scalable transactions and smart contracts that integrate technology products and services.
HR platform Workstream extends Series B with additional $60m
Workstream, a mobile-first hiring and onboarding platform for the deskless workforce, has extended its Series B round with an additional close of $60m, bring the total raised in the round to $108m.
The round was led by Hans Tung, managing partner of GGV Capital, with strong participation from new and existing investors, notably Founders Fund, Coatue, BOND, Basis Set Ventures, CRV, WiL and Soma Capital.
Workstream’s end-to-end platform automates many of the recruiting and onboarding processes that can slow down hiring.
The company said this helps businesses with large deskless workforces fill open positions quickly.
Workstream said the funding will allow it to “double down” on its mission of serving the deskless workforce, which continues to flourish post-COVID and the Great Resignation.
Data and analytics provider AccessFintech nabs $60m in Series C
AccessFintech, a data and analytics platform for the financial industry, has received $60m in its Series C funding round.
WestCap, a growth equity firm, served as the lead investor. Other commitments came from BNY Mellon and Bank of America.
Several of AccessFintech’s Series B investors also joined the latest round. These include Dawn Capital, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and CitiGroup.
With the funds, AccessFintech will expand its collaborative data management network to additional markets.
The data and analytics platform enables improved data sharing and workflow collaboration to improve the financial industry’s operating model.
Its flagship solution is the AccessFintech Synergy Network. This is a collaboration network that allows for resolution and decision-making to be complete from one place. It supports data collaboration and gives greater visibility into transaction data.
It recently added to its securities offering by extending its lifecycle management through its new claims network and the launch of a ground-breaking predictive fails service.
AccessFintech has also recently expanded its asset class coverage to include derivatives and syndicated loans.
Its collaboration network now includes over 100 participants.
Digital health insurer GoHealth bags $50m
GoHealth, a health insurance marketplace and Medicare-focused digital health company, has closed a $50m private investment.
GoHealth’s mission is to improve access to healthcare in America.
Enrolling in a health insurance plan can be confusing for customers, and the seemingly small differences between plans can lead to significant out-of-pocket costs or lack of access to critical medicines and even providers.
Using technology and data science, GoHealth matches customers with the healthcare policy and carrier to suit their needs.
The company said the funding will expand its shareholder base, enhancing its balance sheet as the it focuses on driving strong cash flow in the near term. This will also enable further investment in new technologies and strategic initiatives, enhance its multi-payer marketplace, and expands its Encompass platform, a technology-driven approach to purchasing Medicare Advantage plans.
3Commas scores $37m for automated crypto trading bot platform
3Commas, an automated crypto trading bot investment platform, has collected $37m in its Series B funding round.
Target Global, a pan-European investment firm, led the funding round.
Alameda Research, Jump Crypto and Copper founder and CEO Dmitry Tokarev, also joined the round.
With the funds, the automated crypto trading bot will enhance its ecosystem and develop new automated DeFi trading tools. It also plans to improve its machine learning and AI bots and expand its trading ecosystem.
3Commas will also enhance developers’ access to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to create apps used by 3Commas traders within the ecosystem.
Additionally, it is hiring a robust research and development team to create DeCommas, a recently launched subsidiary which provides users with easier access to trade automation in decentralised finance.
The FinTech company offers advanced trading tools and automated strategies managed by trading bots that have proven to help users earn profits through all market conditions. Users gain access to historical performance of different strategies and tools to easily replicate them through automated tools.
Launched in 2017, its aim is to make crypto trading available to everyone. It boasts manual or fully automated bots and trading strategies, as well as risk and portfolio management solutions.
Digital banking infrastructure Signzy raises $26m
India-based digital banking infrastructure Signzy has raised $26m in its Series B funding round.
Gaja Capital, Arkam Ventures and Vertex Ventures served as the lead investors to the round.
The company will use the capital to bolster its innovation efforts.
Shaype rakes in A$33m ($21m)
Shaype, an embedded finance platform, has raised A$33m in a Series C funding headed by Regal Funds Management.
Shaype’s platform provides single API access to a wide-ranging suite of microservices for payments, KYC, data, insights and real-time transaction monitoring.
The company claims it offers a cost-effective, SaaS cloud-native offering with flexible modules that are ready-to-go.
Shaype said it ensures flexibility and speed-to-market with an ‘always-modern’ platform that removes technological debt from legacy systems at the user’s pace, freeing the resources of a business to focus on customer engagement and satisfaction.
According to Finextra, the company is planning to roll out new services for financial services, PropTech, HR and government before the end of the year.
The company will use its new funding to bolster its team – already numbering over 100 individuals – as well as pushing international expansion.
SaaS provider Toqio nets €20m Series A
FinTech SaaS provider Toqio has raised €20m from a Series A funding round headed by AlbionVC.
Also taking part in the round were Aldea veNTURES, Seaya, Speedinvest, SIX FinTech Ventures and a number of angel investors.
The €20m also included a €1.3m grant from The Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology, which is a public organisation for technology development in Spain.
With an explosion of innovative FinTechs and financial service providers entering the market over the past five years, Toqio claims it has been built to help make these services more accessible through its low-code platform, designed to build and launch new banking and finance solutions quickly and easily.
Toqio allows any business, not just banks, to launch embedded finance solutions for their business or consumer customers in a matter of days. It removes the need to build and manage complex software through its SaaS platform and its marketplace.
Toqio’s Marketplace provides a place to incorporate curated fintech modules into a solution, offered by leading financial service providers.
PolicyMe bags funding to help Canadian families
PolicyMe, a digital-first insurance provider on a mission to deliver simple and affordable insurance for Canadian families, has raised C$18m in Series A funding.
New investors, RGAX, Securian Financial and SiriusPoint, joined existing investors, HCS Capital and Westdale Properties, in the raise.
A Tier 1 Canadian bank rounds out the $18m equity and debt financing which was raised in a series of tranches over the last year.
Founded in 2018, PolicyMe was founded by Andrew Ostro, Laura McKay and Jeff McKay, who experienced first hand the inefficiencies that existed across the traditional life insurance valuation chain through their years in the insurance and tech industries.
At inception, the company first tackled distribution with the initial launch of its coverage calculator and price comparison platform, and then launched a fully underwritten digital product in March of last year with Canadian Premier Life Insurance Company.
By eliminating inefficient underwriting and distribution costs, the digital-first product is priced 10 to 20% lower than most traditional offerings.
Furthermore, PolicyMe said that 84% of its customers purchased policies without having to complete a medical exam, with most customers being able to apply and secure their policy in 20 minutes or less.
PolicyMe said the funding will accelerate its development of a comprehensive suite of products that will be distributed via direct-to-consumer and B2B2C channels across large membership and employee groups.
The InsurTech will also be launching its embedded solution later this year with two of Canada’s leading FinTechs, ahead of several other launches earmarked for Q1 and Q2 2023.
XP Health bags $17.1m for vision coverage
XP Health, a company creating a digital-first platform looking to transform vision benefits for insurance carriers and companies, has raised $17.1m in Series A funding.
The round was led by HC9 Ventures, Valor Capital Group and ManchesterStory.
Additional investors included Canvas Ventures, CameronVC, Core Innovation Capital, GSR Ventures, and Plug and Play, as well as high profile angels like Ken Goulet (former EVP Anthem), Kevin Hill (former regional CEO United Healthcare), Jeff Epstein (CFO of Oracle, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners) and Brett Rochkind (former managing partner General Atlantic).
XP Health said this capital will bolster XP Health’s drive to reinvent how people experience vision benefits.
The company offers a high-quality, innovative vision care benefit that doubles the value of coverage while reducing costs by half for members.
According to XP Health, vision coverage has remained static, complicated, expensive, and unsatisfying for decades. An estimated 93 million adults in the United States (about 25% of the population) are at high risk for serious vision loss, but only half visited an eye doctor in the past 12 months.
This recent fundraise follows a successful 2021 for the company, during which it raised $5.5m and was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. Starting with just 30 clients last year, XP Health now services 1,500, including high-profile companies like Docusign, Chegg, Navistar, Sequoia Consulting, and strategic partners Guardian Life Insurance and The Health Benefit Alliance. All-in, XP Health covers more than 250,000 people.
Inclined lands $15m to help policy holders access life insurance equity
Inclined, a FinTech aiming to help whole life insurance policyholders realise more value of their policies, has raised $15m in Series A funding.
The round was led by HSCM Ventures, with participation from Anthemis Group as well as several new and existing investors.
According to Inclined, there is approximately $150bn borrowed against whole life policies today in ways that are inefficient, resulting in suboptimal compounding of the cash value and ultimate death benefit of these policies.
Inclined aims to help policyholders release more value out of their whole life investment by giving them quick and efficient access to the equity they have built in their whole life policy.
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) company’s platform addresses two inherent problems with the way the market currently operates. The “front end” problem of obtaining and structuring the raw data from whole life carriers, and the “back end” problem of efficiently managing the collateral in a way that can deliver assets at scale to financial institution partners.
Inclined’s initial focus is to work with whole life advisors to offer policyholders a secured, revolving line of credit collateralized by the cash value in their whole life policy, within a fully automated experience. The Inclined Line of Credit (“iLOC”) is flexible in that it can be drawn or paid back iteratively at the convenience of the borrower. The borrower never pays any fees on the Inclined platform, and the process of applying for a loan takes less than 15 minutes.
Remofirst lands $14.1m for global HR
Remofirst, a company which provides services to help companies build remote teams, has raised $14.1m in seed funding.
The round was co-led by Mouro Capital and QED Investors, with participation from Counterpart Ventures.
Founded in 2021 by Nurasyl Serik and Volodymyr Fedoriv, Remofirst helps companies build global remote teams in 150 countries by allowing them to hire talent in countries where they do not have an entity. Remofirst’s services include onboarding, payroll, benefits, taxes and local compliance.
Fuelled by the pandemic and an increase in tools for remote work, Remofirst said it has seen incredible traction since launching its initial product in early 2021.
The company’s CEO Serik is using his own personal experience as a remote worker to build a payroll engine for an on-demand job search platform. The platform allows companies and employees to work and hire from anywhere while staying on top of payroll and HR compliance globally with a few clicks.
Serik said that, although there are a number of existing players in the global HR space, Remofirst is the most cost-efficient provider which fills a crucial gap with current market conditions. The company aims to make it simple for customers to understand what they are paying for and why.
Evident lands Series C for insurance verification
Evident, a provider of automated third-party insurance verification and credentialing services for enterprises, has raised $14m in Series C funding.
The round was led by Forte Ventures with participation from new investors Gaingels and Strawberry Creek Ventures, an Alumni Ventures fund, and existing investors including New Enterprise Associates, Aspect Ventures, Blue Cloud Ventures, Lane Bess and Tom Noonan.
Evident provides comprehensive certificate of insurance (COI) verification and credentialing services so that enterprises across industries may reduce their third-party risk and improve compliance rates.
Evident’s secure platform extracts and digitises data from COIs and evidence of all types, and provides the initial verification as well as ongoing monitoring to detect changes and automate risk decisioning.
The company’s customers include category leaders in grocery, retail, convenience stores, manufacturing, lending and transportation.
Champ Titles pulls in $12.9m
Champ Titles, which provides title and registration software to insurance carriers, has raises $12.9m in Series B funding.
The over-subscribed round, with continued support from four public companies, brings Champ Titles’ total funding to over $30m.
Founded in 2018, Champ Titles replaces state DMV title and registration systems with its software while providing technology that enables automotive retailers and insurance carriers to reduce the amount of time it takes to create, manage and transfer a vehicle title to just one day.
Champ Title’s offering allows insurance carriers to quickly and easily acquire and dispose of a policyholder’s vehicle title in instances of total loss, by digitising the process end-to-end.
Uganda-based digital lending platform Numida nets $12.3m
Uganda-based digital lending platform Numida has reportedly raised $12.3m in its pre-Series A funding round, which comprised of equity and debt.
Serena Ventures led the round, with commitments also coming from Breega, 4Di Capital, Launch Africa, Soma Capital and Y Combinator, according to a report from TechCrunch.
Existing Numida investor MFS Africa also joined the round. Lendable Asset Management provided $5m debt to Numida.
With the capital, Numida plans to double its active client base to 40,000 over the next 18 months. It will also enter two new markets. These markets have not been chosen, but will either be Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt or Kenya.
Numida helps grow micro and small businesses in Africa. Its platform offers digital working capital loans between $100 and $5,000 via mobile money. Businesses can receive credit in as little as two hours.
PlanetWatchers secures $11m to support crop insurers
PlanetWatchers, a crop monitoring company that provides insights to crop insurers and the agricultural industry, has raised $11m in Series A funding.
Seraphim Investment Trust, a SpaceTech investment company and Creative Ventures, a deep tech venture firm, co-led the Series A round.
Other participants included The Trendlines Agrifood Fund, BIG Capital and Ridgeline Partners.
PlanetWatchers uses machine learning to support crop insurers and the agricultural industry in verifying cover crops, tillage, planting dates, crop classification and weather damage at scale.
The company uses Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data to provide accurate insight at scale.
PlanetWatchers works with a large number of crop insurance companies. The company uses series-based radar data to provide detailed analysis of claims, without ever needing to visit the field. The use of SAR, a remote sensing technology bounding microwave signals off the Earth’s surface, helps PlanetWatchers to detect physical properties and the change to them over time, therefore providing valuable insight to customers.
The funding following a successful pre-Series A round, which the company closed in June 2021.
PlanetWatchers said the capital will allow it to increase its commercial footprint with crop insurers and agricultural input providers. The funds raises will also allow it to continue to invest in its SAR-based data analytics alongside the expansion of its commercial teams to maximise opportunities and address the increasing market demand to help solve global food security issues.
Tactic raises $11m to support web3 in finance
Tactic has raised $11m in funding as it continues its mission to simplify financial operations for businesses in web3.
The investment was led by FTX Ventures head of product Ramnik Arora. Participation also came from Lux Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and returning investors Founders Fund, Ramp, Dylan Field and Elad Gil.
Tatic claims the funds will position it to help enterprises navigate the evolving regulatory landscape when it comes to financial compliance.
The FinTech company claims to save businesses time by seamlessly integrating with the rest of the accounting stack.
Its platform unifies crypto financial activity across wallets and exchanges to work with traditional accounting software like QuickBooks.
AIKON raises $10m to build tools for Open Rights Exchange
AIKON, a B2B partner building solutions on the Open Rights Exchange (ORE) Network, has raised $10m in its Series A.
The round was led by institutional blockchain investment firm Morgan Creek Digital. Blizzard the Avalanche also joined the Series A round.
Participation also came from Up2 Opportunity Fund, Hestia Investments, and Yugen Partners, as well as follow-on investments from Mighty Capital, Alpha Edison, and Think+ Ventures. All these funds also purchased ORE Tokens in order to take a stake in the ORE Network.
This capital injection will enable AIKON to grow its team and meet rising demand for its services.
In line with the deal, Morgan Creek Capital Management CEO Mark Yusko and Morgan Creek Digital venture partner W. Scott Stornetta will join the AIKON board of directors.
AIKON is a B2B partner that builds solutions on the ORE Network, which is a blockchain that allows developers to build cross-chain solutions and is powered by the utility token, ORE Token.
The company’s mission is to accelerate blockchain adoption through its multi-chain onboarding solutions. Compatibility with Avalanche, a proof-of-stake chain, will be added for users of ORE ID and ORE Network.
AIKON’s multi-chain authentication and wallet creation solution ORE ID is integrated into businesses and decentralised applications, including AllianceBlock, RFox, NFT Battle Miners, EarnFi and more.
ORE ID is actively used in 12 countries and the company is on target to grow ORE ID users to 400,000 by the end of 2022.
6clicks raises $10m for its AI-powered GRC platform
6clicks, an AI-powered GRC platform, has collected $10m in its Series A funding round, which was led by Centerstone Capital.
This capital injection will help 6clicks accelerate its growth through investments into its technology. It also plans to bolster its global customer base and partnership network.
Over the past year, the RegTech company has quadrupled its user base to over 3,000 and partners to 80.
Through AI and advanced reporting, 6clicks helps organisations transform their governance, risk and compliance framework, obligations and processes.
The company claims that its success has been driven by its unlimited user licensing model, integrated content, AI engine and powerful reporting capabilities.
Its AI-powered GRC platform can be deployed within hours and its Hub & Spoke architecture means companies can deploy GRC capability for distributed teams, business functions or operating entities in minutes.
Hong Kong-based PayTech KPay closes $10m
Hong Kong-headquartered PayTech startup KPay Merchant Service has raised $10m in a funding round.
Established in late 2020, KPay is a one-stop digital payment and business management solutions platform. It supports micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and has amassed over 12,000 local merchants since its beginnings.
This capital injection will enable the company to bolster its product development efforts and bolster its regional expansion. It plans to enter the Taiwan and Singapore markets later this year.
KPay is also preparing for institutional round financing.
Last year, the company launched its first electronic payment service to provide a one-stop transaction payment solution to merchants. The Smart POS Terminal accepts up to 14 major payment channels, including Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay.
The company is also planning to launch its online payment gateway in the fourth quarter of the year. Merchants will be able to view consolidated data from different payment channels so they can monitor their business performance and identify sales trends.
Alongside the Smart POS Terminal, KPay recently released its KConnect cloud business management tool platform and the KFund financing service product. KConnect is a B2B ecosystem with SaaS tools to support membership management systems, retail systems, accounting and bookkeeping systems, inventory management and more.
Thriday set to thrive with $6m raise
Thriday, a financial management platform for small businesses, has raised $6m in a pre-Series A funding round.
According to a report from Startupdaily, the round was led by NAB Ventures, the VC arm of the business bank, alongside “significant participation” from existing investor Lempriere Capital.
The Australian-based company is on a mission to save small business time and money by automating financial admin. Thriday describes itself as “like having a bookkeeper, account and transaction account all in one.”
Thriday co founder and CEO Michael Nuciforo said the platform has developed a unique product that automates banking, accounting, and tax for small-to-medium businesses and has seen huge national demand from those business owners, “We created Thriday to simplify the lives of small business owners.
“By combining banking, accounting and tax into one solution, we’ve built the first all-in-one financial management platform, fundamentally redesigning how small businesses manage their financial admin and saving them hours each week. This is a ground-breaking new category of product.”
Nuciforo added Australia’s 2.3 million small-to-medium businesses employ over half the country’s workforce and account for a third of GDP, but are burdened by the significant amount of time and cost involved in managing their finances.
In fact, research conducted by Thriday revealed that financial admin was the most disliked activity in running a business and business owners waste over 42 days a year in managing their financial affairs.
Bridge Money to help Americans earn supplemental income
Bridge Money, a FinTech looking to empower lower income Americans earn supplemental income, has raised $5.8m in seed funding.
The round was led by TMV. Founder Collective, Kapor Capital, Acumen America, Bread & Butter Ventures, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Plug and Play Ventures, Basecamp Fund (Alumni Ventures) and Ulu Ventures, among others, also participated.
Founded in 2019, Bridge enables its members to “fight back inflation” and generate meaningful supplemental income.
Members earn money by linking an existing debit card or bank account in the Bridge app and sharing fully consented and anonymized data with third-party businesses through various in-app money making activities, such as cashback, surveys, ad viewing, referrals, and raffles, among others.
The most active Bridge members earn over $200 a month using the app, and earnings can be deposited directly into members’ bank accounts.
Vida Capital backs InsurTech Stere
Stere, a capacity trading platform serving embedded insurance partners and MGAs, has closed a $5m funding round with Vida Capital
Stere’s digital insurance ecosystem aims to help businesses find insurance and reinsurance capacity on a local or global level through its unique trading platform.
The company also provides digital capabilities and transformation services using a library of APIs that give embedded insurance partners, InsurTech’s, MGAs and others access to potential business channels to launch insurance programmes.
Stere said its capacity selection engine improves programme administrators’ success rate by pairing human intuition with state-of-art technology. The company said it is a combination that eliminates manual capacity placement pain points and inefficient post-placement steps plaguing the industry that ends up cutting carrier and reinsurer scouting time by at least 50%.
Stere also works with reinsurers to create efficiency gains by digitising their processes and making it easier and faster to place business.
Stere said the funding will allow it to further expand its capacity trading platform, a one-stop-shop for businesses to build and launch insurance programmes with capacity partners.
Checkmate lands $5m seed funding
Checkmate, a personalised smart shopping tool, has scored $5m in a seed funding round headed by Fuel Capital.
Also taking part in the round were Blackbird Ventures, Susa Ventures, Hyper, Scribble Ventures, f7 Ventures, Kevin Johnson – former CEO of Ebates at Rakuten – and many others.
Checkmate claims its smart shopping tool makes it easy for users to discover brands, apply savings and manage their orders post-purchase.
The company added that its solution is the first that gathers all the best deals from a user’s personal email and the web and automatically applies them at checkout to help smart shoppers save the most they can.
Checkmate said it functions as a powerful conversion engine that helps businesses attract targeted audiences and build long-term relationships with their customers.
In a testing phase, users engaged with Checkmate 3.5 times per week and saved more than 27%, on average, when purchasing, versus roughly 15% with traditional savings apps.
Checkmate claims it will use the new funding to accelerate its product development and customer growth.
Yonder holds private beta, closes pre-seed for employee benefits
Yonder, which is on a mission to build the new standard for global employee benefits, has closed its pre-seed round and launched its private beta.
The pre-seed round closed on €2.6m and was co-led by Northzone and Frontline.
There were several other investors to join the pre-seed. These include Cocoa, Broadstone, Tiny VC, Uncommon Projects, Nomad Capital, Truesight Ventures and Foreword VC.
Angel investors also participated, including former Workday CTO David Clarke, Pointy co-founder Mark Cummins, Evervault CEO Shane Curran, Utmost CEO Annarai O’Toole, Zendesk COO Europe Peter Lorent and many others.
With the funds, the company hopes to accelerate its product development and geographic expansion.
Yonder stylises itself as the simple and borderless way to enrol and manage employees in local health and retirement benefits. It transforms the complex, offline and paper-heavy process with a simple and automated system.
Frost gears up for growth with £1.1m funding
Frost, an e-money institution helping people take back control over their finances, has raised a total £1.1m in funding and named Andrew Jennings as CSO.
Frost’s app allows individuals to receive real-time updates and notifications on their spending, which the company said gives them more control over their money and full visibility over any funding goals.
As part of the seed round, Andrew Jennings, managing director of Osun Capital has joined Frost as chief strategy officer.
Jennings will work closely alongside co-founders Pawel Oltuszyk and Edyta Sliwinska to further drive the company’s exciting development plans.
Specifically, Frost said he is working to guide the company’s fundraising efforts whilst also supporting the broader Frost team to improve the functionality of its app, as well as helping to attract future investors.
Since launching in May 2022, the innovative e-wallet provider has raised £1.1 million. Notably, in July the business closed a major seed funding round with key investors and additions to the team.
Frost said its July funding round helped it to quickly gear up for the next stage of growth, enabling the company to take on more developers, as well as providing staff with the tools to further elevate service levels.
At the same time, the company said it is continuing to work towards its plans to reach net zero carbon emissions.
The company is planning another fundraising round for the autumn.
Peachy bags £1.5m for “juicy” alternative to health insurance
Peachy, a health InsurTech startup looking to relieve the strain on the National Health Service (NHS), has raised £1.5m.
According to a report from UK Tech News, the funding came from a list of angel investors from the world of private healthcare and insurance, including former executives at Bupa and the Chartered Institute of Insurance.
Founded in 2021, Peachy’s all-in-one platform gives customers access to private health coverage, find local specialists and have digital access to GPs via phone and video chat.
Customers can also build custom health plans and make claims through the Peachy app.
Glasgow FinTech Guiide bags funding for retirement platform
Guiide, a Glasgow-based FinTech focussed on retirement finance planning, has raised £200,000 and welcomed three additions to its team.
According to a report from Financial IT, the funding came from existing investors.
The additions to the Guiide team include two new directors, Clare Hawkins, a former NHS trust chief executive, who will lead on governance and Stewart Lawrie, an experienced financial systems developer, who will lead the company’s development team for the future.
Additionally, Mike Robins, former partner at 3i, who has experience in capital funding and small business growth, has joined Guiide as a board adviser.
Guiide was built and designed with the sole aim of helping improve retirement outcomes at no cost.
The Glasgow FinTech said pension freedoms are great but leave many with a large risk of running out of money. People should take advice, but most aren’t. So given this, Guiide believes people need the right tools to plan and manage their retirement income themselves, rather than just “wing it” on their own.
The funding will be used to support two new initiatives. The first of which is Guiide+, launching soon.
This is an addition to the company’s free online service for registered users. The centrepiece of this development will be a full retirement dashboard showing real-time values for a person’s pensions, and all other sources of income and savings.
The dashboard will also be accompanied by Guiide’s tracking tools showing how a person’s long-term plan is affected as they draw income and as their live pension pot values vary over time.
Guiide+ will also be modelling and supporting more complex and detailed retirement income inputs, including equity release, guaranteed income, and partner income.
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