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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
U.K.-based fintech SumUp has raised $1.6 billion (€1.5 billion) in a private credit debt transaction.
The deal was led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and will enable SumUp to refinance debt and pursue international growth opportunities.
SumUp won Best of Show at FinovateEurope 2013, a year after the company was founded.
In a deal led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, U.K.-based fintech SumUp has secured $1.6 billion (€1.5 billion) in a private credit debt transaction. The financing will enable SumUp to refinance current debt as well as take advantage of growth opportunities around the world.
The deal gives SumUp a set of new investors: AllianceBernstein, Apollo Global Management, Arini, Deutsche Bank AG, Fortress Investment Group, SilverRock Financial Services, and Vista Credit Partners. It also comes six months after the company raised $307 million (€285 million) in equity and debt in a round led by Sixth Street Growth. Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, Fin Capital, and Liquidity Capital also participated in that financing.
In a statement SumUp CFO Hermoine McKee pointed to an evolution in the company’s “requirements from capital markets” in explaining SumUp’s most recent fundraising effort. “Lenders understand and support our mission to create a world where everyone can build a thriving business, and recognize our successful methods of achieving, sustaining, and balancing profitability and growth,” McKee said. “This new financing will support us as we focus on providing best-in-class support experiences for our merchants and giving them the products and tools they need to succeed.”
To this end, SumUp noted in a statement that the company has generated positive EBITDA since December 2022, as well as achieving a “decade of sustained growth.” The company currently counts four million businesses among its partners, who rely on SumUp for services ranging from payments and order processing to customer acquisition and money management.
“SumUp has always enjoyed solid and steady support from the investor community, and it’s this continued backing which has enabled us to grow sustainably over the past 10+ years, serving millions of merchants of all sizes globally,” McKee said.
Founded in 2012, SumUp won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2013. The company began this year with its SumUp Beacon event which introduced merchants to a range of new SumUp solutions. These new offerings included SumUp Business Account,SumUp Invoices, SumUp Kiosk, and SumUp Online Store. SumUp also unveiled a pair of new Point of Sale (POS) solutions: POS Lite to enhance over-the-counter sales, and POS Pro to provide enhanced inventory management.
This year’s FinovateSpring arrives at an interesting time for fintech and financial services. For the first time in decades, a new emerging technology – AI – promises to accelerate technological innovation in our space in a way that is truly generational. At the same time, governments and regulators are struggling to keep up with an ever-shifting, ever-growing landscape of financial products and services. Add to this the sudden shift from an easy money, ZIRP-oriented world to one that is preoccupied with geopolitics and inflationary threats not seen since the 1970s.
Our spring conference – May 21 through May 23 – will tackle many of these issues and more that are driving decision-making in fintech and financial services this year. Here is a brief survey of the kinds of conversations, keynotes, and commentaries we have in store.
It’s (Still) All About AI
It may have been an underwhelming first quarter for fintech funding. But for those fintechs who have effectively embraced AI – especially generative AI – investors have remained eager to engage.
FinovateSpring will feature multiple sessions on AI and financial services starting on Day One. These include our Out of the Box Keynote Address from author Brian Solis who will explain how to determine which emerging technologies really matter to financial services providers and why. Day One will also feature a special address from Intelygenz USA President Chris Brown on practical examples of how applied AI and hyper-automation can turn cumbersome, error-prone manual processes into fully-digitized operations in weeks rather than months or years.
Later in the day, we will feature more instances of AI at work in financial services – particularly the role of AI agents and the importance of ethical AI. And we’ll finish the day with a rousing Hot or Not Expert Debate specifically on GenAI and how banks and financial services companies can move beyond the hype to learn where the technology can be most effectively deployed.
Behavior, Financial Inclusion, and Human-centricity
One of the ironies of the “AI Era” in fintech and financial services is the way it has encouraged us to look more closely at the human behaviors, biases, and beliefs that drive financial decision-making. This development connects a number of key trends in financial services – from behavioral economics to financial inclusion to the importance of human-centricity when using technology to solve problems.
This year at FinovateSpring, we will address these ideas through sessions such as our Executive Briefing on Financial Inclusion. This discussion on “the new customer base” focuses on areas of innovation – such as investing, credit building and repair, and savings – that underserved populations often struggle to access. A keynote address later in the day looks at the psychology of financial decision-making directly as a way to help financial services companies better design and market their products to customers.
On Day Two, Danielle Shamos, Chief Revenue Officer with Revive Media, will give a Special Address on maximizing brand impact and the strategic use of tools like Amazon Ads to help financial services brands boost visibility and increase demand. We will also have a session on what banks and fintechs need to know about the worldview of Gen Z.
Our Women in Fintech Briefing is back, looking at how technology, the pandemic, and new ways of working have changed the way that companies large and small attract and retain female talent. The session will also examine what is necessary to continue to drive change and to support development for women at different stages of their lives.
Deposits, Lending, and More: Winning the Battle for Banks
In some ways, FinovateSpring saves some of its most potent conversation for the final day of the conference. For all the promise of AI and the opportunities of financial inclusion, the financial services space remains a hotly contested arena in which more businesses are competing for the dollars – and the deposits – of what often feels like a shrinking number of business and retail customers.
What can banks and fintechs do to attract and engage customers at a time of unprecedented competition – from Big Tech, Big Retail, and their own rivals in the space?
Day 3 of FinovateSpring takes this question head on in a series of keynotes and power panels first thing in the morning. Cornerstone Advisors’ Managing Director Sam Kilmer will lead a keynote address on how banks can innovate to drive revenue in a challenging economic environment. The morning also features a power panel on deposit generation growth strategies for banks, and keynote on why the secret to digital growth may have less to do with technology and tactics and more to do with a “future mindset” that is shared throughout the organization.
As always we will also present our All Star Analyst panel and Investor’s Where the Smart Money is Investing Now sessions on Day Two of FinovateSpring. Another big feature of FinovateSpring is our Credit Union Spotlight. This session is designed to give credit unions a special opportunity to meet, network, and foster greater collaboration between credit unions and fintechs. We’ll share more information about the spotlight here on the Finovate blog in the days to come.
Canada-based Beem Credit Union has partnered with VeriPark to become the most “digital-first, people-first” credit union in the province of Vancouver.
VeriPark offers an Intelligence Customer Experience Suite that provides tools to enhance branch automation, lending, and customer engagement.
Headquartered in London, VeriPark made its Finovate debut at FinovateMiddleEast 2019 in Dubai.
The latest fintech news from Canada involves a May-December relationship between a credit union that’s less than a year old and a fintech that’s been around since the dot.com days.
British Columbia, Vancouver-based Beem Credit Union has announced a partnership with VeriPark, a software developer based in the U.K. The goal of the partnership is to help the credit union, which was founded earlier this year, become the most “people-first, digital-first credit union in the province.”
Founded in 1998, VeriPark offers an Intelligence Customer Experience Suite that has enabled its customers to achieve 98.5% reduction in cost-to-serve, 55% more sales, 20% greater satisfaction, and 45% more profits. The suite includes VeriChannel, the company’s omni-channel delivery offering, VeriTouch, a customer engagement/CRM solution; branch automation courtesy of VeriPark’s VeriBranch offering; and loan origination and servicing technology via the company’s VeriLoan solution. Institutions in retail banking, corporate/SME banking, private banking/wealth management, and insurance are among those taking advantage of VeriPark’s technology to enhance their operations.
With more than 160,000 members, Beem CU was formed late last year via a merger between Interior Savings and Gulf & Fraser. The merger went into effect on the first of January and the combined institution will boast a network of 55 branches and 14 insurance locations in the region. Beem CU has $10 billion in total assets; Brian Harris, who was CEO of Interior Savings, will take on the role of Chief Executive with Beem CU.
VeriPark made its Finovate debut at FinovateMiddleEast in 2019 in Dubai. At the conference, the company demoed its cloud-based, SaaS service Customer Insights that enables organizations to gather data from a variety of sources to better understand the preferences of their customers.
Earlier this year, the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) announced that it was going live with a new corporate banking CRM solution built by VeriPark. NBK now benefits from customer profile, sales, and prospect management tools, a 360 degree single view of corporate customers, as well as customer retention solutions. The bank is the largest financial institution in Kuwait with 68 branches in the country and a total of 143 branches around the globe.
VeriPark is headquartered in London. Ozkan Erener is CEO.
Identity decisioning platform Alloy teamed up with SME data intelligence innovator Coris.
Courtesy of the partnership, Alloy customers will be able to access Coris’ Merchant Profiler and Corshield solutions directly from within the Alloy platform.
Alloy introduced itself to Finovate audiences at FinDEVr Silicon Valley in 2016.
Alloy, the identity decisioning platform, announced a new partnership with SMB data intelligence company Coris. Via the partnership, Alloy customers will be able to access Coris’ solutions to automate SMB onboarding, underwriting, and fraud prevention.
“We’re excited to partner with Coris on improving the SMB risk management process for builders of financial products,” Alloy GM of Partner Solutions Brian Bender said. “Having a wide array of data at their disposal is critical for banks and fintechs to manage identity risk across the customer lifecycle.”
Alloy’s 500+ customers will be able to access a pair of Coris’ solutions directly from within the Alloy platform: MerchantProfiler, Coris’ KYB and small business intelligence product; and Corshield, Coris’ SMB-specific fraud model. Merchant Profiler enables fintechs and software companies to onboard, underwrite, and monitor their SMB customers via GPT-4 powered SMB industry classification. The solution also provides automated analysis of SMB websites, third party consumer reviews, and more; as well as real-time KYB, including Secretary of State business verification, sanctions screening, and TIN matching. Merchant Profiler also offers adverse media insights to see if there is significant negative news or information about a business or its beneficial owners.
CorShield fights business impersonation fraud and first party fraud at the point of sign-up. The solution automatically triangulates known data on SMBs and cross-references applicant data against the known information. CorShield then generates a fraud score to assess the likelihood of fraud and shares the primary reasons for the fraud score with the user.
One firm using CorShield claimed that the solution helped them instantly approve 90% of business applications. The company also said that Coris’ SMB intelligence data has lowered the firm’s application review time by more than 75%.
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Coris has helped its business customers verify more than 150,000 SMBs and provided data on more than 330 million global SMBs. The company secured $3.7 million in funding earlier this year in a round co-led by Lux Capital and Exponent Founders Capital. Y Combinator, Blank Ventures, WePay Co-Founder Bill Clerico, and Mercury CEO and Co-Founder Immad Akhund also participated.
Alloy introduced itself to Finovate audiences at FinDEVr Silicon Valley in 2016. The company returned to the Finovate stage in 2022 to demo its open payment hub, CHUCK, and its gifting platform Social Money, launched in partnership with Prizeout. Earlier this year, Alloy announced a partnership with embedded finance platform Liberis. The partnership will enable Liberis to integrate automated compliance verifications from Alloy directly into the funding application process.
Headquartered in New York, Alloy was founded in 2002. The company has raised more than $207 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Alloy includes Lightspeed Ventures, Avenir Growth Capital, and Canapi Ventures among its investors.
Investment and innovation are defining the wealth management space as the week begins. LA-based wealth management platform Altruist enters the week with $169 million more in capital, courtesy of a Series E round led by Iconiq Growth. Meanwhile, JP Morgan Chase announced that it has deployed generative AI to enhance its thematic investment offering.
Be sure to check back all week long for more fintech news!
Crypto
Revolutlaunches its stand-alone crypto exchange for professional crypto traders, Revolut X.
KeyBanklaunchesKeyVAM, a virtual account management solution powered by Qolo for treasury management clients who have complex demand deposit account structures.
Regtech
Global RegTech consolidator Corlyticsacquires Deloitte UK’s RegTech platform.
Embedded finance
Issuer-processor Paymentologyteams up with Diamond Trust Bank to bring embedded finace solutions to customers in Kenya.
Accelerators and incubators
Ally Financiallaunches its Ally Innovation Challenge to promote solutions leveraging Responsible AI.
A few days ago, we highlighted the $25.7 million (€24.1 million) investment secured by Danish challenger bank Lunar. Also this week, we noted partnership news from Denmark-based real estate tokenization platform – and FinovateSpring alum – DigiShares.
With all this Danish fintech news, we are devoting this week’s edition of Finovate Global to the fintech scene in Denmark: a Nordic country with a population of nearly six million and a per capita GDP that’s among the top ten in the world. We’ll also highlight some of the Danish fintechs that have demonstrated their innovations on the Finovate stage.
Danish fintech unicorn Pleo raises €40m in debt financing
Pleo enables companies to centralize their business spending – expenses, reimbursements, invoices, and more. Pleo also offers physical, temporary, virtual, and vendor company cards to help businesses better track and manage spending. Pleo integrates readily with common business tools such as NetSuite, Xero, and Quickbooks, making its solution a viable option for companies ranging from start-ups to enterprises. With more than 30,000 customers using its spend management platform, Pleo notes that its technology saves administrative teams 138 hours every year and has a satisfaction rate of 90%.
“We are delighted to announce our partnership with HSBC Innovation Banking. Starting at €40 million, the debt financing available to us can extend based on future requirements – which will expand our existing reach even further into more countries, enable us to increase limits and offer more currencies,” Pleo VP of Credit and Treasury Amit Kahana said. “Beyond this milestone partnership and imminent launch in the Netherlands, Pleo is expecting to see exciting developments over the coming 12 months as Pleo prepare(s) to launch in even more markets.”
Pleo initially earned its unicorn status in the summer of 2021, courtesy of a $150 million investment that drove the company’s valuation to $1.7 billion. Pleo secured an additional $200 million in funding in an extension of its Series C round in December of that year, giving the company a valuation of $4.7 billion.
Ageras raises €82m in oversubscribed private placement round
From its origins in 2012 as an online marketplace to help small businesses connect with financial professionals like accountants and bookkeepers, Denmark-based fintech Ageras has grown into a more comprehensive financial services provider, offering cloud-based accounting services to more than 300,000 small businesses in Europe.
“We want to make it easier to be a small business in an increasingly difficult administrative and regulatory landscape by offering a fully integrated platform where companies can manage their banking, accounting, and tax in one financial cockpit,” Anderson said.
The investment takes Ageras’ total equity capital to more than $231 million, according to Crunchbase. The funds will also support Ageras’ plans for new acquisitions, with Anderson admitting that there are a number of potential targets already under consideration.
Ageras operates in more than 100 countries and boasts more than a million users of its technology. Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, Ageras was acquired by Investcorp, which took a minority stake in the company in 2017.
Here come Finovate’s Danish alums
Over the years, Finovate has been proud to showcase a large number of innovative fintechs from Northern Europe, including a handful from Denmark. Here are some of the Danish fintechs that have demoed their innovations on the Finovate stage.
Cardlay Payment Systems – FS24 – Cardlay Payment Systems will make its Finovate debut later this month at FinovateSpring in San Francisco. The company offers a white-label card and expense management solution, Cardlay Expense, that delivers an exceptional, real-time experience for cardholders.
Subaio – FEU22 – Subaio made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin, Germany, and returned to the Finovate stage two years later for FinovateEurope 2022 in London. The company helps financial companies generate new revenue streams by identifying recurring payments and insights, and delivering different use cases based on this data.
Aiia – FEU21 – Aiia demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2021 in London. The leading open banking platform in Northern Europe, the company provides open banking services to a sizable number of financial instituitons including Lunar, Pleo, DNB, and Santander Consumer Bank. Aiia was acquired by Mastercard in 2021.
DigiShares – FS21 – DigiShares introduced itself to Finovate audiences at FinovateSpring 2021 in San Francisco. The company offers a white-label tokenization platform for real estate, bringing both automation and liquidity to the property market.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Asia-Pacific
Vietnamese fintech startup M_Service, operator of mobile e-wallet Momo, secured $28 million (ÂŁ 19.7 million) in funding.
A new inclusive instant payment system (IIPS), Higala, launched in the Philippines.
Fintech Australia and the Thai Fintech Association signed a Memorandum of Understanding to foster fintech capabilities between the two countries.
Sub-Saharan Africa
The Central Bank of Nigeria paused account opening for new customers at four fintechs: Kuda Bank, Moniepoint, OPay, and Palmpay.
Digital financial solutions provider Payless Africa launched in Kenya.
FX and cross-border payments provider Crown Agents Bank teamed up with business platform Invest Africa.
Central and Eastern Europe
Norway-based digital identity solution provider Signicat became the first international aggregator to integrate mojeID Poland into its digital identity portfolio.
Romanian fintech Finqware teamed up with FwF to help European companies automate financial operations.
Lithuanian fintech Softloans raised $1 million (€1 million) in pre-seed funding.
Middle East and Northern Africa
National Bank of Iraq (NBI) went live with core banking and payments technology from Temenos.
Egypt’s Bokraraised $4.6 million in pre-seed funding for its platform that offers investment products via asset backed securities.
Central and Southern Asia
Bangladesh-based Eastern Bank (EBL) teamed up with Mastercard to launch a dual currency prepaid card for medical tourists in India.
Indian cross-border payments platform BriskPE secured $5 million in seed funding.
Bank of Thailand launched QR code cross-border payments to India.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Brazil-based banking-as-a-service company QI Tech became the country’s latest unicorn after securing an extension of its $200 million Series B round from last October.
Uruguyan cross-border payment platform dLocal partnered with online English-learning platform Open English.
Brazilian fintech Nubanklaunched its new banking experience Nubank+, offering cashback, streaming video courtesy of a partnership with Max, and more.
The regulatory landscape for companies innovating in fintech and financial services is complex and ever-changing. Whether a company is developing solutions in the crypto space or seeking to take advantage of the opportunities in open banking, open finance, or Banking-as-a-Service, a comprehensive understanding of the regulatory environment is critical for success.
In its latest series of video conversations from our sister publication Fintech Futures, Fintech Founders interviews six industry professionals – all Founders and Co-Founders – to hear from them what they believe will be the biggest regulatory challenges for fintech start-ups in the coming years.
Check out our conversations on compliance in fintech and financial services featuring:
Cloud banking services provider Blend raised $150 million in new funding from PE firm Haveli Investments.
The investment comes in the form of convertible preferred stock with a zero percent coupon.
Blend Labs is an alumni of both FinovateSpring and our developers conference FinDEVr Silicon Valley, presenting at both events in 2016.
Cloud banking services provider Blend has secured an investment of $150 million from technology-focused private equity firm Haveli Investments.
The investment comes in the form of convertible preferred stock with a zero percent coupon. Blend will use most of the capital – approximately $145 million – to repay amounts payable under its current credit agreement. The remainder of the investment will be used for general corporate purposes. Overall, the investment is designed to fortify Blend’s financial position and balance sheet, paving the way for long-term growth and value creation.
“This partnership with Haveli reflects confidence in Blend’s continued journey to transform financial services and is an important show of faith in our growth strategy,” Blend Co-founder and Head Nima Ghamsari said. “We look forward to working with Haveli to advance our goal of driving innovation in the space and delivering lasting value for our customers and shareholders.”
Blend made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2016. The company returned to the stage later that year to demo its technology at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley. In the years since, Blend has grown into a major cloud banking services provider helping financial services firms process $1.7 trillion in loan applications in 2022, and capturing more than 23% of mortgage market share in the second half of that year. So far in 2024, Blend has forged partnerships with Fannie Mae, Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union, Citizens Bank, and Michigan Schools and Government Credit Union (MSGCU).
As part of this week’s investment, Brian Sheth, Chief Investment Officer with Haveli Investments will join Blend’s board of directors. In a statement, Sheth praised the company as a market leader in providing mortgage and consumer banking software for banks, credit unions, and other lenders. “We have known the Blend team for several years and have been impressed with their innovation and vision,” Sheth said. “With a blue-chip customer base and an improved balance sheet, we believe Blend is well positioned to succeed with its modern, next-gen platform.”
This year FinovateSpring will feature eight startups that are winners of our Sustainability & Inclusion Scholarship program. The program is designed to showcase underrepresented founders and startups who are creating innovative solutions to combat climate change, promote diversity, and create financial inclusion.
To be eligible for the Finovate Sustainability & Inclusion Scholarship program, fintech and technology companies must have less than $7 million in funding. There are five categories in the program: environmental, social, governance, BIPOC founded/owned, and female-founded/owned.
Here are the Sustainability & Inclusion Scholarship winners for FinovateSpring 2024:
Blee – Scholarship winner in the Governance category. Headquartered in New York and founded in 2022, Blee helps organizations move to market quicker while increasing revenue and minimizing compliance risk. LinkedIn.
Endaoment – Scholarship winner in the Social category. Headquartered in San Francisco, California and founded in 2020, Endaoment empowers nonprofit organizations to accept donations in crypto and stock without having to accept the asset directly. LinkedIn.
Instarails – Scholarship winner in the Female Founded/Owned category. Headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia and founded in 2022, Instarails enables banks and other organizations to offer instant, inexpensive, and inclusive payments to boost revenue, generate growth, and pave the way for entry into new markets. LinkedIn.
Kobalt Labs – Scholarship winner in the Female Founded/Owned category. Headquartered in New York, NY, and founded in 2023, Kobalt Labs helps fintechs and financial institutions accelerate and strengthen third-party diligence, facilitating revenue-generating partnerships and improving operational efficiency – without increasing headcout. LinkedIn.
LiquidTrust – Scholarship winner in the Female Founded/Owned category. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, and founded in 2019, LiquidTrust enables banks to offer an improved customer experience to their business customers, grow non-interest bearing deposits, and generate additional revenue. LinkedIn.
Nav.it – Scholarship winner in the Female Founded/Owned category. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded in 2019, Nav.it integrates with existing HR systems to help organizations grow their businesses by enhancing employee financial wellness. LinkedIn.
Parlay Protocol – Scholarship winner in the Female Founded/Owned category. Headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, and founded in 2022, Parlay Protocol offers technology that boosts the odds that an applicant will secure access to small business funding while helping banks gain new customers and attract new borrowers. LinkedIn.
Remynt – Scholarship winner in the BIPOC Founded/Owned category. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, and founded in 2022, Remynt helps creditors achieve higher recoveries and recapture defaulted consumers as customers as their financial position improves. LinkedIn.
FinovateSpring (May 21-23) is only a few weeks away! Take advantage of big early-bird savings on your registration when you buy your ticket by May 10.
Seattle, Washington-based Cloudentity has been acquired by access management firm SecureAuth.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Cloudentity has raised $13 million in funding.
Cloudentity made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2022 in New York.
Access management and authentication company SecureAuth has completed its acquisition and integration of Cloudentity. Announced earlier this year, SecureAuth’s acquisition of the Seattle, Washington-based company will help position the firm as a market leader in the Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) space.
Cloudentity, which made its Finovate debut in 2022 at FinovateFall, is a specialist in advanced SaaS-delivered access management technology. The company supports both Fine-Grained Authorization (FGA) and Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B2B2C) use cases, and also provides support for advanced authorization and consent specifications including Financial-grade API (FAPI) 2.0, which powers Open Finance communities around the world.
Integrating Cloudentity’s orchestration and FGA capabilities will complement SecureAuth’s suite of identity security solutions such as its AI/ML Risk Engine and Passwordless MFA technologies. The combined functionality will enable businesses to upgrade their customer experiences with enhanced security and compliance – with less friction.
“With the acquisition of Cloudentity, SecureAuth is poised to revolutionize the CIAM market,” SecureAuth Chief Operating Officer Kelly Wenzel said. “Cloudentity was built from the ground up as a pure cloud-native deep identity solution that can be implemented on-premise, via public cloud or private cloud, as a single-tenant or multi-tenant deployment within hours. This powerful combination of deployment flexibility and deep capabilities allows us to serve our customers in implementing identity security without sacrificing customer experience.”
As part of the transaction, Cloudentity CEO Brook Lovatt will join SecureAuth as Chief Product Officer. Lovatt said in a statement that the combined company will help drive innovation in the identity security space. “Together, these technologies provide a comprehensive CIAM solution set with an extremely short time-to-value that enables organizations to quickly and easily deliver exceptional digital experiences, while maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance.”
Cloudentity was founded in 2001. Prior to its acquisition, the company had raised $13 million in funding. Forgepoint Capital and WestWave Capital are among the firm’s investors.
International banking technology company Veritran announced a collaboration with financial messaging services company Swift.
As part of the collaboration, Veritran has joined the Swift Partner Programme.
Headquartered in Argentina, Veritran made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2021.
A new collaboration between Veritran and financial messaging services innovator Swift will empower financial institutions to provide an enhanced and streamlined cross-border payments experience for customers. As part of the collaboration, Veritran has joined the Swift Partner Programme, which will give its customers access to a variety of Swift solutions to increase the transparency and security of cross-border payments.
“Collaborations such as this are improving the experience for those sending payments cross-border, while also increasing transparency and security to improve the ecosystem as a whole,” Swift Global Head of API Acceleration Juan Carlos Botrán said. “It’s vital that industry players work together in this way to overcome increasing fragmentation in the cross-border payments landscape.”
An international banking technology company, Veritran will benefit from access to Swift solutions such as the Swift GPI Tracker, Payment Pre-validation, and SwiftRef. Swift GPI Tracker enables users to check the status of cross-border payments. Payment Pre-validation validates beneficiary data before the payment is sent. SwiftRef is Swift’s payments reference data solution, which streamlines payment operations and helps users easily find the data sets they need in a single location.
“This agreement is designed to align with the changing market demands, prioritizing the need for speed and flexibility with a more transparent and consistent pricing structure for users, the retail sector, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large corporates,” Veritran CCO Marcelo Fondacaro said. “At Veritran, we’re fully committed to leading the charge towards an innovative future in international payments.”
Founded in 2005, Veritran made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019 in New York. The company returned to the Finovate stage two years later for FinovateFall 2021. At the conference, Veritran demonstrated how to leverage its enterprise low-code platform to build solutions like its white-label digital wallet. The platform provides optimum time-to-market, boosting development times by 33%; a memorable UX; unlimited integration and scalability; and bank grade security.
Veritran maintains headquarters in Spain and the U.S., as well as in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The company has a major presence in Latin America, with offices in Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, and Paraguay.
White-label tokenization platform for real estate DigiShares has partnered with Czech online real estate investing platform InvestBay.
InvestBay will leverage DigiShares’ technology to tokenize real estate.
Headquartered in Denmark, DigiShares made its Finovate debut at our online fintech conference in the spring of 2021.
Denmark-based white-label tokenization platform for real estate DigiShares has partnered with Czech online real estate investing platform InvestBay. Courtesy of the partnership, InvestBay will integrate DigiShares’ white label, real estate tokenization technology with its own platform that facilitates fractional property investments.
“We build InvestBay in such a way that it is similar to real ownership but in smaller fractions,” InvestBay CEO and Founder Daniel Rajnoch explained. “Investors benefit from two potential revenue streams: rental income and capital value growth over time. It is also hassle-free ownership, because InvestBay will take care of everything with their partners. This includes finding guests, maintenance, cleaning, checking guests in and out – all the usual headaches of fully owning a property.”
InvestBay’s “crowd-owning” model enables investment properties to be co-owned by tens or even hundreds of micro-investors. Geared toward holiday properties in Europe, investors can participate with as little as $107 (€100) and enjoy the use of the properties on preferential terms. Adding tokenization, according to Rajnoch, creates a “vehicle for enabling liquidity and creating equal opportunity access to this investment sector for smaller retail investors.”
Founded in 2018, DigiShares made its Finovate debut at our online fintech conference in the spring of 2021. At the event, the company demoed its white-label tokenization platform that digitizes and automates the processes involved in the financing of real estate projects. The platform enables users to fractionalize assets, companies, and funds down to $107 (€100); allows investors to pay in both fiat and stablecoin; and facilitates P2P and wallet-to-wallet trading without counterparty risk.
“We are very excited about collaborating with InvestBay on democratization of real estate investment and happy that they see our white label tokenization platform as a good fit for their requirements,” DigiShares CEO and Co-Founder Claus Skaaning said. “Together with InvestBay we share the vision that one day everyone will be able to invest in attractive real estate assets to longer term help close the global wealth gap.”
DigiShares’ partnership with InvestBay is the company’s sixth collaboration this year. DigiShares began 2024 teaming up with Danish real estate developer Coreestate and urban mobility solutions provider Custowner Mobility. Also this year, the company expanded its partnership with public permissioned blockchain network Polymesh (first announced in December), teamed up with Spanish proptech startup Equito App, and announced that it was collaborating with Polygon to create a decentralized ID framework for tokenization.
