Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Ripple Acquires Metaco for $250 Million

Ripple Acquires Metaco for $250 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Ripple
  • Ripple acquired Metaco for $250 million.
  • The acquisition will help Ripple enter into the crypto custody market, enabling clients to custody, issue, and settle any type of tokenized asset.
  • Both BNY Mellon and NASDAQ have made recent moves in the crypto custody market.

Blockchain-based payments network Ripple announced its latest acquisition this week, picking up digital asset management solutions company Metaco for $250 million.

The move will help Ripple enter into the crypto custody market, which is expected to reach $10 trillion by 2030. Specifically, it will enable Ripple to expand its offerings, providing customers the technology to custody, issue, and settle any type of tokenized asset.

“Metaco is a proven leader in institutional digital asset custody with an exceptional executive bench and a truly unmatched customer track record,” said Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. “Through the strength of our balance sheet and financial position, Ripple will continue pressing our advantage in the areas critical to crypto infrastructure. Bringing on Metaco is monumental for our growing product suite and expanding global footprint.”

Founded in 2015, Metaco helps non-traditional financial institutions securely build their digital asset capabilities. The Switzerland-based company’s flagship offering, Harmonize, helps banks, regulated exchanges, and fintechs issue, store, trade, transfer, settle, and service digital assets. Metaco has more than 100 employees that serve clients in more than 15 countries.

Regarding today’s acquisition, Metaco Founder and CEO Adrien Treccani said, “This deal will enable Metaco to leverage Ripple’s scale and market strength to reach our goals and deliver value to our clients at a faster pace. We look forward to continuing to serve unprecedented levels of institutional demand with the utmost excellence in delivery, as our clients have come to expect.”

Today’s acquisition comes during a time when interest in the crypto custody space is heating up. BNY Mellon offers digital asset custody for U.S. asset managers, and NASDAQ is planning to launch crypto custody services for Bitcoin and Ethereum by the end of this summer.

Ripple was founded in 2012 and offers tools for global money transfers, CBDCs, and digital assets. Earlier this month, the company expanded its Middle East operations, opening a new office location in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

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NTT Data Payment Services Taps Facctum to Stop Financial Crime 

NTT Data Payment Services Taps Facctum to Stop Financial Crime 
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, NTT Data

NTT Data’s payments arm, NTT Data Payment Services, announced it has teamed up with risk analytics platform Facctum. The India-based payment company will leverage FacctView, Facctum’s anti-financial crime technology.

FacctView will help NTT Data Payments Services detect and assess sanctions, terrorism financing, and money laundering on its e-commerce platforms. In addition to protecting customers, FacctView’s technology also helps firms stay compliant. Because payment service providers are subject to increased regulation as fraudulent incidents increase, many have invested in risk screening capabilities.

“The payments ecosystem is facing a growing threat from financial criminals,” said Facctum Founder and CEO K.K. Gupta. “This is increasing the need for regulatory and compliance countermeasures. Leaders of PSPs have therefore recognized the vital importance of robust and resilient anti-financial crime technology to meet the challenges of regulatory change and ever-changing risks. I am humbled that NTT Data Payment Services has trusted Facctum technology to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of risk controls.”

Facctum’s FacctView leverages parallel processing technology and relies on a library of risk detection algorithms to detect financial crime risks on a comprehensive scale. FacctView also offers scalable, low-latency batch processing that supports bulk uploads and scheduled batch runs.

“Facctum technology is a great match for the needs of our high-growth and customer-focused PSP business in India,” said NTT Data Payment Services CEO Takeo Ueno. “Its addition to our anti-financial crime defenses shows our commitment to protecting customers and providing the highest standards of compliance effectiveness. This approach extends the capabilities of the business to provide continuous robust compliance whilst also improving the speed of services for customers.”

Facctum was founded in 2021 by former users and architects of financial crime compliance (FCC) technology. The London-based company has operations in Dublin, Johannesburg, Pune, and Bengaluru.

An alum of FinovateFall 2019, NTT Data offers a range of consulting, industry solutions, business process services, IT modernization, and managed services. The Japan-based company has made 26 acquisitions, including NTT Data Payment Services– then known as Atom Technologies. The company is publicly listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under the ticker TYO:9613.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov

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Solve Finance Unveils Latest Debt Management Partnerships

Solve Finance Unveils Latest Debt Management Partnerships
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Solve Finance
  • Solve Finance has partnered with credit analysis tool ScoreNavigator and home financing ecosystem Better.com.
  • The company’s Debt Optimizer is helping its customers understand their debt-to-income ratio (DTI), and ultimately qualify for financing.
  • The company is teaming up with Better.com to launch a feature to optimize consumers’ home-buying power.

Solve Finance recently unveiled two new fintech partners. The New York-based company has tied up with credit analysis tool ScoreNavigator and home financing ecosystem Better.com.

Solve Finance’s technology will help ScoreNavigator’s clients navigate their credit journey by looking at more than just their credit score. The company’s Debt Optimizer tool also shows them their debt-to-income ratio (DTI), a key metric in receiving a mortgage or refinancing an existing property.

“By partnering with Solve Finance, our members will get a complete analysis of their DTI, along with a plan to help them qualify for financing,” said ScoreNavigator CEO Rusty Bresse. “Solve Finance is making it easier for our members to navigate home finance by aligning incentives and automating the best possible borrowing outcomes with data and AI. We couldn’t be more pleased with this recent partnership.”

“Home affordability is especially tough in today’s environment, and we can’t wait to add a path to make the best-possible borrowing outcomes available to everyone,” added Solve Finance CEO Sean Hundtofte.

Solve Finance has also partnered with home financing platform Better.com by launching a feature to optimize consumers’ home-buying power. The new tool helps shift debt burdens and optimize up-front and monthly liquidity. Solve Finance reports it has been able to increase the mortgage users are able to afford by over 20%.

“This strategic alliance combines Solve Finance’s innovative financial technology and expertise with Better Mortgage’s innovative lending solutions,” the company said in a statement. “This partnership has significantly reduced the financial barriers to homeownership. This collaboration exemplifies Solve Finance’s commitment to driving financial inclusion and ensuring homeownership is attainable and affordable for individuals and families.”

This feature is currently in a pilot stage with mortgage lenders and homebuying platforms across the country. Ultimately, Solve Finance hopes to address consumers’ confusion about how much home they can afford in today’s interest rate environment and tackle financial exclusion in homeownership.

Solve Finance, which demoed at FinovateSpring 2022, was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in New York. The company’s Debt Optimizer tool, which is available as an API or as a direct-to-consumer platform, leverages real-time market and credit data to serve as a financial debt advisor and save users money.

Photo by Monstera

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Small Move, Big Impact: Plaid’s API Migration Paves the Way for U.S. Open Banking Revolution

Small Move, Big Impact: Plaid’s API Migration Paves the Way for U.S. Open Banking Revolution
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Julie's Column, Plaid, Thought Leadership

Financial infrastructure company Plaid made a relatively quiet announcement last week that will have a big impact on open banking in the U.S. The California-based company unveiled that it has migrated 100% of its traffic to APIs for major financial institutions, including Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, USAA, Wells Fargo, and others.

Taken at face value, this announcement appears to be nothing more than a fintech adding new bank clients. Looking deeper, however, there are three significant aspects of Plaid migrating its traffic to the banks’ APIs.

First, today’s move shows banks’ shifts in attitude toward open banking. Because the U.S. does not have regulation surrounding open banking, many U.S. banks don’t have the motivation to make consumers’ financial data open to third parties or don’t want to deal with the security implications that opening up consumers’ data to third parties may have. Additionally, in some cases, the banks do not want to make consumers’ data available to third party applications because the banks believe that they own the consumers’ data– or at least believe that they own the customer relationship.

The second significant impact of Plaid’s recent move is that it means that third party apps won’t need to rely on screen scraping to retrieve consumers’ data. The practice of screen scraping in financial services is less than ideal for multiple reasons, including:

  1. It requires consumers to share their bank login credentials with a third party, which may not have the same level of security as a bank.
  2. Since screen scraping extracts data based on the visual elements of a website, if the bank redesigns its website or changes the layout, it can result in inaccurate data retrieval.
  3. Screen scraping simulates user actions and requires a response from the bank’s website, which may slow the performance of the bank’s website, especially if multiple apps are screen scraping at once.
  4. Because screen scraping is essentially unauthorized access to a bank’s systems, the act of doing so may violate a bank’s terms of service.

As for the third impact– now that Plaid is working with the four aforementioned major U.S. banks to migrate traffic to APIs, it sends a signal to smaller banks, credit unions, and community financial institutions, which are more likely to follow suit. Potentially expediting the need for other financial institutions to jump on board, Plaid has also signed agreements with RBC, Citibank, and M&T, which will be migrating Plaid’s traffic to their APIs in the coming months.

“Our goal is to remove the need to rely on screen scraping in order for consumers to use the apps and services they want, and the momentum across our API integrations will help the industry get there faster,” Plaid Head of U.S. Financial Institution Partnerships Christy Sunquist said in a company blog post.

Despite the significance of this month’s announcement, there is still much work to be done. Some U.S. banks, such as PNC, are notorious for their unwillingness to work with Plaid, in essence taking a “closed banking” approach. Such attitudes may not prove beneficial in the long run, however, as many of the bank’s customers feel they are being shut out from essential third-party financial tools.

Photo by Jamar Penny on Unsplash

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Smart Raises $95 Million for Retirement Technology

Smart Raises $95 Million for Retirement Technology
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Smart just landed $95 million in funding for its savings and investment platform.
  • The Series E funding brings Smart’s total raised to $391 million.
  • Today’s investment will fuel the company’s global expansion and boost its retirement savings platform, Keystone.

Global savings and investment platform Smart has raked in $95 million in a Series E round this week. The London-based company’s total funding now sits at $391 million.

Aquiline Capital Partners led the round, followed by existing investors Chrysalis Investments, Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, DWS, Barclays, and Natixis Investment Managers.

Smart, which currently operates in Europe, the U.S., the Middle East, and Asia, will use today’s investment to further fuel its global expansion. The funding round will also help finance acquisitions and boost its retirement savings technology platform, Keystone.

Andrew Evans and Will Wynne co-founded Smart in 2014 after the U.K. launched its workplace pension auto enrollment requirement. The company serves more than one million end users and 70,000 employers. Smart’s flagship product, Keystone, is a retirement platform-as-a-service that offers companies infrastructure to offer employees digital retirement savings tools.

“Smart’s distinct retirement technology leadership coupled with Aquiline’s deep experience in the retirement technology industry makes this a compelling investment, as does the growing global need for better retirement saving technology,” said Aquiline Chairman and CEO Jeff Greenberg. “Smart has consistently delivered impressive commercial growth, and is backed by an array of top-tier investors whom we are delighted to join. Under the leadership of Andrew and Will, we have every confidence that Smart is a multi-billion pound company in the making.”

Based on the company’s growth, it is apparent that Smart has struck a nerve with its global user base. The company saw revenues top $83 million £67 million last year, which was a 65% increase over 2021. Earlier this year, The Financial Times ranked Smart among Europe’s fastest-growing companies. Smart currently has over $6.9 billion (£5.5 billion) in assets under management on its platform and expects to exceed $12.5 billion (£10 billion) by the end of next month.

Photo by MART PRODUCTION

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Expensify Now Facilitates Global Reimbursements

Expensify Now Facilitates Global Reimbursements
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Expensify
  • Expensify now enables business customers to reimburse international employees in multiple currencies.
  • Expensify customers can send employee reimbursements in over 154 currencies and across 200+ countries.
  • Today’s move also enables businesses to link withdrawal bank accounts in the U.K., Canada, Australia, and the European Union.

Business expense management firm Expensify made a move this week to support businesses operating in the global economy. The San Francisco-based company now enables its business customers to reimburse their employees across borders in multiple currencies.

Using the Expensify app, customers can send employee reimbursements in over 154 currencies and across 200+ countries. The international reimbursement process doesn’t require businesses to pre-fund payment. Rather, businesses can pay employees at any time by linking their local bank account.

“Employees can work from anywhere these days and expect to be reimbursed quickly for out-of-pocket expenses regardless of where they live,” said Expensify Founder and CEO David Barrett. “We have listened to these customers and now include global reimbursements for free in all paid Expensify plans.”

Additionally, Expensify is taking another step to support international businesses. The company now enables businesses to link withdrawal bank accounts in the U.K., Canada, Australia, and the European Union.

If you’re familiar with Expensify’s company culture, the only surprising aspect about this move is that the company didn’t launch it sooner. Even pre-pandemic, Expensify was known for its flexible working policy, taking its entire workforce to fun, overseas locations to work for a month. “The entire team goes on a month-long Offshore to a new country every year,” the company’s website states. “We start out the trip in hostels and Airbnbs, and then for our final week together, we re-locate to the most amazing or unique accommodation we can find!”

Expensify went public in 2021 and now trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker EXFY. The company launched expense reporting in 2008, and has since grown to add billpay, a travel concierge, a corporate payment card, and– as of last month– a co-working space as a perk for its business clients.

The business expense management space has become increasingly crowded in recent years, having seen competition from the likes of Brex, Ramp, Divvy, PayEm, Bento for Business, and more. According to Grand View Research, the market size for global spend management platforms was valued at $15.9 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a rate of 10.3% from 2022 to 2030. 

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Cable Raises $11 Million to Help Reduce Financial Crime

Cable Raises $11 Million to Help Reduce Financial Crime
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Cable, Daily news, Funding
  • Cable received $11 million in Series A funding, boosting its total raised to over $16 million.
  • Cable will use the funds to boost hiring and speed up its product development to help crack down on financial crime.
  • Cable’s technology helps BaaS banks oversee their fintech partners to remain compliant.

Financial risk control platform Cable announced an $11 million investment today. Today’s investment, which boosts the company’s total funding to just over $16 million, comes from Stage 2 Capital, Jump Capital, and existing investor CRV.

The London-based company will use the Series A funding to solve what it calls a “$4 trillion problem,” financial crime. Specifically, Cable will use the money to ramp up hiring across its product, engineering, data, and go-to-market teams, and speed up its product development.

“Raising money in and of itself is not our goal at Cable,” company CEO Natasha Vernier said. “We look at this fundraising as a way to reach more customers more quickly with the products and features they need to do their jobs better. To that end, we’ll be using this money to hire across our product, engineering, data, and go-to-market teams, and quicken our product development pace to make more headway into our long roadmap of products and features.”

Cable’s financial risk control platform helps firms reduce financial crime with automated account monitoring, quality assurance that minimizes the need for human review with simplified testing, real-time alerts, reporting, risk assessments, and more.

Cable was founded in 2020 and demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022 in New York. Since launch, the company has debuted its Automated Assurance product that identifies financial crime regulatory breaches and control failures in real-time, launched its automated risk assessment tool, and created its Quality Assurance tool that offers business intelligence and workflow tools to help compliance officers succeed.

The company’s technology doesn’t just help banks manage financial crime. Cable’s infrastructure is aimed to work in the banking-as-a-service (BaaS) era, offering BaaS banks oversight over their fintech partners. In fact, Axiom Bank, Quaint Oak Bank, and Griffin are currently leveraging Cable to manage their fintech partners.

Photo by Snapwire

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6 Main-Stage Keynotes that Will Capture Your Attention at FinovateSpring

6 Main-Stage Keynotes that Will Capture Your Attention at FinovateSpring
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2023, List series, Marketing

Finovate always goes to great lengths to scout and bring together the brightest minds for keynote presentations, showcasing the most thought-provoking ideas on the main stage.

FinovateSpring, which takes place in San Fransiscso May 23 to 25, is no different. We’re thrilled to host six keynote presentations from all-star speakers. Get ready to gain valuable insights, discover innovative strategies, and be inspired by these speakers as they delve into crucial topics shaping the future of finance and technology.

Check out our six main-stage keynotes below:

Capitalizing on Competitive Advantages, Avoiding Moat Mirages

Ben Clayman, Engineering Leader at Square, will offer his deep understanding of the fintech landscape to guide attendees through the intricacies of leveraging competitive advantages while avoiding the pitfalls of false market barriers. His insights and practical strategies will empower professionals to chart a course for sustainable success in the ever-evolving fintech industry.

The Global Economic & Geo-Political Outlook – What Next? What Are The Challenges & Hidden Icebergs Ahead?

John C. Hulsman, President & Managing Partner at John C. Hulsman Enterprises will offer up his knowledge of global economics and geopolitics. Hulsman will unravel the potential risks and opportunities that lie ahead for the fintech and financial sectors. Gain invaluable foresight into the intricate interplay of geopolitical factors and economic landscapes, which will equip you to navigate the challenges and seize emerging opportunities with confidence.

Understanding The Recent Banking Instability Through The Lens Of Geopolitical Risk – How This Impacts Central Bank Policy And What It Means For Fintechs & Financial Institutions

Manas Chawla, CEO at London Politica, will share his expertise in geopolitics and shed light on the correlation between political dynamics, central bank policies, and their impact on the stability of the banking sector, offering valuable perspectives for fintech professionals.

Quick-Fire Keynotes

Climate Change, ESG & Financial Services, What Do Wall Street & Your Customers Want? How Can Banks Avoid Greenwashing? Why Digitisation & Sustainability Go Hand In Hand

Cathryn Peirce, Founder & CEO at Carbon Zero Financial

Financial Inclusion & Financial Wellness – Harnessing Data and Segmentation To Help Your Customers To Achieve Long Term Financial Health In Tough Economic Times

Ashish Gupta, Chief Risk Officer at LendingPoint

The Intersection Of Financial Services And Commerce – How Embedded Finance Can Generate Over $100 Billion in Revenue for Banks

Sam Kilmer, Managing Director, Fintech Advisory at Cornerstone Advisers

Photo by Pixabay

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Feedzai Leverages AI to Launch New Tool that Stops Scams

Feedzai Leverages AI to Launch New Tool that Stops Scams
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Feedzai
  • Feedzai unveiled ScamPrevent capabilities that will help banks protect their end customers from a variety of financial scams.
  • The new tools will be added to Feedzai’s RiskOps platform.
  • The Federal Trade Commission reports that between 2021 and 2023, losses from scams increased by 30% in the U.S.

Risk management and fraud prevention tool provider Feedzai is enhancing its RiskOps platform.

The Portugal-based company announced that its new ScamPrevent capabilities will be added to the RiskOps platform. The new tools aim to help banks protect their customers from a variety of financial scams.

“In this environment of faster payments and more sophisticated scams, banks should look at proactive strategies to protect their customers from financial crime,” said Feedzai CEO Nuno Sebastiao. “We believe that banks which embrace a comprehensive RiskOps approach will outperform in customer satisfaction and retention, while minimizing losses from financial crime.”

By improving its Feedzai AI engine, the company leverages its experience across multiple geographies and financial institutions to enable improved scam detection with fewer false positives.

ScamPrevent includes other customizable capabilities, as well. Firms can add bank-specific scam detection rules and thresholds, leverage features that help banks identify signals from pre-transaction patterns such as behavioral biometrics that indicate a customer could be a scam victim before they authorize the payment, add customizable scam classification, view performance metrics, and generate reports.

The Federal Trade Commission reports that between 2021 and 2023, losses from scams increased by 30% in the U.S. According to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA), this percentage may be an underestimate, as only 7% of scams losses are reported across the globe.

“The human impact of scams is particularly high as scammers tend to target vulnerable groups – the elderly, the economically disadvantaged, immigrant communities, and youth,” said Feedzai Chief Product Officer Pedro Barata. “As it becomes faster and easier to make payments, there is a growing need for new solutions that enable scams to be detected and intercepted before any money moves. With our new ScamProtect™ features, Feedzai delivers the industry’s most comprehensive approach to scam prevention.”

Feedzai was founded in 2011 and helps companies fight fraud in more than 190 countries. The company has raised more than $277 million, having pulled in its largest round of $200 million in 2021 that valued Feedzai at more than one billion dollars.

Photo by Tara Winstead

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Bittrex Files for Bankrupcy After Being Sued by SEC

Bittrex Files for Bankrupcy After Being Sued by SEC
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Digital asset trading platform Bittrex filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
  • Bittrex Global will not be impacted by the change.
  • Today’s news comes three weeks after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Bittrex and its former CEO William Shihara for operating an unregistered exchange, broker, and clearing agency.

U.S. digital asset trading platform Bittrex filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday. The company’s international operation, Bittrex Global, will not be impacted by the change.

Seattle-based Bittrex shut down in the U.S. on April 30, but has asked the bankruptcy court to allow it to re-open temporarily so that it can return crypto assets to U.S. customers who were unable to withdraw their funds prior to the April 30 closure.

Today’s bankruptcy filing comes after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Bittrex and its former CEO William Shihara for operating an unregistered exchange, broker, and clearing agency on April 17. Specifically, the agency alleged that Shihara encouraged crypto asset issuers to delete public statements that could lead regulators to investigate those token offerings as securities.

Bittrex has denied the SEC’s allegations that its digital assets are securities or investment contracts.

Unfortunately for the crypto world, the news of a digital asset trading platform shutting down in the U.S. is not shocking. Bittrex’s U.S. shutdown and bankruptcy follow the demise of FTX, Celsius, Voyager, and BlockFi– all of which have taken place in the past year. One reason decentralized finance (DeFi) companies operating in the U.S. are becoming an endangered species is because of the ambiguous regulatory environment in the U.S.

The SEC has not firmly laid out rules for crypto companies and, based on the fines it has issued, is making it clear that crypto firms are not as welcome in the U.S. as they are in other geographies.

Photo by Melinda Gimpel on Unsplash

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Paydora Finance Unveils White-Label Banking Platform

Paydora Finance Unveils White-Label Banking Platform
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Paydora Finance is publicly launching its white-label embedded finance tool today.
  • Germany-based Paydora Finance can help organizations launch their own branded digital bank account, payment card, and onboarding experience.
  • Dock is powering the technology and regulatory infrastructure behind Paydora Finance.

Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) company Paydora Finance announced its public launch today. The Germany-based company offers a white-label banking platform that enables organizations to offer their own embedded finance solutions.

Businesses and organizations can leverage Paydora’s solution to offer their B2B or B2C customers a fully branded digital banking account, Mastercard payment card, onboarding experience, and customer data hub. The product enables companies to create new revenue streams while maintaining control of the branded experience. What’s more, Paydora’s BaaS platform can be launched in as few as 30 days, with no coding experience necessary.

“Companies and organizations can now embed B2C and B2B banking solutions into their own product ecosystem much faster and without any development effort and bring them to market in the shortest possible time. This allows them to offer significant added value to their existing and new customers, which generates additional revenue,” explained Paydora Cofounder and CEO Claudio Wilhelmer.

Wilhelmer comes to Paydora from Revolut and NumberX. He is joined by co-founders Matthias Seiderer, previously with Anyline and NumberX; and Christofer Trowe, previously with PPRO and Payback.

Paydora, which was originally founded last year, counts retail chain Metro, mobility service provider Eurowag, travel portal Booking.com, and more as clients. The company’s technology and regulatory infrastructure is built from Dock, a BaaS company that helps businesses digitize complex financial processes and simplify their processing.

BaaS has taken off not only within the fintech world, but also across a range of industries. Many companies have sought to create additional revenue streams by adding digital banking tools, payment cards, and more under their brands. However, as BaaS popularity has increased, so has regulatory scrutiny. Last week, the FDIC sent a cease-and-desist order to fintech partner bank Cross River Bank. The government agency accused the bank of engaging in unsafe or unsound practices related to its fair lending compliance. 

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Funderbeam Lands $40 Million for Angel Investing and Trading Platform

Funderbeam Lands $40 Million for Angel Investing and Trading Platform
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Funderbeam has received $40 million in funding, boosting its total raised to just under $60 million since it was founded in 2013.
  • Venture private equity group VentureWave led the round, taking a majority stake in Funderbeam.
  • The investment also brings a strategic partnership between Funderbeam and VentureWave, as the two seek to facilitate venture deals and offer access to the secondary market.

Angel investing and trading platform Funderbeam received $40 million in funding this week. The investment brings the U.K.-based company’s total funding to just shy of $60 million. Leading the round is Ireland-based venture private equity group VentureWave, which now holds a strategic majority stake in Funderbeam.

With this week’s fresh funding and strategic partnership, the two organizations will combine efforts to facilitate venture deals and offer access to the secondary market for venture deals for both institutional and angel investors.

“VentureWave’s investment in Funderbeam is a game-changer for the industry, shaping the future of venture markets and enabling access to global venture deals and secondaries,” said VentureWave Chairman Alan Foy. “Together, we have the necessary assets, technology, and capital to take on the entire venture investment life cycle. This represents a transformative moment to put impact at the centre of the investment industry.”

Notably, the partnership will enable Funderbeam to serve institutional clients, including VC funds, family offices, brokers and investment banks. The company will continue to serve investor networks and provide its flagship private-market-as-a-service offering, Angel Market. Additionally, as Funderbeam Founder and CEO Kaidi Ruusalepp noted, the deal will enable his firm to accelerate its vision, which he described as “to serve venture investments across borders and create a unique secondary market for private assets.”

Additional investors in today’s round– which is subject to approval by regulators in the U.K., Singapore, and Estonia– include Mistletoe, Draper Associates, and Ruusalepp.

Founded in 2013, Funderbeam offers a platform to help solve liquidity for angel and venture investments. The company’s technology helps investor networks, accelerators, and other venture investors manage their syndicated investments, post-investment flows, and handle secondary transactions across borders.

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