Alumni News

Blend Labs Raises $150 Million, Forges Strategic Partnership with Haveli Investments

Blend Labs Raises $150 Million, Forges Strategic Partnership with Haveli Investments
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Blend, Daily news, Funding, Fundings
  • 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.”

Photo by Pixabay

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Permira Acquires Majority Stake in BioCatch with $1.3 Billion Valuation

Permira Acquires Majority Stake in BioCatch with $1.3 Billion Valuation
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, BioCatch, Funding, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Permira has acquired a majority stake in behavioral biometrics company BioCatch.
  • Existing shareholders, Sapphire Ventures and Macquarie Capital, have also increased their stake in BioCatch.
  • The moves have boosted BioCatch’s valuation to $1.3 billion, which is up from $1 billion last year.

Behavioral biometrics company BioCatch announced it has a new majority shareholder. Permira Growth Opportunities II, a fund advised by U.K.-based global private equity firm Permira, has acquired a majority stake in the Israel-based company by buying out shares from Bain Capital Tech Opportunities and Maverick Ventures in a secondary transaction.

Two of the company’s existing shareholders, Sapphire Ventures and Macquarie Capital, have also increased their stake in BioCatch. While specific terms of the transactions were not disclosed, the company’s valuation is now estimated at $1.3 billion.

BioCatch expects the move will help it accelerate its product roadmap and support its growth in general. The increased commitment from Permia will also aid BioCatch’s global expansion efforts. Specifically, the fraud prevention company will leverage Permia’s Continental European ties, with an aim to add new clients in that region.

“After building a strong partnership with Permira over the last year, we are delighted to welcome them as majority shareholders,” said BioCatch CEO Gadi Mazor. “The firm’s impressive experience within technology and cybersecurity, combined with their scale, global network, and our close working relationship, has been invaluable since their initial investment.”

BioCatch was founded in 2011 and has since raised around $324 million in disclosed funding. The company leverages behavioral biometric intelligence to offer account opening fraud detection, mule account detection, account takeover protection, customer authentication solutions, and more. BioCatch currently has more than 190 financial institution customers across the globe, including over 30 of the world’s largest 100 global banks.

Today’s announcement comes a year after BioCatch earned $1 billion following a $40 million investment from Permia. The move made Permia a significant minority shareholder in BioCatch, right behind Sapphire Ventures and Macquarie Capital.

“We have tracked BioCatch with enthusiasm for many years, and now having been a shareholder since early 2023, our conviction in the business, its growth potential, its technology leadership, and its management team continues to grow,” said Permia Growth Opportunities Partner and Co-Head Stefan Dziaski. “We’re excited to become the company’s majority shareholder and look forward to a continued successful partnership with Gadi and the BioCatch team as we seek to further accelerate growth and expansion in the years to come.” 

Photo by George Prentzas on Unsplash

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SecureAuth Acquires Access Management Technology Company Cloudentity

SecureAuth Acquires Access Management Technology Company Cloudentity
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Cloudentity, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • 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.

Photo by Amanda Grove

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Veritran and Swift Announce Collaboration to Enhance Cross-Border Payments

Veritran and Swift Announce Collaboration to Enhance Cross-Border Payments
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, VeriTran
  • 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.

Photo by Andres Idda Bianchi

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DigiShares and InvestBay Team Up to Tokenize and Democratize Real Estate Investing

DigiShares and InvestBay Team Up to Tokenize and Democratize Real Estate Investing
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, DigiShares
  • 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.

Photo by The Lazy Artist Gallery

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B2B Payments Consolidates: Paystand to Acquire Teampay

B2B Payments Consolidates: Paystand to Acquire Teampay
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, PayStand
  • Paystand is acquiring Teampay. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
  • Following the acquisition, Paystand will serve more than one million business customers.
  • Teampay will continue to serve its existing customers under the same brand, and things will be business as usual “in the near term.”

Cloud-based billing and payment platform Paystand announced this week it has agreed to acquire expense management platform Teampay. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The strategic move marks the California-based company’s second acquisition. Paystand purchased procurement platform Yaydoo in 2022. Now, the company services more than one million companies.

Teampay was founded in 2016 to offer spend management, accounts payable automation, purchasing assistant, spend approval tools, accounting automation, and more to help small-to-mid-market businesses and enterprises automate their spending without sacrificing control.

Paystand, which leverages the blockchain and cloud technology to digitize and automate businesses’ cash lifecycle, will use Teampay to scale its services. “With the fusion of Paystand and Teampay we significantly expanded our network, which now touches over one million businesses,” Paystand said in a blog post announcement.

Logistically, Teampay will continue to serve its existing customers under the same brand, and things will be business as usual “in the near term.” The companies did not specify whether Paystand planned to dissolve the Teampay brand and bring the customers under its own platform.

Paystand was founded in 2013 to help businesses digitize receivables, automate processing, reduce time-to-cash, eliminate transaction fees, and enable new revenue. In addition to its B2B payments and billing capabilities, the company also helps businesses leverage the blockchain to securely record their payment history by certifying and notarizing payments on the blockchain. Paystand has raised a total of $98 million. Jeremy Almond is Co-Founder and CEO.

Photo by Alexander Suhorucov

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Impact Asset Manager Finance in Motion Partners with Financial Crime Regtech Napier AI

Impact Asset Manager Finance in Motion Partners with Financial Crime Regtech Napier AI
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Napier
  • Impact asset manager Finance in Motion has teamed up with financial crime compliance specialist Napier AI.
  • Finance in Motion will deploy Napier AI Continuum as its anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CTF) platform.
  • London-based Napier AI made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2018.

Financial crime compliance company Napier AI announced a partnership with impact asset manager Finance in Motion this week. The partnership calls for Finance in Motion to deploy Napier AI Continuum as its anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CTF) platform.

Additionally, Napier AI will include its Client Screening solution and Client Risk Assessment module as part of the Napier AI Continuum platform deployment. The objective is to provide Finance in Motion with the tools it needs to continue driving public and private capital toward impact investments in emerging markets – while ensuring that capital does not end up financing illicit or criminal activity.

Finance in Motion Managing Director Sylvia Wisniwski explained: “Like any institution, we have a duty to ensure that the public and private capital raised is used exclusively for the intended objectives, in our case impact investments in emerging markets. Accordingly, regulation requires effective measures to prevent funds from being used to finance criminal activities. The collaboration with Napier AI allows us to efficiently query data through automated processes and integrated systems.”

Napier AI Continuum will provide Finance in Motion with API-enabled, cloud native, automated client screening, and supports transliteration of 22 languages. The platform also offers AI fuzzy matching and secondary scoring capabilities. Finance in Motion will benefit from customizable workflows, a sandbox environment for optimizing screening configurations, and configurable dashboards with no-code rule binding and AI insights to drive efficient decisioning.

“The key to dismantling criminal networks lies in cutting off their sources of revenue entirely by correctly identifying accounts, transactions, and behavioural patterns associated with financial crime,” Napier AI CEO Greg Watson said. “Napier AI’s cutting edge compliance solutions supercharge Finance in Motion’s mission to generate positive change in emerging markets with automated client screening.”

Headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany and founded in 2009, Finance in Motion specializes in development finance. An impact asset manager, the company structures, advises, and manage both private debt and equity investments in emerging markets. The company supports financing of projects ranging from sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and biodiversity, to micro-finance, natural capital, and affordable housing.

Finance in Motion has $2.8 billion (€3.6 billion) in assets under management or advisory, and has active investments in 39 countries. Last month, the company was featured in the ImpactAssets 50 roster of the top 50 impact managers in the world. The recognition was the eighth consecutive listing for Finance in Motion, which was named “Emeritus Impact Manager.”

Founded in 2015, Napier made its Finovate debut three years later at FinovateEurope 2018. At the conference, the company demonstrated how its Customer Screening and Transaction Monitoring Enhancement tools help improve AML oversight. The technology reduces false positives by up to 80%, and can be used to supplement or replace existing customer screening systems.

Napier began 2024 announcing a partnership with Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) digital banking provider Satchel. The following month, Napier unveiled its Napier Continuum Live and Napier Continuum Flow services to facilitate the deployment of its AML platform. Napier Continuum Live is a plug-and-play hosted offering. Napier Continuum Flow is a headless API service.

Also in February Napier secured $56 million (£45 million) in funding from private equity firm Crestline Investors. The company said that the investment will help power business expansion over the coming years. The funds will also support Napier AI’s development of new NextGen screening and monitoring solutions powered by Explainable AI.

Photo by Felix Mittermeier

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Small Business Lending Platform JUDI.AI Inks a Trio of New Credit Union Customers

Small Business Lending Platform JUDI.AI Inks a Trio of New Credit Union Customers
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, JUDI.AI

What do Apple Federal Credit Union, Carter Credit Union, and SCE Credit Union all have in common?

All three financial institutions announced this month that they are teaming up with small business lending platform JUDI.AI.

In a series of blog posts at the company’s website, JUDI.AI’s Director of Marketing Kyle Thom welcomed the three credit unions to what he called “our growing group of 35+ forward-thinking community lenders who are on a mission to reinvent small business lending.”

JUDI.AI offers credit unions and community banks an alternative approach to helping small and medium sized businesses secure the funding they need. The company enables financial institutions to digitally transform their credit decisioning and underwriting operations to assess the financial health of their small business customers and members on a continuous basis.

In addition to instant cash flow analysis, automated underwriting, continuous monitoring, and real-time portfolio reporting, JUDI.AI adds automated analysis of current banking data to supplement traditional financial data sources such as credit scores and financial statements.

Here’s a look at JUDI’s new partners:

  • Apple Federal Credit Union. $4.3 billion in assets. 240,000+ members, Twenty-one locations across northern Virginia.
  • Carter Credit Union. $722 million in assets. 55,000+ members. Eleven locations in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Fort Worth, Texas.
  • SCU Credit Union. $1.1 billion in assets. 67,000+ members. Eight locations in southern California and southern Nevada.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada, JUDI.AI made its Finovate debut at our all-digital fintech conference, FinovateWest 2020. Most recently, the company demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2022. At the event, Thom and JUDI.AI Chief Product Officer Su Ning Strube, demonstrated how the platform enables lenders to process 50% more SME loan applications without committing any additional resources, and approve 20% more loans with no added risk.

“What makes JUDI.AI unique in that we identify cash flow metrics that are predictive and correlated to future defaults, and we combine that information in our proprietary small business model with traditional credit scores to calculate the creditworthiness of any borrower,” Su Ning Strube explained from the Finovate stage.

In addition to the credit unions signed in April, JUDI.AI this year has also welcomed Canadian alternative lender Glasslake Funding and Hawaii’s Kauai Federal Credit Union to its client roster. Kauai FCU is the first and only certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) on the island of Kauai.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto

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Data Privacy Vault Skyflow Secures $30 Million in New Funding

Data Privacy Vault Skyflow Secures $30 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Fundings, Skyflow
  • Data privacy vault Skyflow has raised $30 million in an extension Series B round led by Khosla Ventures.
  • The investment comes amid growth in the market for sensitive data protection for Large Language Models (LLMs).
  • Founded in 2019, Skyflow made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022.

Data privacy vault Skyflow raised $30 million in an extension of its Series B funding round. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, and featured participation from existing investors Mouro Capital, Foundation Capital, and Canvas Ventures. The investment takes the company’s total equity capital to $100 million, according to Crunchbase. Valuation information was not immediately available.

The investment in Skyflow arrives as the proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs) raises the stakes when it comes to protecting sensitive data. Skyflow’s global network of data privacy vaults enables businesses to isolate, protect, and manage sensitive customer data across any app, data cloud, or LLM. Skyflow supports nearly a billion records of user data for its customers and processes more than two billion API calls a quarter.

“We see an urgent need for companies to make privacy a core part of their technology stack as LLMs and AI hurdle forward, ingesting more and more personal data,” Skyflow Co-founder and CEO Anshu Sharma said. “Skyflow is the only solution that allows companies to build privacy by design into their technological infrastructure without overhauling anything – anywhere in the world.”

Skyflow credits a proprietary technology – polymorphic encryption – for its ability to protect data without inhibiting its usability for critical business tasks. Skyflow’s technology serves as a “privacy trust layer,” blocking sensitive information from entering AI models, and making adoption of AI technology safer. Companies can personalize their own definition of “sensitive data” as needed, providing additional protection beyond PII, intellectual property, or other categories of critical information.

“With the advent of enterprise applications powered by AI, the need for trust and privacy infrastructure is key to protecting sensitive data,” Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla said. “Skyflow is rethinking how data can be managed and protected across any app, cloud, or LLM, making it a company that will be vital for every enterprise business.”

Founded in 2019, Skyflow made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2022. At the conference, the company showed how its technology helps financial services companies securely orchestrate sensitive data and exchange it with third party providers without having to directly handle the data itself.

Interested in demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May? We are happy to read applications from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateSpring hub today to learn more.

Photo by Gotta Be Worth It

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TabaPay to Acquire Assets of Bankrupt Fintech Synapse

TabaPay to Acquire Assets of Bankrupt Fintech Synapse
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, SynapseFi
  • TabaPay plans to acquire the assets of troubled BaaS company Synapse Financial Technologies.
  • TabaPay will use the assets to widen its selection of financial services.
  • The news comes as Synapse has filed a voluntary bankruptcy petition under Chapter 11.

Instant payments fintech TabaPay has announced plans to acquire the financial assets of troubled BaaS company Synapse Financial Technologies.

TabaPay will use Synapse’s assets to bolster its selection of financial services for fintech firms and financial institutions. Both TabaPay and Synapse offer payouts and payments processing technologies. Synapse, however, also provides neobanking, gig economy, lending, credit, wealth management, and embedded finance tools.

“The addition of the Synapse features is an acceleration of our TabaPay story, one dedicated to delivering great solutions that help our clients rapidly innovate, save money, and offer great financial products to their customers,” said TabaPay Co-founder and CEO Rodney Robinson. “The Synapse assets are a great and natural fit to our existing services to grow our offerings in tandem with providing continuity to Synapse clients and banks.”

TabaPay was founded in 2017 to help clients disburse and collect one million transactions daily– and in real time– on behalf of more than 2,500 clients in the U.S. and Canada. The company’s API offers direct access to 15 banking partners, 16 network connections, and full-stack payment processing. Last March, we spoke to the company’s VP of Strategic Partnerships Maggie O’Toole on her role in the industry.

Both TabaPay and Synapse were listed on Deloitte’s 2023 Fast 500. Synapse has seen a 650%+ growth over the past five years. That growth is now come to a halt, however, since Synapse has today revealed it filed a voluntary bankruptcy petition under Chapter 11. The bankruptcy comes after Synapse’s partner bank Lineage received a consent order from the FDIC earlier this year. The California-based company also signaled trouble when it laid off 40% of its staff last October after losing its client, Mercury, to its partner, Evolve Bank & Trust. Synapse was founded in 2014 and had raised $50.7 million.

TabaPay’s acquisition is pending approval by the bankruptcy court.

Photo by Sam Poullain on Unsplash

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Betterment, Bottomline Technologies, Daily news, eToro, Finastra, Fintech Rundown, Finzly, Klarna, nCino, Tink, Weekly Alumni News, Weekly News

Happy Earth Day! Partnerships in payments and fundraising in the international investment/wealth management space are dominating fintech news headlines as the week begins.

Digital banking

Temenos announces appointment of new Chief Executive Officer Jean-Pierre Brulard, effective May 1, 2024.

Caribbean Bank Limited partners with Finastra to modernize its core technology and upgrade its back office operations.

Zafin appoints Charbel Safadi to replace Al Karim as CEO.

Open banking

Open banking firm Fintech Galaxy collaborates with Singapore-based FinbotsAI to launch new credit profiling capabilities.

Bill-sharing app Splitwise teams up with open banking platform Tink to bring Pay by Bank to Splitwise customers.

Banking-as-a-Service

BaaS innovator Finzly partners with EverBank to enhance the firm’s payment processing system.

Crypto

eToro teams up with 21Shares to launch a new, “data-driven,” crypto portfolio, 21Shares-Flows.

Payments

Ad-subsidized payments network (ASPN) Zilch extends its collaboration with Amazon Web Services.

Payments and financial platform for businesses Airwallex launched its payment acceptance solution in the U.S.

Klarna forges global partnership with Uber, bringing its Pay Now option to the company’s ride-sharing and delivery platforms.

Brite Payments goes live in Germany with its Instant Payments solution.

Business payments specialist Bottomline forges strategic partnership with spend management company Coupa.

TabaPay to acquire the assets of BaaS provider Synapse Financial Technologies.

Real-time, cross border payments company Nium introduces new Chief Payments Officer, Alexandra Johnson.

Versapay appoints Ed Neumann as Chief Financial Officer.

UAE-based Careem Pay expands its international remittance services in the U.K. to include its Faster Payments offering.

GoCardless and Intuit QuickBooks integrate to allow U.S. QuickBook users to use ACH-Pull for account-to-account payments.

Thunes agrees to acquire Tilia. Tilia will be rebranded as Thunes and will remain based in San Francisco.

Klarna expands global partnership with Expedia to offer BNPL payment option for flights and hotel stay purchases.

Sopra Banking Software and Paymentology partner to deliver card issuing services within its SBP Digital Core platform.

Visa and Standard Chartered partner on cross-border payments.

Regtech

U.K.-based digital compliance and AML solutions provider SmartSearch appoints Phil Cotter as CEO.

Investing and Wealth Management

Wealth management platform TIFIN introduces new Chief Operating Officer of its TIFIN AG platform Jeannette Kuda.

Goldman Sachs announces deal to sell its Marcus Invest digital investing accounts to Betterment.

Istanbul, Turkey-based investment app Midas secures $45 million in new funding.

Kinsted Wealth partners with software provider Objectway for its investment management platform.

Cairo, Egypt’s Bokra raises $4.6 million in pre-seed funding for its platform that offers investment products via asset backed securities.

Lending and Credit

U.K. property lender Together partners with nCino to enhance its lending operations.

BMO unveils its Greener Future Financing program to help SMEs in the U.S. build climate-resilient operations.

Pomelo lands $20 million in Seed funding and a $50 million warehouse facility for its tool that combines credit and international money transfer.

Figure Technology Solutions appoints Michael Tannenbaum as Chief Executive Officer.

E-commerce

Subscription management and billing platform Recurly introduces new dashboards with built-in benchmarks.

Klarna sells Hero, the virtual shopping platform it acquired in 2021, for $1.3 million (€1.3 million).

Splitit unveils FI-PayLater to empower banks to provide in-checkout installments for existing customers.

Identity verification

Financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology company ComplyAdvantage acquires knowledge graph builder Golden.

AU10TIX announces $18 billion in business fraud prevented since 2021.

Small Business Tools

Basware introduces AP Protect, an AI-powered solution that empowers finance teams to protect their organizations against profit loss, invoice errors, and fraud. 

Marqeta partners with OakNorth to offer commercial cards in the U.K.

Payroll

Rippling raises $200 million in new financing with $13.5 billion valuation.

Photo by Valentin Antonucci

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10x Banking Inks Strategic Alliance Agreement with Deloitte

10x Banking Inks Strategic Alliance Agreement with Deloitte
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: 10x Banking, Alumni News, Daily news
  • U.K.-based core banking platform 10x Banking announced a strategic alliance agreement with Deloitte.
  • As part of the agreement, 10x will build a series of Centres of Excellence in the U.S., U.K., and India to facilitate collaboration between the two firms.
  • 10x Banking won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023.

SaaS core banking platform 10x Banking has inked a strategic alliance agreement with Deloitte. Effective in both the U.S. and the U.K., the agreement will power greater cooperation when it comes to helping financial institutions around the world access transformative technologies.

As part of the strategic alliance, the two firms will launch a series of 10x Centres of Excellence in the U.S., the U.K., and India. The centers will facilitate collaboration between 10x Banking and Deloitte, and should be fully-staffed with their initial 100-member teams by the end of the year.

Courtesy of the alliance, the 10x platform will also be fully integrated into BankingSuite from Converge by Deloitte. BankingSuite is a modern composable platform that enables banks to build new digital capabilities at pace. Introduced in 2022, Converge combines Deloitte’s software, industry expertise, and partner ecosystem to help Deloitte’s clients maximize the opportunities of digital transformation and emergent technologies. This collaboration, between 10x and Converge, will focus initially on serving credit unions, building societies, and mutual banks to help them fulfill their digital transformation goals faster and with less cost.

“By working with Deloitte, we will enable banks and mutuals across the U.S., U.K., and beyond to modernise their legacy tech and deliver financial products and services fit for the 21st century,” 10x Banking Founder, Chair, and CEO Antony Jenkins said. “With Deloitte’s global experience and our leading technological solutions, we have a strategy in place to enact widespread change in the pursuit of making banking ten times better.”

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in London, U.K., 10x Banking made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2023. The company won Best of Show for its demo of its 10x Bank Manager, which offers a no-code interface to enable product teams to “build products, offerings, brands, and even enter new markets at speed,” as Product Marketing Manager Nicole Sanders explained at the conference. “Code less. Innovate more.”

10x Banking began 2024 partnering with mortgage origination platform Mast. The partnership will enable real-time connectivity between the two platforms, giving lenders streamlined data exchange and real-time mortgage servicing. Mast CEO Joy Abisaab said that working with 10x would “empower U.K. lenders to unlock new levels of operational efficiency and enable the delivery of exceptional customer experiences.”

10x Banking has raised $297 million in funding. The company includes JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock among its investors.

Photo by Ricky Esquivel

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