Alternative investment platform YieldStreet announced a Series C funding round this week totaling $100 million. The investment brings the New York-based company’s total funding to $279 million.

Contributors to the round include Mitch Caplan, Alex Brown, Kingfisher Capital, Top Tier Capital Partners, Gaingels, Edison Partners, Soros Fund Management, Greenspring Associates, Raine Ventures, Greycroft, and Expansion Capital. YieldStreet will use the funds to attract new users and create new investment products. The company will also use the investment to fuel more acquisitions in addition to the two companies– WealthFlex and Athena Art Finance– it acquired in 2019.

YieldStreet connects investors with asset-based alternative investments that have traditionally been difficult for non-institutional investors to access, such as art, marine, legal, and real estate. Since it was founded in 2015, the company has paid out more than $950 million in principal and interest to its investors.

“These are investments that generate passive income. For example, we do a bunch of things in real estate such as financing warehouses, multifamily and distribution centers,” company founder and CEO Milind Mehere told TechCrunch. “We also do art, auto loans, or equipment finance. These are typically investments done by institutions and what we’re trying to do is really fractionalize them and get them to real estate investors. A lot of this stuff is asset-backed and it’s generating cash flow.”

The funding comes at a time when the public’s interest in investing is growing, and YieldStreet is benefitting as a part of that trend. The number of investment requests the company has seen grew by 250% from January to April of this year when compared to the same time frame last year. And YieldStreet has acquired more users so far this year than it had for the entirety of 2020. Today, the company has 300,000 consumers.

As for what’s next, YieldStreet is considering going public via a SPAC merger in the next couple of years. The company said it has been approached by a few special purpose acquisition companies and that the public markets would offer more visibility to potential users.

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Synctera has raised $33 million in Series A funding to fuel its mission to make it easier for community banks and fintechs to work together. The round, which brought the company’s total funding to more than $46 million, featured new strategic investors such as Mastercard, as well as executives from Finovate alums like Marqeta, Feedzai, and Socure. These backers were joined by several of Synctera’s existing investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Diagram Ventures, Portage Ventures, SciFi Ventures, and Scribble Ventures.

“Since launch, Synctera has formed one of the best teams in the industry,” company CEO and co-founder Peter Hazlehurst said in a statement. “Bringing on a group of investors with deep industry expertise will help us meet rapidly increasing demand in our next stage of growth.”

Synctera helps community banks and fintechs achieve partnership banking at scale. The company’s platform streamlines day-to-day reconciliation, operations, and regulatory compliance for banks, while enabling fintechs to launch their solutions faster and with greater flexibility thanks to its one-stop-shop API. Part of the growing trend toward embedded finance and banking-as-a-service, Synctera will use the new capital to further build its software engineering team to speed the development of its product roadmap, as well as bolster sales and marketing efforts to help grow market share and expand internationally.

As part of the funding announcement, Syncetera also announced that it would endorse the diversity commitment from the Cap Table Coalition by allocating 10% of all funding rounds to traditionally marginalized investors.

“For this next chapter—and to put action behind Synctera’s values—we pledge to reserve 10% of this round and all future rounds to diverse investors, allowing for more representation and collaboration to further innovate the industry,” Hazlehurst said.

Emerging from stealth last year, Synctera has already secured customers in Coastal Community Bank and ONE Finance, as well as Tennessee-based Lineage Bank. The company has also partnered with money management and financial wellness platform for women, Ellevest. Check out our conversation with Hazlehurst on the Finovate Podcast with host Greg Palmer from last month.

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Courtesy of an investment round led by Accel Partners, subscription management specialist turned personal finance company Truebill has secured $45 million in new funding. The Series D round – which featured participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Cota Capital, and Eldridge Industries – takes the six-year old company’s total financing to $85 million.

“With this new capital, we’re transforming Truebill into an all-in-one, holistic platform that makes it easy for members to not only manage subscriptions and spending, but also optimize their savings and make informed decisions to improve their financial health,” company co-founder and CEO Haroon Mokhtarzada said. “More than 10,000 members sign up for Truebill every day seeking to better understand and improve their finances.”

Truebill’s PFM solution offers budgeting and autopilot savings tools, as well as insights into spending and credit scores. The app, available in both iOS and Android, also supports pay advance and bill negotiation, giving users further tools for managing cash flow and controlling costs.

Headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland after being founded in San Francisco in 2011, Truebill has more than 100 employees and plans to use the new capital to help add to its workforce. The company is looking to bring on new talent in data science, machine learning, engineering, and marketing, as well as in customer service to help support Truebill’s growth.

With two million active users and revenues that have grown 3x since March 2020, Truebill is one of the companies that has been able to leverage the social discontents of the global pandemic into greater business for its services. Despite its expansion into the PFM space, Truebill has benefitted from the emergence of “power subscribers” that have 10+ recurring payments. The company currently profits from a user with an average of 17 subscriptions – down from an average of 21 during the worst of the pandemic last spring – and a monthly subscription bill of $145 a month.

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Vehicle refinance startup MotoRefi pulled in a $45 million Series B round of funding this week. The Virginia-based company received the funds from investors including Goldman Sachs, which led the round, along with IA Capital, Moderne Ventures, Accomplice, Link Ventures, Motley Fool Ventures and CMFG Ventures.

“In 2020, we proved we are the go-to platform for auto refinance. In 2021, we’re scaling that offering to make auto refinance accessible to everyone- helping more people save money on their car payments,” said MotoRefi CEO Kevin Bennett. “Goldman is the best in the business when it comes to financial services, and we’re thrilled to partner with Jade Mandell and the Goldman Sachs team on our next phase of growth.”

MotoRefi will use the investment to boost growth by investing in its platform and build out its team.

The funds come just months after the company raised a $10 million Series A round in January. MotoRefi’s funding now totals $60 million.

Today’s news also comes during a time of major growth for MotoRefi. The company, which works directly with lenders to help them facilitate refinances on auto loans, has seen an increase in demand during the low interest rate environment. From the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of this year, MotoRefi has seen:

• 7x revenue growth
• 5x loan volume growth
• 2.5x team growth

Founded in 2016, MotoRefi has been in the fintech headlines a handful of times this year, having recently announced senior hires, a new headquarters location, and a new partnership with SoFi.

Stavvy, a company that is digitizing the mortgage closing process, announced a $40+ million Series A round this week led by Morningside Technology Ventures. The Boston-based proptech startup, founded in 2019, will use the additional capital to add talent and accelerate growth in its banking and lending solutions which have seen an increase in demand as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

“When we launched Stavvy in late 2019, we had no idea what was in store for the world in 2020,” Stavvy co-founder Josh Feinblum said. “We’re proud of the technology we’ve developed to help homeowners and buyers in this challenging time, and grateful for this opportunity to amplify our services and impact.”

Dubbed the largest Series A funding for a New England-based fintech to date, the investment was accompanied by an announcement that Stavvy had forged an alliance with Flagstar Bank, the sixth largest bank mortgage originator in the country. The partnership will enable the bank to offer remote loan modification services and help homeowners who are in need of relief in the waning days of the pandemic.

“Thanks to Stavvy, we can process more requests to help customers more quickly, reduce errors in the signature process, and even better, walk homeowners through their loss mitigation closing during this difficult time,” Flagstar CIO of Servicing Ken Creech said.

Named to HousingWire’s 2021 Tech100 Mortgage Winners roster, Stavvy leverages e-signatures and video conferencing to “bring real estate lending and servicing into the 21st century” in the words of company co-founder Kosta Ligris. Along with its remote notary capacity, Stavvy’s eClosing functionality makes it easier for businesses to safely conduct complicated, location-agnostic, legal and financial transactions.

This spring, Stavvy earned status as a MISMO Certified Remote Online Notarization Provider. The company began the year integrating with ICE Mortgage Technology’s Encompass Digital Lending Platform.

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