Wealth solutions platform InvestCloud announced it is now valued at $1 billion, making it a new fintech unicorn. The new valuation comes after the fintech restructured its debt and equity in a recapitalization.

“At a valuation of $1 billion, we can reward early investors in the business, while injecting new capital to fuel the next stage of our growth, further supporting our clients’ needs,” said InvestCloud Co-Founder and CEO John Wise.

Comprising a major portion of the recapitalization, Motive Partners, Clearlake Capital Group, and other InvestCloud client shareholders have agreed to acquire 80% of InvestCloud. As part of the deal, Motive Partners will contribute two portfolio businesses into the firm. The first is Finantix, which it acquired in 2018, and the second is Tegra118, which is a newly-formed company resulting from Motive’s acquisition of Fiserv’s Investment Services business.

InvestCloud expects the addition of Finantix and Tegra118 to solidify its presence in the wealth and asset management marketplace. After the restructuring, InvestCloud will have $4+ trillion in assets on its platform and revenues over $285 million, with a team of over 900 people. Moreover, Finantix and Tegra118 will boost InvestCloud’s presence in and knowledge of continental European and Asian markets.

“Together with Cheryl [Nash of Tegra118] and Christine [Mar Ciriani of Finantix] and their exceptional teams, they enable us to accelerate our plans to build platforms serving the main markets in global wealth and asset management, each utilizing the proven SaaS design principles, architecture and data models of the InvestCloud platform,” added Wise.

InvestCloud will use the expertise at Finantix and Tegra118 to offer four staple platforms and a marketplace:

• Wealth Advisor Platform – With its existing skillset, InvestCloud will build upon its background in North America, the U.K., continental Europe, and Asia.
• Private Banking Platform – Leveraging Finantix, InvestCloud will offer an international private banking platform. 
• Custom Financial Platform – Using InvestCloud’s design-first methods and AI Programs Writing Programs, clients can build unique intellectual property to create cloud solutions.
• Financial Supermarket – Using the Tegra118 product, InvestCloud will build an international financial supermarket to connect asset managers to wealth managers.

Logistically, John Wise will remain CEO of InvestCloud, while Rob Heyvaert will continue as Chairman. Tegra118’s Cheryl Nash will become the CEO of InvestCloud’s Financial Supermarket division and Finantix’s Christine Mar Ciriani will become the CEO of the Private Banking division.

InvestCloud was founded in California in 2010. The company has raised $54 million from investors including JP Morgan Chase and FTV Capital.

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It looks like the Merry Men of Ribbit Capital have come to the rescue of the social trading app named after the mythological bowman who robbed from the rich to give to the poor.

Between the final trading days of January and the first trading day of February, Robinhood has raised a whopping $3.4 billion in convertible debt financing. The financing was provided to help the brokerage firm manage the tidal wave of activity that the platform experienced during last week’s trading moshpit in shares of heavily-shorted GameStop.

And with the additional participation from Little Johns and Friar Tucks like Iconiq Capital, Adreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Index Ventures, and NEA, it looks like the social trading app for Millennials has more than picked up the requisite funding to continue its mission of serving its increasingly active trading and investing clientele. Note that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said the company’s clearing house initially had requested $3 billion in margin deposits last Thursday, before lowering the requirement by more than 75% to $700 million.

“This funding is a strong sign of confidence from investors and will help us build for the future and continue to serve people through the exponential growth we’ve seen this year,” Robinhood’s blog read on Monday morning.

With more than 13 million users – and an alleged 600,000 new accounts added on Friday alone – Menlo Park, California-based Robinhood has become the face of retail trading in recent months. The company raised more than $1 billion in funding last year as a stimulus-fueled stock market – and an absence of opportunities for other financial-risk taking such as sports betting – helped drive short-term traders into the gamified, regular Joe-enabling, environment of Robinhood. The online trading and investing platform offers the ability to buy and sell stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), options, gold, and cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin – all commission-free.

“We’re witnessing a movement of everyday people taking control of their own financial future, many investing for the first time through Robinhood,” the blog post continued. “With this funding, we’ll build and enhance our products that give more people access to the financial system.”

As the frenzy in trading over Gamestop shares grew, Robinhood came under pressure for its decision to restrict trading in the shares, as well as in a number of other stocks that had experienced similar spikes in activity. Although Robinhood’s actions were clearly permissible given its Term of Agreement, the episode further fueled the Us (retail trader) vs Them (Wall Street hedge fund) narrative that, ironically, Robinhood was founded to champion on behalf of the “Us.”

Ribbit Capital Managing Partner Micky Malka spoke to this irony in his comment about the funding. “Robinhood has served millions of people who have felt left behind by America’s financial system,” Malka said. “We’re confident that Robinhood will emerge stronger through this phase of growth and unprecedented demand.”

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Financial app building platform TrueLayer has long been using the power of open banking to facilitate payment activities. Today, the U.K.-based company is taking another step to make the online payments experience even easier with the launch of a new payments product, PayDirect.

PayDirect combines open banking with Europe’s payment rails to offer a customizable solution for instant payments, instant payouts, and smoother payment reconciliation.

“PayDirect builds on our open banking expertise to streamline onboarding, pay-in and payout, to help operators deliver an experience that is fit for the digital age,” said the company’s Chief Product Officer, Ossama Soliman.

Because PayDirect relies on open banking and Europe’s fast payment rails, the solution circumvents many of the headaches associated with traditional card payments. Cards can expire, require manual entry, and are subject to spending limits. These hurdles generally result in an 85% success rate. PayDirect, in comparison, has a 96% success rate. PayDirect also eliminates chargebacks and reduces fraud by authenticating via biometrics directly with the consumer’s bank.

Here’s how the checkout experience works:

Financial services companies that use PayDirect benefit from a single interface for onboarding users, receiving instant deposits into their account, and providing instant withdrawals. Customers, on the other hand, benefit from low risk of fraud, faster refunds and withdrawals, less false positives during fraud checks, and a faster checkout experience.

Founded in 2016, TrueLayer is best known for its payments API that helps financial services companies provide online payments, bill payments, and account top-ups.

The company has offices in five countries across the globe, including London, Sydney, Milan, Hong Kong and Dublin. Francesco Simoneschi is co-founder and CEO.

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