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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Open banking platform for Fortune 500 companies like IBM, Yapily has picked up $13 million (€12 million) in Series A funding. The round was led by Lakestar and takes the company’s total capital to $18 million. Also participating in the funding were existing investors HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and LocalGlobe, as well as angel investors including TransferWise’s Taavet Hinrikus and Twilio’s Ott Kaukve.
This week’s funding comes a year after the company’s last capital infusion – a seed investment of $5.4 million. Yapily will use the new funds to help support adoption of open banking by institutions across Europe.
Based in London and founded in 2017 by former Goldman Sachs executive Stefano Vaccino, Yapily helps drive open banking adoption by connecting banks to fintechs and other financial services providers. The company notes that its recurring revenues have grown by more than 5x over the past six months. Yapily also has increased the size of its London office to 45 employees, and expanded into Italy, Ireland, and France.
“We believe open banking is a force for good. Using our API and infrastructure, we’re not only providing our partners with strong and powerful connectivity to boost their user experiences,” Vaccino said. “But we’re also giving their customers, whether they be customers or businesses, greater control of their finances, through the creation of products and services which can fuel greater financial management and accessibility.”
Vaccino added that this flexibility for institutions and developers was especially valuable “during this period of uncertainy.” This point was echoed by Lakestar partner Stephen Nundy who cited the COVID-19 outbreak in crediting Yapily’s technology as being “best placed” to support financial innovation that drives business growth “across the financial ecosystem.”
In addition to IBM, Yapily includes GoCardless and Intuit Quickbooks among its customers.
Nordic challenger bank Lunar announced a new tranche of funding today, boosting its Series B round. The new $21.6 million (€20 million) installment adds to the $28 million (€26 million) the digital bank disclosed in August of last year.
Today’s investment brings the company’s Series B round to $49.6 million (€46 million) and raises its total funding to $74.7 million. Leading the extension round is Seed Capital, with participation from Greyhound, Socii, Augustinus, and Unity Technologies founder David Helgason.
Lunar’s free bank account includes transfers, payments, debit card, billpay, and access to in-app budgeting tools. The Premium accounts offer a fancier-looking card, three personal accounts, travel insurance, virtual cards, and more at a cost of just under $7 (69 krona) per month. The challenger bank also offers a business bank account for $194 per year that integrates with third-party software providers comes with commercial lending opportunities.
Lunar was founded in 2015 and received its banking license in August of last year from the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority. In all, the company touts 150,000 users. Ken Villum Klausen is founder and CEO.
Foreign exchange platform Azimoannounced today that it will facilitate payments on behalf of Thailand’s largest commercial bank, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB).
SCB clients will benefit from Azimo’s digital money transfer program that uses RippleNet, a blockchain-based money transfer service. Using RippleNet, Azimo will be able to instantly deliver payments from Europe to SCB client accounts.
The partnership leverages a program called PromptPay, which offers Thailand residents a PromptPay ID to serve as a proxy for their bank account number. PromptPay was launched in 2017 as part of the Bank of Thailand’s E-Payment initiative.
According to Azimo CEO Richard Ambrose, “Transfers can be set up in minutes from a smartphone. The fees are low and the rates are great, so our customers will be spared the extortionate charges levied by many competitors.”
Azimo counts more than one million customers of its digital money transfer platform, which allows users to send money from 25 countries to more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.
Last year, the company increased its transfer volume by 60% year-over-year. Today’s move with SCB should boost that growth even further; Thailand is one of the top destinations for remittances. The country receives $6.7 billion from around the globe each year.
Headquartered in London, U.K., Azimo was founded in 2012. The FinovateEurope alum brought in $21.7 million (€20 million) in debt financing last month, bringing its total combined debt and equity funding to $88 million.
Automated workflow and portfolio management solutions provider Teslar Software is partnering with Liberty National Bank. The Oklahoma-based bank will use Teslar’s technology to boost productivity, increase transparency, and streamline its commercial lending process.
“By leveraging our advanced portfolio management tools,” Teslar CEO and founder Joe Ehrhardt said, “Liberty National Bank will benefit from stronger data and increased visibility in the commercial lending process, helping them carry out their growth plans with confidence.”
Specifically, the bank will use Teslar’s technology to enhance its exceptions tracking, reporting, and portfolio management. This will give Liberty National Bank’s loan officers better access to more customer information, enabling them to both better engage customers as well as take advantage of potential cross-selling opportunities.
“We’re confident that through our partnership with Teslar, we’ll be able to boost efficiencies, improve accuracy of information, and provide better customer service, ultimately helping us rise above the competition,” Liberty National Bank Chief Credit Officer Michael Bucher said. “Our bank appreciates that Teslar’s platform is built by former bankers who understand our unique challenges and goals.”
With seven branches in five counties in Oklahoma, and a new loan production office in Oklahoma City, Liberty National Bank has nearly doubled its asset size over the past ten years. Founded in 1902 as the Bank of Elgin before Oklahoma had been granted statehood, the institution became Liberty National Bank in 2002. Currently serving customers in Oklahoma and North Texas, the bank has assets of $456 million as of last summer.
Teslar provides community banks and credit unions with a lending and credit management SaaS solution that enables them to manage all stages of the loan lifecycle, from pipeline and call activity to loan review. The company behind the technology, 3E Software, was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Springdale, Arkansas. Teslar has been a Finovate alum since 2015.
Digital identity company IdentityMind Global has agreed to be acquired by identity verification company Acuant five months after the two initially formed a partnership. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The deal offers Acuant access to IdentityMind’s digital identity product, a SaaS platform that builds, maintains, and analyzes digital identities and helps companies perform risk-based authentication, regulatory identification, and detect and prevent synthetic and stolen identities.
While digital identity was a hot topic at the beginning of the year, it is even more so now that much of consumer interaction is being pushed from in-person to online channels.
“Never before has identity been so critical to building and maintaining a stable and productive economy,” said Acuant CEO Yossi Zekri. “Businesses must rely on trusted identities to successfully transact, fight fraud and stay compliant. Our Trusted Identity Platform, now with IdentityMind’s orchestration layer, creates a new standard in identity verification.”
Acuant has offered identity verification solutions for 20 years. Since then, the California-based company has completed more than one billion trusted transactions in over 196 countries. Today’s deal is Acuant’s second acquisition after purchasing AssureTec Technologies in 2016.
IdentityMind was founded in 2013 and has raised $21.5 million across three rounds of funding. The company most recently demoed at FinovateSpring 2018, showcasing its GDPR compliant KYC plug-in.
Merchant acquirer EVO Payments, the parent company of EVO Snap, has secured $150 million in cash to help fortify the company’s balance sheet, retire debt, and provide funding for future investment opportunities during the COVID-19 crisis. Private equity firm Madison Dearborn, a major shareholder in the company, led the investment.
“While EVO’s global portfolio represents a diversified mix of merchants across Europe and North America,” the company explained in a statement, “many of these merchants operate in markets that are subject to broad governmental restrictions on movement and commerce, resulting in substantial reductions in merchant transaction count and volumes.”
In addition to the funding, EVO Payments has launched initiatives to lower fixed costs and capital expenditures over the balance of fiscal 2020. The company’s CEO James G. Kelly said that the “long-term fundamentals of EVO’s business remain strong” and that the current strategies will enable the company to continue to grow.
Founded in 1989 and currently active in 50 markets around the world, EVO Payments acquired the technology that powers the EVO Snap development platform in 2013. EVO Snap makes it easy for developers, independent software vendors, and merchants to develop omni-channel and cross-border payment solutions. The company participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley, offering a presentation and workshop on building customized loyalty programs, card-linked offers, and real-time POS rewards.
EVO Payments is publicly-traded on the Nasdaq under the ticker EVOP. The company, headquartered in McLean, Virginia near Washington, D.C., has a market capitalization of $1 billion. EVO services more than 500,000 merchants in North America and Europe, processing 900+ million transactions in the former and 1.7 billion transactions in the latter each year.
Vymo, the company whose intelligent sales assistant makes life easier for on-the-go sales pros, has unveiled a new enhancement to help sales teams at this time when customer engagement is even more challenging. The company has introduced a new Work From Home enhancement to its sales assistant solution which enables secure, 24/7 access to critical data via an app instead of requiring a desktop or on-premises hardware.
“Considering Vymo supports over 100,000 remote users already, this is a logical extension,” Vymo CEO Yamini Bhat explained. “We are seeing very encouraging signs in several of the deployments that have gone live over the past week. This social and economic situation is unlike anything we have seen before, and so our team at Vymo is committed to helping organizations adapt to this new paradigm.”
Available as an upgrade to the Vymo app, the new offering is a way for organizations to maintain business continuity during the Covid-19 crisis, and to ensure accurate communication with customers. The solution features secure calling and video conferencing, broadcasts and targeted notifications, and a central hub that provides a comprehensive view of KPIs such as agent adoption and customer coverage.
Sandeep Kumar Mishar, SVP and Head -HDFC Bank Relationship for Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance, led the implementation of Vymo’s technology at his firm. He praised the analytics available via Vymo’s platform, and credited them for “enabling me to manage my team’s productivity better and turnaround the WFH (Work From Home) challenges positively.”
An alum of both FinovateAsia and FinovateFall, Vymo was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Bangalore, India. The company has raised $23 million in funding from investors including Sequoia Capital India and Emergence.
Further proving that every company is a fintech company, Plaid has formed a partnership with Microsoft.
Plaid will integrate with Microsoft Excel to help give the budget spreadsheet a major upgrade. Launching under the guise of Money in Excel, the new tool will use Plaid to import users’ financial information, bringing an automated approach to financial management.
With access to 11,000 financial institutions across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, Plaid is able to import the user’s entire financial picture in real time.
Money in Excel offers budgeting features typical of most PFM applications. Users can see a monthly overview of their spending habits, analyze recurring expenses, and understand their net worth.
Money in Excel is launching as part of the new Microsoft 365 subscription service that will go live on April 21. The subscriptions range from $6.99 per month to $9.99 per month and include real-time editing in Word, advanced PowerPoint layout and speech coaching, and access to creative content.
Plaid works with thousands of third-party fintech apps such as Transferwise, Betterment, and Venmo to connect with their users’ financial institutions. The company made headlines at the beginning of 2020 after it announced it had been acquired by Visa for $5.3 billion.
Credit management solutions provider CRIF has agreed to acquire PFM company Strands for an undisclosed amount. The deal will be finalized “in the coming weeks.”
The union will bring Strands’ personal financial management and business financial management solutions to CRIF’s client base that includes 6,300 banks, 55,000 businesses, and 310,000 consumers across 50 countries.
Strands’ technology will complement CRIF’s customer acquisition, portfolio management, and credit collection tools that help forecast market developments, improve business performance, reduce credit risks, and prevent fraud.
According to CRIF chairman Carlo Gherardi, the acquisition will “allow CRIF to create a worldwide digital solutions provider for open banking.” He added, “Through this deal, CRIF will combine its market knowledge and expertise with an innovative and well-positioned fintech player, creating synergies that will help our global clients to keep on growing and innovating through their digital transformation journey.”
For its part, Strands brings to the table 700 bank clients serving 100 million end customers. Strands CEO Erik Brieva said that the deal will help fuel Strands’ mission “to enable banks to anticipate customer needs and proactively suggest next-best-actions.”
Strands was founded in 2004 and has since raised more than $55 million in two rounds of funding. The company has offices in Barcelona, Spain; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and at its headquarters location in Miami, Florida. Strands’ most recent appearance on the Finovate stage was last year, where it demonstrated a cash flow solution for small businesses alongside Mastercard.
With more than 5,000 employees, CRIF is headquartered in Italy and was founded in 1988. Today’s deal is the company’s seventh acquisition, following its purchase of Vision-Net in 2018. CRIF demonstrated its Credit Framework solution at FinovateEurope 2014.
Tink Ties Up with Eurobits Technologies – Stockholm-based open banking platform Tink, announced late last week that it is acquiring Spanish account aggregation services provider – and fellow Finovate alum – Eurobits Technologies for $17 million (€15.5 million). The acquisition will enhance Tink’s position in Southern Europe, extending the firm’s presence to 17 markets around the world.
“We are extremely impressed by the Eurobits team, what they have built and their very strong position in Southern Europe,” Tink co-founder and CEO Daniel Kjellén said. “Not only does it strengthen our platform through increased connectivity, it also gives existing Eurobits customers access to our payment initiation and data services.”
A certified account information and payment initiation services provider (PISP), Eurobits facilitates more than 50 million transactions a month in Europe and Latin America. The company, which demonstrated its account aggregation technology at FinovateEurope 2019, works with some of Europe’s biggest fintech and financial institutions, including BBVA, Santander, and Fintonic. Founded in 2014, Eurobits is headquartered in Madrid, Spain.
“Tink is undoubtedly one of the most innovative companies within open banking,” Eurobits CEO Arturo Gonzalez Mac Dowell said. “Joining forces with them to help expand their coverage across Europe and Latin America is a unique opportunity, not only for both of our businesses, but for the broader industry as a whole.”
Tink’s most recent Finovate appearance was also at FinovateEurope 2019. Founded in 2012, the company began this year with a major fundraising, picking up $100 million in funding in a round co-led by Dawn Capital, HMI Capital, and Insight Partners. Tink has collaborated with PayPal, Klarna, NatWest, and ABN AMRO. The company’s platform is used by more than 5,000 developers.
Aireoffers three months of free access to its credit information services to help lenders during the coronavirus crisis.
TinkacquiresEurobits Technologies, a Spanish account aggregation vendor, for $17 million (€15.5 million).
Best of Show winning financial literacy app Zogoteams up with financial coop VolCorp.
Minna Technologies and Jscramblerearn finalist spots in the Tech5 Founders Day competition among top European startups.
Personeticsannounces strategic partnership with Avaloq.
Finovate Alumni Features and Profiles
Moven Minds its Business in B2B Pivot – In a transition announced earlier this week, Moven is moving away from the direct to consumer / neobank model to focus on what founder Brett King summed up as “our distributed smart banking and financial wellness capabilities.”
ebankIT and Enterprise Engineering Forge North American Partnership – Finovate Best of Show winner ebankIT is working with fellow Finovate alum Enterprise Engineering (EEI) to launch a new omnichannel banking solution geared toward financial institutions in North America in general, and the U.S. in specific.
Revolut Arrives in the U.S.A. – Revolut, the London-based fintech and alternative bank that reached unicorn status in 2018, has finally made its move to America.
Ripple Explains What’s Holding Back Blockchain Adoption – Last fall, blockchain payments company Ripple, in conjunction with Celent, conducted a survey to better understand payment services providers’ adoption of blockchain-based payments.
Lighter Capital Takes Debt Financing to Canada – The physical border between the U.S. and Canada may be closed, but that’s not stopping tech startup financing provider Lighter Capital. The Seattle-based company announced today it has launched its services in Canada.
Blame it on the ‘rona? In a transition announced earlier this week, Moven – which made headlines recently with its partnership with Saudi Arabia’s STC Pay – is moving away from the direct to consumer / neobank model to focus on what founder Brett King summed up as “our distributed smart banking and financial wellness capabilities.”
“It has become patently clear we need to focus our energies and our resources on the segment of our business where we can reach the most consumers moving forward,” King said.
The company specifically noted the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Moven’s funding pipeline as a leading factor in the decision. The company emphasized that its Enterprise business remains healthy and well-funded.
“The Moven brand now has the opportunity to represent patented financial well-being, available to enterprises of all types,” Head of Moven’s U.S. Strategy Denny Brandt said. “Our patent gives us competitive strength in a rapidly evolving B2B environment. We continue to be involved in ventures in multiple geographies where we power direct-to-consumer banking services.”
Moven announced that it will close customer accounts at the end of April. The company has begun to communicate with accountholders to let them know what to expect as well as to ensure a smooth transition.
Founded in 2011, Moven made its Finovate debut a few years later at FinovateEurope in London, earning a Best of Show award. The New York-based company, among the first to combine smartphone apps, debit cards, and bank accounts as part of a unified strategy for managing personal finances, launched Moven Enterprise in 2016 to license its technology to banks and other financial institutions. Moven Enterprise debuted on the Finovate stage at FinovateEurope in 2017, showing how its engagement platform brings value to customers while producing measurable, positive business outcomes for banks.
Notably, Moven’s partnership with STC Pay is not the company’s first foray into the MENA region. A little over a year ago, Moven announced that it was teaming up with Bahrain-based Almoayad Technologies, which is leveraging the company’s technology to help fulfill the open banking mandate from the country’s central bank.
The fight against the coronavirus pandemic has captured the attention of people all over the world. From medical professionals on the front lines of caring for the sick to small businesses making hard decisions about how to keep their workforces intact during lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, everyone has been touched by the current crisis.
Earlier this week, we took a look at how fintechs and financial services firms are rising to the challenge of the COVID-19 outbreak. Looking at three different areas – safety, digitalization, and service – we saw how companies in countries ranging from Russia and India to the U.K. and the U.S. are lending their insights, talents, and generosity to the cause.
Companies like London-based Aire, a Finovate alum that is offering lenders three months of free access to its credit insight service, are an example of what is happening across the fintech space. “We’re seeing an unprecedented level of change in the market for consumers right now,” company founder and CEO Aneesh Varma said. “Lenders are understandably stretched and struggling to build accurate pictures of their customers in real-time.”
CoinDCX Cashes In: Two weeks ago we interviewed Neeraj Khandelwal, co-founder of Indian cryptocurrency trading platform CoinDCX, on cryptocurrencies and cashlessness. This week, we learned that the company has raised $3 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Polychain Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, and HDR Group. The capital will help the company launch new products, boost R&D efforts and marketing, and build the CoinDCX team.
“As the country’s largest exchange, we are in a position to drive national crypto adoption forward responsibly,” CEO and co-founder Sumit Gupta said. “This successful investment round will go a long way in funding our vision of accelerating India’s growth into a $5 trillion economy.”
Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Kenya-based telecom Safaricom to waive fees for its M-Pesa mobile money service to help customers avoid cash during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Somalia’s MyBank to deploy Sharia-compliant, core banking technology from Path Solutions.
Ghana goes live with its Universal Quick Response (QR) Code and Proxy Pay system.
Central and Eastern Europe
SME Finance, a factoring services provider for businesses in the Baltics and Poland, picks up 10 million euro investment from new partner, Citadele Bank of Latvia.
Berlin, Germany-based, digital business bank Penta raises 18.5 million euros in new funding.
The COVID crisis has authorities in Russia decontaminating cash and urging citizens to use digital payments.
Erste Bank Hungary deploys mobile security technology from OneSpan.
Middle East and Northern Africa
DriveWealthannounces its first MENA region partnership: a collaboration with UAE-based wealth management firm, Wealthface.
Al Ansari Exchange taps Pelican for financial crime compliance.
Emirates’ World Investments commits to investment of $255 million in Australian challenger bank Xinja.
Central and Southern Asia
Mobile payments company HUMBL forges new partnership with Digital India Payments.
Singapore-based anti-fraud solutions provider Advance.AI opens offices in Bengaluru and Delhi.
Indian alt lender Vivriti Capital secures $50 million in Series B funding.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Mexican SME lender Creditjusto raises $100 million in debt financing from Credit Suisse Group.
Brazilian fintech Creditas announces plans to boost staff by 500 by the end of the year.
Wirecard teams up with Mexico’s Banca Afirme as the German digital payments solutions provider extends further into the Mexican market.
Asia-Pacific
TransferWiseteams up with Alipay to enable fund transfers to China.
Bank of China launches its AI-based FX trading signal app via Eikon.
Thai remittance company DeeMoney goes live on RippleNet.
