• TransferMate is fintech’s latest unicorn, having secured $70 million in funding this week and earning a valuation of more than $1 billion.
• TransferMate’s platform enables businesses and individuals to make cross-border payments in more than 201 countries and more than 140 currencies.
• Headquartered in Ireland, TransferMate was founded in 2010.

With a new investment of $70 million, Ireland-based, cross-border B2B payments company TransferMate has become the country’s latest fintech unicorn.

The funding round featured the participation of U.K. pension fund giant Railpen. This week’s funding brings TransferMate’s total capital raised to $130 million and gives the company a valuation of more than $1 billion.

“By combining our technology and our global license network, we empower software providers, banks, and fintechs to deliver payments dramatically faster and cheaper than the traditional SWIFT system,” TransferMate co-founder and Executive Chairman Terry Clune said. “We will use this investment to continue to recruit senior financial talent who can help broaden our customer base.”

A global B2B payments infrastructure-as-a-service company, TransferMate specializes in streamlining, digitizing, and automating the manual operations required in order to facilitate the payments process. Used by banks, software companies, and fintechs alike, TransferMate’s embedded payments technology enables businesses to grow globally and pay locally. The company’s world-class compliance program, powered by a sizable portfolio of payment licences, features embedded security tools to defend against fraud and money laundering, and provides predictive risk assessments and real-time response solutions.

“Our commitment to deliver real-time transparency and speed when businesses are conducting cross border payments has resulted in TransferMate becoming the global B2B payment infrastructure of choice for the world’s leading procure-to-pay and spend management platforms,” TransferMate CEO and co-founder Sinead Fitzmaurice said. “This investment will allow us to accelerate our mission to drive innovation as businesses seek to digitize their B2B payments within the core software that they use to conduct their day-to-day activities.”

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Kilkenny, Ireland TransferMate is a subsidiary of Clune Technology Group. Last fall, the company announced a partnership with ComplyAdvantage, a specialist in customer onboarding and transaction screening and monitoring.

Photo by Lukas Kloeppel

• Auto loan refinance company Caribou received $115 million in Series C funding last week.
• The company now boasts $190 million in total funding and touts a $1.1 billion valuation.
• Caribou will use the funds to further invest in its platform, create new products, and expand its team.

Auto loan refinance company Caribou closed on $115 million in an oversubscribed Series C funding round late last week. The investment brings the Washington, D.C.-based company’s total raised up to $190 million and boosts it into the fintech unicorn club with a valuation of $1.1 billion.

Goldman Sachs led the round, which drew contributions from new investors Innovius Capital and Harmonic. Existing investors, including Accomplice, CMFG Ventures, Curql Fund, Firebolt Ventures, Gaingels, Moderne Ventures, Motley Fool Ventures, and others also contributed.

Caribou will use today’s funding to further invest in its platform, create new products, and expand its team.

Formerly known as MotoRefi, Caribou was founded in 2016. The company helps its customers save an average of over $100 per month on their car payments by partnering with lenders and facilitating refinances. Caribou partnered with SoFi in April of last year to white-label its auto refinancing technology for SoFi’s 3.8 million customers. The company also offers a digital insurance marketplace that lets users browse quotes from a range of auto insurance providers.

“With the costs of car ownership soaring, and macroeconomic headwinds negatively impacting people’s finances, we believe that it’s more important than ever to help people save money,” said Innovius Capital CEO Justin Moore. “Caribou has established itself as the go-to platform to refinance their auto loan and we are excited for all that is to come.”

Over the past four years, Caribou has refinanced more than $1.5 billion in loans and scaled its workforce from 40 employees to 500. Kevin Bennett is CEO.

Photo by Joris Beugels on Unsplash

• Three credit unions – VyStar CU, BCU, and Reseda Group – have invested in credit risk management specialist AKUVO.
• Terms of the funding were not disclosed.
• The new capital will help AKUVO further develop its credit risk and delinquency management platform, Aperture.

Credit risk and delinquency management specialist AKUVO announced a new investment not from the world of venture capital, but from the land of membership-powered credit unions. The amount of the investment was not disclosed, but the names of the credit unions involved in the funding have been: VyStar Credit Union, BCU, and Reseda Group, a wholly-owned CUSO (credit union service organization) of Michigan State University Federal Credit Union (MSUFCU).

The funding will enable AKUVO to further develop its collection and credit risk platform, Aperture. The cloud-based, API-enabled portfolio risk and delinquency management solution provides streamlined information for quick and easy research and leverages robotic processing to offer businesses a 20% improvement in collector efficiency, a 15% reduction of effort for speciality processes, a 10% reduction in collection workload, and a 10% increase in manager efficiency.

“Our goal is to empower members to discover financial freedom, and I am optimistic AKUVO’s data science solutions will help us accelerate our ability to do just that,” BCU EVP and COO Jim Block said. “We anticipate rapid growth over the next decade, and the Aperture platform has the promise to scale with our membership.”

With $5.5 billion in assets, BCU is based in Vernon Hills, Illinois, in the greater Chicago area. BCU is the smallest (by assets) of the three credit unions involved in AKUVO’s funding this week. Reseda Group is part of $6.8 billion MSUFCU and this investment represents the second time the institution has invested in AKUVO (the first being in January of this year).

“AKUVO’s Aperture platform will change the way we provide members with individual credit solutions that maximize recoveries,” MSUFCU Chief Risk Officer Jim Hunsanger said. “Aperture’s data-based decisioning also ensures we meet regulatory and legal requirements. We’re excited to be an AKUVO client and early investor.”

VyStar Credit Union, based in Jacksonville, Florida, has $12 billion in assets, and is one of the 15 largest credit unions in the country. Speaking on behalf of the firm, VyStar’s SVP of Loan Administration Eric Weatherly said that the investment in AKUVO will “allow us to be a greater force for change for our members and the credit union community.”

Courtesy of the investment, each of the three credit unions involved will have a representative on AKUVO’s board of directors. Headquartered in Pennsylvania, AKUVO was founded in 2019.

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• Apple is using CNote’s platform to invest $25 million in underserved communities.
• Oakland-based CNote facilitates investments in economic equality, racial justice, gender equity and climate change initiatives.
• Apple joins other companies using CNote to invest, including Mastercard, Patagonia, PayPal, and Netflix.

CNote, a company that facilitates investments in fixed income and time deposit products that advance the social good, revealed its newest investor today. Apple is using the California-based company’s platform to invest $25 million in underserved communities.

“We’re committed to helping ensure that everyone has access to the opportunity to pursue their dreams and create our shared future,” said Apple VP of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson. “By working with CNote to get funds directly to historically under-resourced communities through their local financial institutions, we can support equity, entrepreneurship and access.”

Apple’s $25 million contribution is part of the company’s Racial Equity and Justice initiative, an effort to address systemic racism and expand opportunities for people of color.

CNote has already deployed some of the funds to an initial round of financial institutions, including:

• ANECA Federal Credit Union in Louisiana
• Bank of Cherokee County in Oklahoma
• Carver State Bank in Georgia
• Education Credit Union in Texas
• First Southwest Bank in Colorado
• Hope Credit Union, which serves Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee
• Kaua‘i Federal Credit Union in Hawai‘i
• Latino Community Credit Union in North Carolina
• Legacy Bank in Missouri
• Optus Bank in South Carolina
• Self-Help Federal Credit Union, with locations in California, Illinois, Washington, and Wisconsin
• VCC Bank in Virginia

As Bank of Cherokee County EVP Susannah Plumb Scott explained, the funds invested via the CNote platform can make a real difference in underserved communities. “Partnerships like the one we have with CNote and Apple are essential to our efforts to expand access to capital, as well as to financial products and services, in a historically underserved market,” said Scott, whose institution invests 95% of deposits back into Cherokee County.

Echoing those thoughts is Education Credit Union President and CEO Eric Jenkins, who said deposits like Apple’s “allow ECU to serve more consumers and meet a broader range of needs.”

Founded in 2016, CNote’s platform provides insured deposits to a group of vetted, mission-driven financial institutions, including community development financial institutions (CDFIs), low-income designated (LID) credit unions, and minority depository institutions (MDIs). These financial institutions use the deposits to help promote economic equality, racial justice, gender equity, and climate change initiatives.

CNote investors, a list that includes Mastercard, Patagonia, PayPal, Netflix, and now Apple, receive quarterly impact reports with details on which institutions received deposits and the populations that are benefiting.

CNote was a B Lab “Best for the World” honoree in 2019 and was named “Best Women-Owned Business” by the U.N. Women’s Empowerment Principles program in 2020. The company has raised $43 million.

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• Cryptocurrency accounting firm Tactic raised $2.6 million in funding.
• Leading the investment round were Founders Fund and finance automation company Ramp.
• The new capital will help the company add talent and continue to build out its platform.

With more and more companies seeking to diversify their finances with cryptocurrencies, a new U.S.-based startup has arrived to help these businesses better manage their cryptocurrency holdings.

The company, Tactic, announced today that it has raised $2.3 million in seed funding. The investment was co-led by Founders Fund and Ramp, a finance automation company. Also participating in the funding were individual investors Elad Gil and Dylan Field, co-founder of Figma. Tactic said that, among other needs, the new capital will help the company hire additional talent.

Tactic helps businesses account for their cryptocurrency holdings by aggregating data across disparate sources – often multiple wallets across multiple blockchains – to provide a full treasury view of all balances and account activity. Tactic enables companies to automatically categorize their transactions and apply basic accounting logic and rules to calculate gain/loss and identify taxable events. Accounting teams can also use the platform to reconcile the cryptocurrency subledger to traditional accounting systems such as QuickBooks.

“Tactic solves a real pain point for businesses managing cryptocurrency finances and the product is already saving crypto accounting teams days each month,” Founders Fund Principal Leigh Marie Braswell said. “We believe Tactic has the potential to become a massive player as more companies move into web3.”

Founded by CEO Ann Jaskiw and launched in 2021, Tactic has since reeled in “dozens” of customers, from early stage startup companies to billion-dollar businesses. Jaskiw started Tactic after learning that many companies involved in web3 were using spreadsheets for their accounting because there were no other solutions available for them. By contrast, Tactic has developed its solution in part by teaming up with leading accounting firms to help them apply accounting guidelines to activities common in the DeFi world such as staking, NFT, minting, and airdrops.

Tactic VP of Strategy and Ops John Dempsey put Tactic’s platform in the context of other fintech solutions that leverage automation and other enabling technologies to make operations more efficient. “Businesses have come to expect back-office solutions that help them get started quickly and automate their manual tasks,” Dempsey said. “Tactic makes it easy for businesses to transact in cryptocurrency, knowing they can manage their financial activity in a clean, compliant way.”

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• Canada’s Neo Financial closed $145 million ($185 million CAD) in funding.
• The round brings the three-year-old company’s total funding to almost $240 million ($299 CAD) and boosts its valuation past $785 million ($1 billion CAD).
• Neo is now one of only a few Alberta-based tech companies to become a unicorn.

Canada-based Neo Financial’s newest funding round has boosted the company up to unicorn status in Canadian dollars. The $145 million ($185 million CAD) investment was led by Valar Ventures and saw participation from Tribe Capital, Altos Ventures, Blank Ventures, Gaingels, Maple VC, and Knollwood Advisory.

Today’s investment boosts Alberta-based Neo Financial’s total funding to almost $240 million ($299 CAD). It also marks the company as one of just a few tech companies in the region to become a unicorn.

Founded in 2019, Neo Financial differentiates itself with its user-friendly banking technology. The company boasts one million users of its four main products, which include a credit card, high-interest savings account, and investment tools. Additionally, Neo Financial is slated to launch a mortgage offering by the end of this year.

“We’re constantly challenging the status quo,” the company said in a blog post, “and asking the questions that should be asked: What if you only needed one loyalty card instead of 20? What if your financial services experience was as seamless as Netflix or Spotify? What if getting a mortgage could be a fully digital experience? What if the future of banking wasn’t a bank?”

With 650 employees under its roof, a number that has doubled in the past year, Neo Financial is growing. The company has added more than 11 products and features in the past year alone. To fuel this growth, the company adding 100 people to its workforce in Calgary and Winnipeg.

“The pace at which this team releases new products and grows its customer base is among the fastest we have seen in our careers,” said Valar Ventures Founding Partner Andrew McCormack.

Maple VC’s Andre Charoo echoed those thoughts. In an interview with TechCrunch, he said, “Neo is the fastest growing company I have seen in Canada… I believe Neo has a shot at owning at least 10% of the aggregated $550 billion banking sector in Canada (ie. $50 billion) due to the network effects it has created with its unique merchant loyalty program.”

Photo by Andre Furtado

• Women-focused roboadvisor Ellevest received a $53 million Series B investment, bringing its total funding to $153 million.
• The company will use the funds to deepen its offerings and to help fulfill its goal of getting more money into the hands of women.
• Ninety percent of the investors in the Series B round are women and underrepresented investors.

Women-focused wealthtech startup Ellevest just raised $53 million in Series B funding to fulfill its mission to get more money into the hands of women.

BMO and Contour Venture Partners co-led the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $153 million. Contributions also came from new investors Halogen Ventures, Cleo Capital, Stardust Equity, The Venture Collective, Envestnet, as well as the LGBTQIA+ investment syndicate Gaingels. Existing investors Pivotal Ventures, Venture Fund, Khosla, AME Cloud Ventures, Rethink Impact SPV, Salesforce Ventures, PayPal Ventures, and Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America also contributed.

Ninety percent of the investors in today’s Series B round are women and underrepresented investors. “What we’ve got here is women investing, women investing in women, and women investing to help women invest,” the company stated in the press release.

“Ellevest was built by women, for women. It is also funded by women, with 360 women and underrepresented investors participating in this funding round. This group recognizes that women have been disproportionately losing financial ground, and that’s bad news for all of us. Ellevest has a key role to play in addressing this issue: to help women — and their families — rewrite their financial narratives and thrive,” said Ellevest CEO Sallie Krawcheck.

Founded in 2014 by Krawcheck, Ellevest has grown to $1.44 billion in assets under management. The company will use today’s investment to deepen its offerings, which currently consists of a roboadvisor, financial and career coaching, insurance, and a digital bank with a debit card that offers a savings roundup tool and cashback rewards.

In addition to its financial products and services, Ellevest also serves financial content to its community of three million members, a number that includes Sallie Krawcheck’s connections on LinkedIn and Ellevest’s followers on Instagram.

Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva

• Swedish B2B financing company Qred launched a B2B payments platform for its business users.
• The new tool enables users to pay invoices using their Qred Visa credit card from within the Qred mobile app.
• Helping to fuel this new tool is $11 million (€10 million) in funding from existing investor Nordic Capital. The investment brings Qred’s total funding to $70.7 million.

Small business financing company Qred is making its platform a bit more powerful for its small business clients this week. The Sweden-based company unveiled a new B2B payments platform that will enable business users to pay any invoice using their Qred Visa card from within the Qred app, benefitting from Qred’s 45-day interest-free liquidity.

Founded in 2015, Qred offers an alternative lending platform for small businesses that makes the funding process simple, digital, and fast. The company helps businesses receive the working capital they need within 24 hours of applying.

The Qred Visa credit card is free for small business users and offers 1% cash back with every purchase. Businesses can use the Qred card and mobile app to pay invoices from billers that use Sweden’s clearing system, Bankgiro, even if the biller doesn’t accept card payments. And users can postpone their payment, interest-free for up to 45 days.

For now, Qred’s invoice payment tool is free for businesses when they use their Qred Visa card. However, starting in August of this year, there will be a 2.5% transaction fee.

“Tens of billions of dollars worth of invoices are issued each year and for most businesses the only way to pay them is to use cash directly from their account since most suppliers or vendors don’t accept card payments,” said Qred CEO Emil Sunvisson. “With our new payment platform, small businesses can use their Qred Visa to pay any invoice they have with much more flexible payment terms. This frees up much needed, short-term cash which is the life blood of most entrepreneurs.”

Qred also announced today it has received $11 million (€10 million) from existing investor Nordic Capital. This brings the company’s total funding to $70.7 million. The company will use the investment to “continue to deliver innovative products and services to small businesses throughout Northern Europe.”

Photo by Piya Nimityongskul