Funding

Digital Banking Innovator Narmi Tops $20 Million in New Funding

Digital Banking Innovator Narmi Tops $20 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding

In a round led by New Enterprise Associates, a featuring the participation of more than twelve investors – including executives from Plaid – digital banking solution provider Narmi has raised $20.4 million in new funding. The investment represents the lion’s share of the New York City-based fintech’s total capital, and will be used to help power Narmi’s mission to enable regional banks and credit unions to compete with big banks and neobanks, alike.

“We started Narmi with the mission to help financial institutions thrive in a digital-first world and that mission hasn’t changed,” company co-founder Nikhil Lakhanpal said. “Since launching over four years ago, we’ve experienced over 100% revenue growth every year, launched four enterprise-grade platforms, and helped our partner financial institutions delivery transformational results.”

Also participating in the Series A round were Patriot Financial Partners, Picus Capital, Contour Ventures, and Firebolt Ventures.

Narmi’s cloud-based, API-powered platform gives financial institutions the ability to leverage its digital account opening, consumer and business digital banking, and administrator console platforms to boost growth, increase deposits, and make operations more efficient. The fintech’s customers have reported a 55% increase in new account applications from non-account holders, a 65% reduction in application time, and a 50% decrease in support volume, helping lower back office costs.

And like many fintechs in the digital banking space, Narmi has seen a dramatic uptick in interest in digital solutions with the onset of the COVID pandemic. The company reported a 70% increase in digital activity and transactions across its customer base.

Partner Radius Bank credited Narmi for helping it launch its online and mobile banking experience “50% to 70% faster” than its competitors. Radius Bank, named one of the Best Online Banks of 2021 by Bankrate, and one of the fastest growing banks in Massachusetts, was acquired by LendingClub a year ago for $185 million. Liz Landsman, General Partner at NEA, further praised Narmi for its “understanding of the challenges that regional banks and credit unions are facing to keep pace with an increasingly digitally-centric customer base in banking today.”

Founded in 2016, Narmi also includes Freedom Credit Union and Berkshire Bank among its customers.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

FinFirst Celebrates SuperApp’s Successful First Year

FinFirst Celebrates SuperApp’s Successful First Year
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni profile, FinFirst, Funding

Two years after its debut at FinovateMiddleEast, Kuwait-based financial services aggregator FinFirst is celebrating a 2020 that saw the company facilitate millions of dollars worth of financing applications since the launch of its financial services app last summer. The company, founded in 2015 by CEO Abbas Hijazi, unveiled a financial superapp that serves as a marketplace for banks and financial services companies to offer auto, personal, student, and healthcare loans, as well as credit cards and Buy Now Pay Later installment loans. FinFirst promises a secure and fast, 20-click application process that averages less than 10 minutes to complete.

FinFirst also announced this week that it has secured a total of $4 million in equity investment. The investors were not disclosed. Hijazi said the funding “demonstrates the level of confidence in the market for a product which is simply transforming the face of the financial services sector.”

Since it began offering services to the small business community in March of last year – just before the COVID-19 crisis hit – FinFirst has received $40 million worth of financing applications from SMEs. FinFirst also has received $7.7 million worth of consumer financing applications since it began offering consumer-based solutions in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The majority of FinFirst’s personal finance customers are pursuing consumer financing – approximately 60% – while auto financing represents the remaining 40%. The company reports a high 90% lead conversion rate on its superapp, making the platform an attractive option for FinFirst’s financial services partners.

“These first-year results stand us in good stead to build upon a solid foundation of strong business and consumer appeal, which is enhanced by the speed and ease of our digital application app,” explained FinFirst Chief Operating Officer Afrah Al-Hubail. She added that FinFirst plans to spend 2021 enhancing its offering, collaborating with financial services providers and fintechs, as well as forging more partnerships and adding new products.

Among the more recent alliances announced by FinFirst is its partnership with Kuwait’s Boubyan Bank. An Islamic digital bank with total assets of more than $17 billion as of 2019, Boubyan Bank has the National Bank of Kuwait as its major shareholder, and is regarded as one of the up-and-coming banks in the Gulf region. The institution’s CEO and Vice Chairman, Adel Al-Majed, was named Arab Banker of the Year 2020 by The Union of Arab Banks.

Photo by SenuScape from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Brazilian Challenger Nubank Hauls in $400 Million

Brazilian Challenger Nubank Hauls in $400 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finovate Global, Funding, Nubank

Followers of Finovate Global, our weekly look at fintech innovation around the world, are likely familiar with the story of Brazilian challenger bank Nubank. But with news of the firm’s $400 million Series G round – announced today – we suspect there will be quite a few fintech fans brushing up on the fintech industry in Latin America.

Company founder and CEO David Velez said that the funding will help Nubank grow and diversify its client base, as well as fuel expansion. He added that bringing more products to market is key to becoming the kind of “full service financial institution for clients” that Latin American consumers need. Nubank currently offers a digital savings account, and a no-fee credit card, as well as personal loans. A recent acquisition of Brazilian broker Easyinvest last fall, Nubank’s third of 2020, suggests that investment products also may soon be among the challenger bank’s offerings.

Headquartered in Brazil’s largest city São Paulo, NuBank has earned a valuation of $25 billion with its latest investment. The Series G was led by GIC, Whale Rock Capital Management, and Invesco, and featured participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Tencent Holdings, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Ribbit Capital. The investment more than doubles Nubank’s previous valuation, based its July 2019 funding. The funding also takes the company’s total capital to $1.2 billion and places Nubank among the top five financial institutions in the region.

Nubank serves more than 34 million customers in Brazil and Mexico, and recently expanded to Colombia. The company is part of a growing neobank movement in the country – and the region – that is taking advantage of the inefficiencies of incumbent banks. This, in fact, was a major motivating factor for Velez, as he explained last fall announcing the move into neighboring Colombia.

“Nubank was born out of the conviction that through technology, design, data science and a customer-centric vision we could create a new generation of financial services that make people’s lives easier, with no complexity and no bureaucracy,” Velez said last fall. “All Latin Americans deserve a more simple, transparent and human banking experience. Today, I’m proud to announce the arrival of Nubank in Colombia, my motherland. Our goal is to have a positive impact in the life of millions.”

Founded in 2013, Nubank participated in our developers conference, FinDEVR New York in 2016. At the event, Nubank co-founder and CTO Edward Wible and Principal Software Engineer Lucas Cavalcanti dos Santos led a presentation titled, “Our Money, Our Rulebook,” that explained how they build an in-house accounting system based on functional programming principles. For the past two years in a row, Nubank has been named by Forbes magazine as the Best Bank in Brazil, and Fast Company has dubbed Nubank the “most innovative company in Latin America.”

Photo by C. Cagnin from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

What’s Next for Roostify After its $32 Million Series C Round

What’s Next for Roostify After its $32 Million Series C Round
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Roostify

Digital home lending solutions provider Roostify landed $32 million in funding yesterday, bringing its total capital to $65 million.

The round was led by Ten Coves Capital, and included contributions from Cota Capital, Mouro Capital, Colchis Capital, Point72 Ventures, and JPMorgan Chase. The investment will help the San Francisco-based company make home lending faster and more transparent for all parties by leveraging AI.

The Series C funding comes at a time of growth for not only Roostify, but also the mortgage industry in general. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) estimates that purchase originations will grow 8.5% to a new record of $1.54 trillion in 2021, thanks to low mortgage rates and low housing supply boosting demand.

Roostify has seen the effects of this growth. Last year, the company experienced a 250% increase in the number of applications submitted through its system and processed just under 1.5 million loan applications.

And while Roostify was prepared to handle both the volume and the demand for digital that came in 2020, many mortgage providers were not. “While the recent record-breaking origination volume was certainly welcomed, it also overburdened outdated mortgage lending processes and systems,” said Roostify Founder and CEO Rajesh Bhat. “We need to adopt a digital-first mentality that relies on technology-enabled transformation to solve real business problems. In order to thrive in a digital-first world, mortgage lenders need critical digital transformation initiatives, such as cloud-based technology, self-service solutions for consumers, and meaningful AI deployments.”

Founded in 2012, Roostify helps 200+ lending institutions collectively handle around $50 billion in loan volume each month.

As for what’s next, Roostify said it will continue to focus on leveraging data to transform the mortgage lending process. Key to this goal is the company’s partnership with Google Cloud AI. The two companies announced their collaboration last October in which Roostify began integrating Google Cloud’s Lending DocAI solution into its digital lending platform. As a result of Google Cloud’s AI and ML capabilities, Roostify’s digital lending tool now helps lenders analyze, categorize, and extract data from documents in an automized manner.

Despite the company’s growth, Bhat said that Roostify is “still in its infancy” in terms of its potential impact on the mortgage lending industry. “My team and I believe that it’s not enough to simply do digital lending better. We’re here to empower lenders to go beyond the efficiencies and cost-savings and forge a true connection with the end-user. We’re creating a world where financial success is possible for everyone, thanks to a simplified home lending experience.”

Photo by PhotoMIX Company from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Open Banking Innovator Token Scores $15 Million

Open Banking Innovator Token Scores $15 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Token

In a round led by SBI Investment and Sony Innovation Fund, open banking payments platform company Token has raised $15 million in new funding. The Series B round also featured participation from existing investors Octopus Ventures, EQT Ventures, and Opera Tech Ventures, the VC arm of BNP Paribas. The company, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2015, now has $50 million in total capital.

“The market’s appetite for open payments accelerated dramatically last year as more merchants and payment providers have tuned into the cost and efficiency gains that they offer,” Token CEO Todd Clyde explained. “Token’s payment volumes have more than doubled every month since March and our platform is now processing live transactions through PSD2 APIs from over 600 banks in 14 countries across Europe.” He added that the investment was an affirmation that Token would continue to lead in the open payments space and will help fuel further development in the company’s technology.

An early innovator in the open banking payments space in the U.K., Token was one of the first companies in the U.K. to earn authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as a payment initiation and account information service provider (PISP, AISP). In 2018, Token was the first PISP to complete an end-to-end payment via a PSD2-compliant bank API.

“Token offers a credible alternative to card and wallet payments while helping merchants, PSPs, and banks offer streamlined UX’s that deliver better payment experiences for customers,” said Sony Innovation Fund Chief Investment Manager Gen Tsuchikawa. Token’s open payment and data services support the transition away from traditional payment methods and toward account-to-account payments. This not only helps lower the cost of digital payments; it also introduces a variety of use cases for open payments, from funding accounts and billpay to credit risk analysis and cash flow management. Combine this with what SBI Investment Director and Chairman Yoshitaka Kitao described as “Token’s unrivaled bank connectivity and depth in payment services” and you have a company Kitao called a “market leader” that “has continued to outperform the competition.”

Founded in 2015 and maintaining offices in London, San Francisco, and Berlin, Token brings Pan-European connectivity to more than 3,000 banks. The company’s partners include Sberbank, Konsentus, Caxton, and HSBC, which recently launched its online payment alternative, HSBC Open Payments.

Photo by Jill Wellington from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Financial Wellness App for Kids Goalsetter Secures $3.9 Million in Seed Funding

Financial Wellness App for Kids Goalsetter Secures $3.9 Million in Seed Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Diversity in Fintech, Funding, Women in Fintech

A black-owned, family-focused financial wellness app, Goalsetter, has raised $3.9 million in seed funding. The company said that the new funding will help it boost subscriber growth and enhance the Goalsetter offering, which includes a debit card (Cashola) and a financial literacy curriculum designed specifically for teens and youth.

The round was led by Astia, and featured participation from PNC Bank, Mastercard, US Bank, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, Elevate Capital, Portfolia Rising America, and Pipeline Angels, among other investors.

To be fair, “among other investors” is doing quite a bit of work. Goalsetter’s roster of angel investors is impressive, with National Basketball Association stars Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, and Baron Davis – as well as philanthropist Robert F. Smith, among the ranks. Also involved in the funding were actors Sterling K. Brown and Ryan Bathe.

Goalsetter, featured last fall as the Apple App of the Day, includes financial literacy modules that award users money for correctly answering questions on financial education topics (“Learn to Earn”), as well as a feature (“Learn Before You Burn”) that enables parents to freeze their child’s Goalsetter debit card if they have not completed their financial literacy lessons in a timely fashion.

Goalsetter is not only black-owned, it is female-run, as company founder and CEO Tanya Van Court underscored in the firm’s funding announcement. “As the only black-woman owned fintech company focused on the kid’s fintech space, we know how critical early finance education is to all kids in our country, and to black and brown kids in particular,” she said. Van Court emphasized the importance of raising children who are “smart spenders” rather than merely “conspicuous consumers,” and added that learning about financial education, saving, and investing are “the building blocks for achieving generational wealth.”

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in New York City, Goalsetter is partnered with Evolve Bank & Trust, which provides the company’s savings accounts. Goalsetter’s’ Cashola Prepaid Debit Mastercard is issued by MetaBank.

Photo by nappy from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Czech Buy Now Pay Later Firm Twisto Secures €16 Million

Czech Buy Now Pay Later Firm Twisto Secures €16 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Twisto

We’ve now reached the point in the Buy Now Pay Later revolution in which BNPL companies are investing in other BNPL companies. Today we learn that Zip, a Buy Now Pay Later firm based in Australia, has joined Elevator Ventures in leading a $19.5 million (€16 million) funding round for Twisto, a buy now pay later company based in the Czech Republic.

“We want to teach people to take advantage of payment tools the right way,” company CEO Michal Smida said, “to help them improve their family budgets and better manage their cash flow, especially during the time of COVID.”

Also participating in the funding were Finch Capital, Velocity Capital, ING Bank, and UNIQA, an insurance corporation based in Austria. Twisto’s total capital now stands at more than $61 million (EUR 50.5 million). The company will use the additional capital to help fuel further expansion across Europe. “(The funding) is a huge step that helps us continue in our mission to become a leading app in CEE region,” the company wrote on its LinkedIn page this week.

Twisto, which made its most recent Finovate appearance at our European conference in 2018, is a pioneer in the Buy Now Pay Later market in Central and Eastern Europe. Approximately 170,000 consumers have used Twisto’s app, leveraging the company’s risk-scoring engine to access deferred financing options on goods purchased online. Twisto offers consumers an interest-free, three-installment payment option, and also provides paid, premium plans that include features like Split the Bill, Twist Card with Google Pay, and Family Travel Insurance.

Smida believes that Twisto can play a role in changing attitudes toward credit in Europe, and encourage more Europeans to pursue better financing alternatives. Late last year, Twisto teamed up with ING Bank Śląski to invest $4.5 million (PLN 17 million) to develop Twisto Poland, and extend the company’s operations in the CEE. Twisto was founded in 2013.

Photo by Daniel Frank from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Minna Technologies Raises More than $18 Million in Funding

Minna Technologies Raises More than $18 Million in Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Minna Technologies

Sweden-based Minna Technologies has secured more than $18 million (€15.5 million) in new funding to help bring its subscription management technology to more banks around the world. The Series B round was led by Element Ventures, and featured participation from MiddleGame Ventures, Nineyards Equity, and Visa. Minna Technologies now has raised more than $27 million (€23 million) in funding.

“Over the past four years, the subscription economy has exploded from Spotify and Netflix to even iPhones and cars,” Minna Technologies co-founder and CEO Joakim Sjöblom explained. “It’s becoming increasingly difficult for consumers to keep track of the payments and harder for banks to handle inquiries to shut them down. Minna’s tech improves the procedure for banks by simplifying the process, as well as providing an in-demand digital product that consumers are starting to expect from their financial institutions.”

Minna Technologies enables banks to offer their customers a better way to manage what analysts say are an average of 11 monthly subscriptions valued at €333 a month for European consumers. Rather than having to deal with each vendor or merchant separately, users of Minna’s solution can manage subscriptions directly via their banking app. The technology will also notify subscribers when free trial offers are nearing expiration to help users avoid accidental overpayment. Minna said that its technology has helped retail banking customers at partners Swedbank and ING save more than €40 million.

The subscription economy – driven by demand for products and services like online streaming and on-demand shopping – has grown by more than 3.5x since 2012, the company noted. A growing number of companies in the pre-digital economy are also taking advantage of the subscription model. As one example, automaker Volvo introduced a subscription service in the U.K., Care by Volvo, last fall. The new offering includes servicing, road tax, and maintenance as part of its “genuine, flexible alternative” to car ownership.

Element Ventures partner Michael McFadgen praised Minna as a company that was “revolutionizing financial services” for consumers and highlighted the ability of fintech innovation to provide banks with potential additional revenue streams, as well. “This is a clear example of the liberating services Open Banking promised us and we’re excited to be part of this journey with Minna,” McFadgen said.

Founded in 2016, Minna Technologies demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2019 in Berlin, Germany. Last summer, the company announced a partnership with ING Belgium, enabling the bank’s 1.8 million customers to manage their subscription commitments without leaving the bank portal.

Photo by Jonathan Petersson from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Blend Raises $300 Million for Mortgage and Consumer Banking Services

Blend Raises $300 Million for Mortgage and Consumer Banking Services
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Blend, Daily news, Funding

Shortly after expanding its offerings to include consumer banking tools, fintech innovator Blend announced it has landed $300 million in new funding.

The series G financing round was led by Coatue and Tiger Global, and brings Blend’s total funding to $665 million. With the investment, Blend is also seeing its valuation nearly double to $3.3 billion, up from $1.7 billion just five months earlier.

In a blog post, company CEO Nima Ghamsari said that Blend will use the funds to fuel “aggressive plans” for this year. “We want to build the banking software infrastructure for the future,” said the CEO, “with an end-to-end digital experience for any consumer banking product and a complete homebuying and financing journey from start to close.”

Blend offers banks no-code, drag-and-drop workflows to help them customize the end user experience and launch new products quickly in response to consumer demand.

The company launched in 2012 with a focus on helping banks revamp the mortgage application process for consumers. Last September, Blend introduced a consumer banking suite, a set of tools to help banks focus on more than just the lending process. The suite includes modules to help banks launch their own deposit accounts, credit cards, personal loans, vehicle loans, and home equity line of credit offerings.

Last year, Blend facilitated $1.4 trillion in loans, more than double what it did in 2019. The company counts 285+ lender partners, which together are responsible for around 30% of all mortgage volume in the U.S. Partners include BMO Harris Bank, Navy Federal Credit Union, and Wells Fargo, which sees more than 75% of its mortgage applications submitted via its Blend-powered application tool.

In addition to growing its loan volume and client portfolio, Blend also grew its team. The company added more than 200 employees last year remotely via Zoom, a move that increased its team by more than 60%.

“Today’s news is just another step in Blend’s journey; we’re in it for the long haul, and we look forward to continuing to build the best lending and banking experiences for all,” said Ghamsari.

Photo by Jack Ward on Unsplash

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

MX Raises $300 Million in Series C Funding; Becomes Fintech’s Latest Unicorn

MX Raises $300 Million in Series C Funding; Becomes Fintech’s Latest Unicorn
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Funding, MX

Some fintech observers may have gotten an inadvertent peek at the news yesterday. But today the big funding rumor has been confirmed: Less than a week after announcing its strategic partnership with fellow Finovate alum Hydrogen, money experience innovator MX is back in the fintech headlines with word of a $300 million fundraising.

TPG Growth led the round with a $150 million commitment. Also participating were existing investors CapitalG, Geodesic Capital, Greycroft, Canapi Ventures, Digital Garage, Point72 Ventures, Pelion Venture Partners, and Regions Financial Corporation. The Series C round takes MX’s total capital to $505 million and increases the firm’s valuation to $1.9 billion – making MX fintech’s latest unicorn.

In a statement, company CEO Ryan Caldwell said that in addition to hiring more talent, MX will use the capital to boost its platform’s data collection and enhancement capabilities. He specifically mentioned the importance of “scaling and finding additional ways to market” which underscores MX’s recent forays into embedded finance and its just-announced partnership with Hydrogen.

“The financial industry is at an inflection point as organizations look to become not only intermediaries, but true advocates for their customers by offering personalized insights and data-driven money experiences,” Caldwell explained. “Along with incredible partners, we are helping financial institutions and technology companies accelerate their digital roadmaps and launch next generation services and apps that will fundamentally transform how people interact with their money.”

MX helps businesses turn raw, unstructured data into valuable, insight-rich assets. This empowers them to build new solutions and services for their customers, drive growth, and boost brand loyalty. In addition to cleaning and categorizing data, MX’s technology adds key metadata that enables companies to better fight fraud, make faster loan approvals, and help their customers make better financial decisions.

In the funding announcement, Derek Zanutto of CapitalG praised MX’s ability to “leverage data strategically” and favorably compared MX’s potential impact on the financial industry to that of Netflix in the streaming content space and to Amazon in the e-commerce space. TPG Growth’s Mike Zappert noted that his firm was committed to investing in the digital transformation that is sweeping through financial services and sees MX as a big part of it. He called MX’s technology “a clear differentiator” that has delivered “tremendous growth for the Company over the last 12 months.”

MX currently works with more than 2,000 banks, credit unions, fintechs, and other companies, and includes 85% of digital banking providers among its partners. This has given the Lehi, Utah-based company a combined reach of more than 200 million consumers. A multiple Finovate Best of Show winner, MX last demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2019.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Modularbank Secures €4 Million in New Funding

Modularbank Secures €4 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Funding, Icefire, Modularbank

Digital banking platform Modularbank has secured a $4.8 million (€4 million) investment in a round led by Karma Ventures and Blackfit Capital Partners. The company, founded in 2018 and headquartered in Estonia, said that the seed funding will help it establish operations in the U.K., as well as add engineering and product development talent to meet its expansion goals.

Modularbank’s banking-as-a-service technology leverages APIs and microservice architecture to offer a core banking solution to serve both retail and business banking customers. And because Modularbank is, in fact, modular, companies can select the specific services they want – core banking, deposits and savings accounts, assets and collateral, lending, financial accounting, and payments – to build the solution that best fits their needs.

“Increasingly, people are demanding more flexible and convenient services that fit around the way they work and live and in response, there is a wave of digitalization and embedded finance on the horizon, beginning to build,” Modularbank CEO Vilve Vene explained. “To harness this momentum there is a real need for lean, yet sophisticated core banking technology and that’s where Modularbank comes in, as we do exactly that. Modularbank was set up to enable banks and other customer-facing businesses to devise and roll out personalized banking services quickly and easily.”

Also participating in the round were Plug and Play Ventures, Siena Capital, and Ott Kaukver, angel investor and former CTO of Twilio and Skype.

Modularbank made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2019. Since then, the company has collaborated with Germany’s Senacor Technologies and announced a strategic partnership with payments processor NETS Estonia. In December, Vene was named one of the most impressive women in fintech in 2020 by Fintech Futures.

Photo by Mike van Schoonderwalt from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Glia Lands $78 Million in Series C Funding

Glia Lands $78 Million in Series C Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Glia

In a round led by existing investor Insight Partners, multi-channel digital customer experience specialist Glia has raised $78 million in capital. The Series C round takes the company’s total funding to $107 million, and will be used to help scale the company’s digital customer service offerings with an emphasis on product development and an eye toward potential strategic acquisitions.

“Just as Zoom has transformed the way consumers communicate with colleagues, family and friends, Digital Customer Service is changing the way businesses support and engage with customers,” Glia co-founder and CEO Dan Michaeli explained. “This is an area that has gone mainstream, as evidenced by Facebooks’s recent billion-dollar acquisition of Kustomer.”

Glia’s fundraising comes as the company reports growth of more than 150% in 2020. This is due in part to the impact of COVID-19 related lockdowns and Work From Home policies that drove consumers and employees alike toward digital channels for commerce and work. Glia’s platform enables customers to communicate with businesses using any channel – voice, text, video – and to seamlessly transition between those channels during the interaction. The technology allows customer service representatives to guide customer journeys, increasing personalization and efficiency and boosting customer satisfaction and retention rates.

Insight Partners Lonne Jaffe praised Glia’s platform for providing the tools required for businesses to engage customers digitally and “communicate through the customer’s channel of choice.” Dan Brown, founder and CEO of Interactive Intelligence, who also participated in this week’s investment, added that Glia represents a solution for companies that are “still focused on moving antiquated, on-premises telephony systems to cloud contact centers that essentially offer the same functionality.” Brown added that if he were to build his company again today, “I would take Glia’s approach.”

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in New York, Glia last demonstrated its digital customer service technology at FinovateWest Digital 2020, earning Best of Show honors. Formerly known as SaleMove, Glia has teamed up with more than 150 financial institutions, insurance companies, and fintechs, most recently partnering with intelligent virtual assistant company Interface, and fellow Finovate alum and AI-powered chatbot developer, Finn AI.

Photo by icon0.com from Pexels

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook