The Fintech Times News Roundup
Fintech Industry Roundups Trending

This Week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 17/06

The latest Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup sees BlackRock and CPP Investments support fintech 10x Future Technologies in $187million Series C round.

Funding

Polish startup Booste has secured €12million Series A in order to expand to London, Ireland and The Netherlands. The revenue-based financing firm helps e-commerce businesses finance growth through digital ads, marketing campaigns and inventory spend.

There’s also funding success for Trigo, an Israel-based computer vision company. Investment from German retail giant REWE Group and Israeli tech investment firm Viola Growth takes Trigo’s total fundraising to more than $100million. Trigo has also established a new partnership with REWE Group to deliver a ‘grab-and-go’ shopping experience in a Cologne store.

Novo, the small business banking platform, has raised $40.7million in Series A funding. Valar Ventures led the round, with additional participation from Crosslink Capital, Rainfall Ventures, Red Sea Ventures and BoxGroup. In 2021, Novo surpassed $1billion in lifetime transactions, opened a new office in Miami and also grew its leadership team.

Expend, the AI-powered fintech startup, has celebrated a successful crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs. Ending on 19 June, the campaign is now 165 per cent overfunded, with more than 425 investors investing. Expend provides real-time insights into company spending.

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency investing platform Change has closed a $4.5million crowdfund from 50 private investors at a $214million valuation. Change will use the funding to grow its team, further develop its platform and expand in European and Asian markets.

Change is a community-driven investing platform
Change is a community-driven investing platform
Further funding

Legaltech company Disputed.io has secured more than £1.5million in its latest round of investment. New investors include fintech specialist Perry Blacher and Alan Falach, the co-founder of Global Legal Group. Disputed.io has ‘exciting plans for the business’, including international growth plans.

EBANX, a cross-border commerce platform in Latin America, has scooped an investment of $400million from Advent International. The firm joins FTV Capital as a minority investor in EBANX. The investment will be used to ‘continue funding EBANX’s aggressive expansion across Latin America’.

Fintech 10x Future Technologies has completed an oversubscribed $187million Series C financing round, co-led by funds managed by BlackRock and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and supported by existing investors JPMorgan Chase, Nationwide, Ping An and Westpac. 10x was founded in 2016 by Antony Jenkins, former group CEO of Barclays.

Finally, Meron Capital, the Israel-based founder first venture capital firm, closed its second fund at $50million. The new fund will target 18 to 20 pre-seed and seed investments in startups that are building software-based solutions for enterprise, cybersecurity, digital health, fintech, as well as DevOps.

Job moves
Visa appoints Dr. Saeeda Jaffar
Dr. Saeeda Jaffar

Visa has appointed Dr. Saeeda Jaffar as group country manager and senior vice president for its operations across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Based in Dubai, Dr Jaffar will oversee its presence in six countries. She has spent the previous five years serving as MD for the Middle East at Alvarez & Marsal.

Ian Carrington has joined the board of UK startup business Numerous. He will help it create a new data-sharing economy, benefitting both consumers and quality brands. Carrington will also help Numerous further develop its ecommerce offering and support the business with user acquisition and retention.

United Fintech has unveiled its advisory board, with the appointment of six experts to drive its global expansion. Members include Russel Levi, Michel André, Rasmus Jensen, Peter Korsholm, Jannik Kruse Petersen, as well as Morten Jensen. Korsholm, Petersen and Jensen are also investors in United Fintech. United Fintech plans to acquire and scale small to medium-sized engineering-led fintech companies.

Meanwhile, untied – the UK’s personal tax app – has hired David Buchalter as engineering manager. He will collaborate with others in the team and help design, build and deliver untied products. Buchalter is also relocating from South Africa to join the team in the UK.

Acquisitions and rebrands

Checkout.com has acquired Estonian software development firm Icefire. 110 technology engineers from Icefire will join Checkout.com’s global technology teams to accelerate the delivery of key products and features. The Tallinn office will become Checkout.com’s second-largest engineering hub, after its headquarters in London.

Diginex Limited, the digital asset financial services company, is unifying its businesses under the brand EQONEX. The rebrand brings together its cryptocurrency exchange, custody platform, multi-venue trading business, over-the-counter offering, asset management solution, as well as its securitisation business. It will also include its upcoming investment products and borrowing and lending businesses.

Launches

Fintech Exinity launches Exinity Trader PRO under an Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) licence to fuel global growth aspirations. Designed for the experienced trader, Exinity Trader PRO combines platform MetaTrader with trade execution and expert analysis, as well as professional support from an UAE account management team.

Identity verification startup Trustmatic launches in Ireland
Identity verification startup Trustmatic launches in Ireland

Meanwhile, Trustmatic has announced its launch and entry into the online identity verification market. The company is headquartered in Dundalk, Ireland, and plans to establish an AI centre of excellence in the Irish border town. It has also unveiled a strategic partnership with biometrics provider Innovatrics to support growth in Europe.

Sucden Financial, the multi-asset liquidity provider, has released a new mobile trading app for its futures and options trading system, STAR. The trading system connects to key global exchanges, including CME, ICE and the London Metal Exchange, with its unique prompt-date structure. The mobile app works is available for Android and iOS mobile devices.

Amazon Payment Services launches Amazon Fintech Lab to foster innovation in payment services at Dubai’s DIFC Innovation Hub. The initiative is the latest in Amazon’s efforts to support fintech in the region by providing a forum for discussions on digital payments as well as the future of the industry.

Amazon Fintech Lab Dubai
Amazon Fintech Lab Dubai

SenseOn, the UK-based cybersecurity firm, has unveiled a campaign showcasing its mission to ‘fix cybersecurity’. Recently named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, SenseOn automates the process of threat detection, investigation and response.

While Drawbridge, a provider of cybersecurity software to the alternative investment industry,  has launched a new platform module designed for private equity funds. The module gives PE funds a single view to monitor the complete cyber risk profiles of their portfolio companies in real-time.

Announcements

Bank ABC and First Abu Dhabi Bank have jointly arranged a debt facility for Bank Dhofar. The two acted as joint coordinators, underwriters, initial mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners on the $250million facility. BankDhofar’s CEO Abdul Hakeem Al Ojaili said the success and oversubscription of the transaction is an evidence of the confidence in BankDhofar by international and regional banks, as well as the ‘long-term credit strength and continued growth of the Omani economy’.

Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Firo has launched Receiver Address Privacy (RAP) on its mainnet. RAP addresses aim to solve the problem of address re-use – each sender to a RAP address can derive up to two billion deposit addresses unique to them.

GetGround, the UK buy-to-let management platform, has recorded a six times year-on-year increase in the number of companies formed on its platform for the first five months of 2021. The company expects the accumulative value of properties managed on the platform annually to exceed £1billion within the coming months.

SmartStream Technologies reveals KeyBank has gone live with its transaction lifecycle management collateral management on demand solution. The solution can be installed on-premise or accessed via the cloud. It also provides physical segregation of client data to ensure that client information is never commingled.

Finally, Gr4vy, the cloud-native payments platform, has completed PCI Level 1 certification, which ensures that partner companies store, transmit or process payment data to the highest security standards. Gr4vy’s PCI1 certified Vault is part of the company’s cloud-native POP that acts as a conduit between merchants’ e-commerce sites and payment providers.

Partnerships and collaborations

ThetaRay, a provider of AI-based Big Data analytics, has forged a partnership with Google Cloud to protect banks, fintechs, PSPs and payments infrastructure companies against money laundering activity hidden within cross-border transactions. Through the alliance, ThetaRay’s recently announced cloud-based AML solution for cross-border payments will be available as a service on Google Cloud.

There’s also a partnership for B2B cross-border payments firm Currencycloud and DynaPay. The integration of Currencycloud Spark gives DynaPay’s customers access to a multitude of new currencies, as well as transparent and real-time wholesale FX rates.

Monese, the European mobile money app, has teamed up with global identity verification provider Veriff to provide enhanced and secure digital banking services for consumers across Europe. Under the partnership, Veriff adds an extra layer of safety and security to the app.

Payment orchestration platform IXOPAY partners with Silverflow, the global payments technology company. This partnership will let IXOPAY clients upgrade their card payments process by switching to cloud based acquiring.

IXOPAY announces partnership with Silverflow

Further collaborations

There’s a partnership for clinical tech provider Comentis and intelliflo, a financial advice technology specialist. Advisers who are customers of intelliflo can now access Comentis’ software via the intelliflo store. It will help them identify financially vulnerable clients ‘easily, objectively and consistently’.

Hanseatic Bank has unified its authentication processes with a cloud-based identity and access management  solution from Netcetera. The German private bank will use the same authentication procedures for credit card payments on the internet, login to online banking and self-services, including the Transakt app from Entersekt.

Meanwhile, banking software firm Temenos has extended its strategic relationship with Standard Chartered to support its growing financing and securities services offering. With Temenos’ modern technology stack, Standard Chartered said it can improve overall client experience and offer automations throughout the investor servicing lifecycle.

Global loyalty technology company Ascenda has partnered with Westpac Group to launch its new ‘My Offers Hub’ for customers. My Offers Hub is designed to deepen customer engagement through data-driven rewards propositions for Westpac Group’s three regional brands. The hub is accessible via online and mobile banking for customers of St George, Bank of Melbourne and BankSA.

Author

  • Claire is an experienced editor and writer with 25 years of experience in the publishing industry. As a tech journalist, Claire has covered every subject possible over the years, from the launch of broadband and next generation mobile networks to the arrival of the metaverse and Web3.

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