The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup serves up a dose of the latest fintech news from around the world this Thursday.
Job moves
Coremont LLP, the financial services firm, has appointed Yu Xu as deputy head of product. Xu will focus on infusing a product-led culture within the organisation and accelerating the firm’s growth trajectory. He joins from Qontigo, a financial intelligence innovator.
EQONEX announces senior hires as it ramps up growth plans for asset management. Simon Goodman is appointed chief investment officer, while Benjamin Nudel joins as head of investment research. The pair will both build on and enhance the Fund’s strategies and approach.
Lucinity, the anti-money laundering software developer, has hired Cate Wright as head of customer success. Cate has previously worked at firms including BAE Systems, RiskScreen and ALLIANZ. Georgia Couling and Hannes Stefánsson have also joined the team.
Meanwhile, NMI, a full commerce enablement technology company, has hired Robert Hoblit as its chief revenue officer to support its scalability and growth, as well as enhance its customer success team. He most recently served as CRO at DigiCert.
Insurtech Lumera has appointed Johan Rudén –the former CIO at Swedish insurer Folksam – to its executive team as chief operating officer. Lumera says his appointment will help energise its organisation as well as help develop its offering.
Visa unveils Salima Gutieva as vice president and country manager for the UAE. Gutieva replaces Shahebaz Khan who is now senior vice president, head of new payment flows for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Cowen Digital LLC, the digital asset division of Cowen Inc, has unveiled a series of new appointments in order to expand its institutional sales team. Jackie Rose is now director of institutional sales, while Chase Campbell joins as VP of digital asset sales. Recent hires also include David Kroger as digital data scientist; Nolan Aibel, digital asset associate; and Juan Velez, analyst.
More job news
Ranqx, the SMB digital lending platform, appoints ex-JPMorgan Chase CIO and treasurer John Horner as chairman. He takes over from Ranqx’ founding chairman Sir Ralph Norris. Horner is currently managing partner at MoVi Partners.
Cloud portfolio management platform provider FA Solutions has named Tomi Lod as CEO. He was previously CEO of financial technology firm Clausion Oy. Lod succeeds Juha Lehtonen, who founded and has led FA Solutions since 1999. Lehtonen is taking on the role of chief product & technology officer.
Sales Layer, the product information management software provider, appoints Aniqa Hijazi as chief financial officer and chief operating officer. The appointment follows Sales Layer’s recent $25million series B funding, as the company strengthens its market position and accelerates growth trajectory.
Wael Mustafa has joined Lenovo as the new country manager for the Gulf region within Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG). In his new leadership role, Mustafa will be responsible for delivering market solutions to regional organisations in both private and public sectors. He will also support customers with insights into IT and Lenovo’s smart data centre solutions.
Fintech Zimpler has appointed Katarina Bonde as its new chair, as well as Nicolas Köllerstedt as chief growth officer. Bonde replaces Peo Nilsson, who remains a board member. The pair join Zimpler following the company’s recent expansion to Norway and a successful funding round.
Fintech software firm Savana has unveiled an organisational redesign including Emily Steele joining as president and CEO. Previous Savana president and CTO Mike Wolfel becomes the company’s CEO, while previous CEO, Michael Sanchez takes the position of chairman.
Funding and investments
BingX, the social trading exchange, announces a charitable arm with a fund of $10million for humanitarian endeavors. The purpose of this fund is to be allocated to donations of charitable organisations, public welfare activities, and disaster relief in various regions of the world.
CompScience has closed a $6million seed round. The firm has grown five times year on year, and now covers 70 per cent of the US market. Investors in the platform include Working Capital Fund, Preface Ventures, Hustle Fund as well as Pathbreaker Ventures.
Caju, a flexible benefits management platform, has raised a $25million Series B round led by K1 Investment Management. With the funding, Caju plans to increase the efficiency of its solutions and invest in developing new products for the HR segment in Latin America.
Dubai-based digital real estate investment platform Stake bags more than $8million in an oversubscribed pre-series A funding round. This follows a $4million seed round the company closed back in June 2021. The funding marks the largest capital raise by a real estate investment platform in the MENA region.
Fintech startup iPiD has announced a $3.3million seed funding round by investors Rapyd Ventures, Jungle Ventures, 1982 Ventures, as well as Resolution Ventures. In addition, the company has announced the appointment of Alain Raes as chief commercial officer.
Grey, a fintech for sending and receiving foreign payments for Africans, has raised $2million in seed funding. Grey also announced Its expansion into East Africa, starting with Kenya, and partnerships with payments giant Cellulant and ed-tech leader Moringa.
More funding news
thirdweb, the tech platform for building NFT and Web3 apps, has closed a $24million in Series A funding at a $160million valuation. The round was led by Haun Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Shopify and Polygon. thirdweb will use the funding to accelerate platform development to meet increasing demand, add support for additional blockchains and grow the user base.
The British Business Bank today announces a new ENABLE Funding facility to Propel, one of the UK’s largest and fastest growing independent asset finance providers. The new facility will allow Propel to provide around £165million of finance to smaller businesses across the UK.
Capital on Tap has secured a £200million funding facility with JP Morgan and Triple Point to support UK small businesses. The funding will help small businesses access credit at a time when the UK is anticipating a recession and facing historic inflation rates.
Private Markets Alpha has launched with an online digital platform providing access to private markets for the global wealth management industry. The business has so far raised close to £1million through private fundraising.
“We aim to revolutionise private markets investments because we firmly believe that broad access to these markets is crucial for providing a wider range of asset classes to better serve the long-term needs of individual investors.”
Pan-African embedded finance fintech Pezesha has raised a pre-series A investment of $11million. The round was a mix of $6million equity and $5million debt. The funding, led by Women’s World Banking Capital Partners II (WWBCP II), will see the company significantly scale operations in its core markets. It will also grow into new markets within Sub Sahara Africa.
Partnerships and collaborations
Fintech Trovata has secured a global distribution agreement with Santander. Through the partnership, Santander will market and refer Trovata’s cash management platform to its corporate and investment banking client. With Trovata’s platform, Santander offers its clients a way to digitally transform its cash operating workflows.
Mastercard powers launch of Telda’s cobranded prepaid card. Unbanked Egyptians can now get a prepaid Mastercard with a seamless onboarding process. The launch is a step towards creating a ripple-effect for providing financial access to millions of Egyptians.
peaq integrates with AllianceBlock’s Fundrs platform, unlocking cross-chain peer-to-peer fundraising for dApp builders. As the first Polkadot ecosystem project to integrate with Fundrs, peaq opens access to cross-chain liquidity to the entire community.
TripleA, a licensed crypto payment gateway, has launched a partnership with Wix. This partnership allows Wix merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments via a plugin. Wix merchants can accept payments across the major cryptocurrencies used for commercial transactions.
Meanwhile, online pension provider PensionBee has secured a partnership with money-saving app Snoop. PensionBee and Snoop’s partnership aims to provide ‘welcome support’ in an increasingly difficult economic climate.
Vyne, the account-to-account payments platform, has been selected to deliver open banking payments to Pinewood DMS. Vyne is now integrated with the automotive solution providing dealers an instant payment addition to their digital omnichannel offering.
Company updates
Flutterwave has been granted a Switching and Processing Licence by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)< This licence lets Flutterwave offer transaction switching and card processing services to customers. Others include non-bank acquiring, agency banking and payment gateway services.
