Dive into The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Thursday 11 August for a taste of the latest job moves and partnerships.
Job moves
Jellysmack has strengthened its executive team with the addition of Dov Marmor as chief business officer and head of JellyFi, the company’s newly established creator finance division. Marmor was most recently the chief operating officer of Railsbank North America. With JellyFi, Jellysmack aims to solve creator growth pain points, including building teams, diversifying investments, scaling operations and funding passion projects.
Klasha appoints Ayman Jawhar as its chief product officer. Jawhar will be based in the UK and joins Klasha following roles at PayPal, Miro, Prodigy Finance and Next47. The company also Nile Younis as chief commercial officer, and completed a $4.5million seed funding round.
AstroPay names Sofía Lanza as chief banking officer, as the company moves forward with its expansion plans. Lanza previously served as chief corporate development at AstroPay. She will help develop and manage AstroPay’s relationships with global banking and payment service providers.
Navigator, an integrated investment platform under Singlife with Aviva, has appointed a slew of senior executives from the regional banking and technology industries. Additions to its leadership team include Wei Lin Chin, who joins as head of strategy and business management and Farooq Lone, who joins as head of product and business development. Ee Ghim Chua also joins as brand marketing lead.
More appointments
Transact Payments has named Sergio Gandolfo as its new CEO. The appointment sees outgoing CEO, Aaron Carpenter, becoming MD at Transact Payments Services Group Limited, a provider of UK & European BIN sponsorship and modular payment, debit, credit and prepaid services.
Meanwhile, Flutterwave increases staff size by 38 per cent and unveils a new chief people and culture officer, Mansi Babyloni. She was previously Flutterwave’s global head of people strategy and special projects. Flutterwave, which currently supports over 1,000,000 businesses, has also hired 200 trainees.
The Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee (JROC) has announced the set-up of a strategic working group (SWG) appointing Bryan Zhang as its independent chair. Zhang is the co-founder and executive director of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School.
Partnerships
Fintech platform Pomelo Pay has partnered with cryptocurrency payments services provider TripleA. They will help businesses financial institutions, merchant acquirers, payment service providers and other fintechs offer cryptocurrency payments and pay-outs.
Wise and Plaid have announced an open finance agreement to provide customers a seamless way to move money across different financial institutions. Wise customers can now connect their accounts to more than 6,000 apps powered by Plaid via Core Exchange, the data network’s newest open finance solution.
USC Athletics and iTrustCapital have formed a partnership, making iTrustCapital the official crypto platform of the USC Trojans. iTrustCapital will have a strong presence through banners, on-site activations and additional advertisements for the football and basketball seasons.
BlueSnap, a payment orchestration platform, is now the provider for KeyBank’s US gateway functionality. With BlueSnap, KeyBank says it can offer its clients more robust payments options with additional functionalities.
Leeds-based tech firm The Data City has announced the latest in a series of partnerships. Having reinvented the way that firms are classified into industry sectors with its Real-Time Industrial Classifications (RTICs), it is now adding data from Dealroom.co, the global data platform for intelligence on startups and high-growth companies.
Invesco, a global asset management firm, has forged a strategic partnership with SECURA INTERNATIONAL. It will provide the independent wealth solutions firm to provide model portfolio solutions as part of Secura’s investment offering to clients.
Funding and investments
Murasaki, a gamefi company, has raised €1.5million in a funding round led by Incubate Fund. This investment will enable Murasaki to accelerate the development of its blockchain-based games, with the studio set to launch NFT-focused title Cyberstella in early 2023.
Atome Financial has entered into an $100million debt facility with HSBC Singapore to supercharge Atome Financial’s flexible deferred payments business across Asia. Atome Financial is a subsidiary of Singapore-based tech unicorn Advance Intelligence Group.
The Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund [MBRIF], an initiative launched by UAE Ministry of Finance to support nationwide innovation, has provided funding support to Bayzat, the UAE’s leading employee benefits platform, as part of its Guarantee Scheme.
Verdant Capital has raised $10million of debt funding for Zeepay. The medium-term debt raise, which forms part of its A.5 series, comes to support Zeepay in a bid to augment its fast-growing remittance to wallet business. The debt funding is intended to support the rapid growth of the business.
Mergers and acquisitions
Astra Tech acquires fintech leader PayBy in latest step towards launching its revolutionary ‘ultra platform’. It follows the recent acquisition of Rizek, a platform for on-demand personal and home services. Astra plans to acquire, repurpose and bring together already established and sector-leading leading platforms to create an ultra platform.
Company updates
Augeo has launched Heaps – a crypto loyalty platform that fuels new consumer and employee experiences by enabling the exchange of loyalty currencies for leading crypto assets. The Heaps experience is centered around exploration and education versus advocacy for crypto.
