The Fintech Times News Roundup
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This Week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 22/03

The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday brings you the latest job appointments, funding news and partnerships.

Job appointments

LogicGate, a provider of transformative risk and compliance solutions, names Kara Smith as CFO while Caroline Werner joins as CPO. Smith leads LogicGate’s strategic financial planning and initiatives, while Werner oversees the execution of HR initiatives, including talent management, recruiting, leadership development and DE&I. They join at a pivotal time in LogicGate’s growth, following the closing of its $113million Series C funding round.

PPS Keller
Andrea Keller

Payments provider PPS, an Edenred company, has appointed Andrea Keller as managing director. He succeeds Ray Brash who served at the business for 18 years. Keller joins PPS from the position of MD for Edenred Pay in Latin America, focusing on payments and fintech solutions.

Seraphim Space has unveiled Bob Wigley as a senior advisor. He is currently chairman of UK Finance, which represents the UK banking and finance sector with HM Government and regulators. Previously he was the chairman of Merrill Lynch. Since leaving banking, Wigley has chaired and invested in several Fintech companies.

Meanwhile, Amana Capital, MENA’s online financial trading firm, hires Mani Sahota as chief information officer for the organisation. The hiring aligns with Amana’s transformational drive that also sees a recruitment campaign to build capacity and world-class expertise across all the brand’s verticals. Sahota will spearhead Amana’s digital presence by steering in-house mobile and web apps to support the brand’s.

Novo, the small business checking account and financial technology platform, has hired Daniel Cronyn as EVP of growth. Previously, he served as VP of growth & acquisition for password manager Dashlane. In 2022, Novo’s growth team was recognized as executing the Campaign of the Year in the Tearsheet Acquire Awards.

Mergers and acquisitions

SHUAA Capital, the asset management and investment banking platform, acquires a majority stake in Middle East fintech company Souqalmal. The investment provides growth capital, allowing Souqalmal to execute on an ambitious growth plan over the next 24 months. Following the investment, Ambareen Musa, founder and CEO of Souqalmal, will continue to lead the business and oversee the expansion of its services.

Validus has entered into an agreement with Citi to acquire its CitiBusiness loan portfolio in Singapore, in a move that will bolster Validus’ top-line revenue, customer base, and expand its growing loan book. The acquisition follows several strategic moves by Validus, including the acquisition of KlearCard.

Funding and investments

Global payments company SimplyPayMe has raised close to $4million in growth capital to capitalise on existing and new opportunities in both the European and North American markets. SimplyPayMe has ‘started 2022 positively’ with growing numbers of active users, an ever-growing pipeline as well as late-stage discussions with several new commercial partners and channels.

Meanwhile, the African Development Bank Group has approved funding of $127.8million to Niger. The funds are earmarked for supporting a project to open up access to farming and pastoral lands in the east of the country, along its border with Nigeria. The approved package comprises a loan of $71million and a grant of $56.8million.

Rad, the content distribution and NFT streaming platform, has bagged significant funding in a round led by Ayre Ventures. Rad’s streaming platform is powered by Ara, which is a P2P ecosystem for content creators that uses an Ethereum-based token (ARA) for governance, incentives, and staking with royalties for NFTs sold through their platform.

Simetrik, a payments infrastructure provider, has secured a $24million Series A funding round. The round was led by FinTech Collective, with participation also from Tiger Global and Moore Capital. The latest funding round will allow the YC-backed startup to accelerate key hires, consolidate its market leadership across LatAm as well as catapult its expansion strategy into EMEA and APAC.

Breedr, the precision livestock trading and analytics platform, has raised £12million in a mixture of equity and debt led by Investbridge Capital. The new funding, which includes Breedr’s recent crowdfunding round, will be used to develop new financial products and services that will enable farmers to invest in their futures and transform farming across the world, starting with the UK.

Breedr

More funding news

Egyptian credit app Lucky has completed a $25million fundraise. The funding round, Egypt’s largest fintech Series A round, was led by Nclude by Global Ventures. This is the new fintech fund recently announced by its lead investors Banque Misr, National Bank of Egypt and Banque du Caire. Proceeds will increase market leadership and build out Lucky’s credit capabilities.

Lune announced a $4million funding round led by early-stage VC Crane with participation also from 15 reputable angel investors. Lune partners directly with carbon project developers across the world to curate a diverse list of high-impact and innovative projects. The company is still in the early stages of commercialisation but is already experiencing strong user uptake.

Global payments provider 2C2P announced a regional partnership with hoolah, Asia’s leading Buy Now Pay Later provider. The partnership enables 2C2P to offer hoolah’s service to merchants in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, and extend to new markets through 2022.
Company updates

Toqio, the European fintech software-as-a-service company has announced its official launch in Spain. With offices in London, Madrid and Nairobi, Toqio is now focusing on the Spanish market where it will increase its number of clients, operations and double its workforce. Toqio has also recently appointed Roberto Cruz as new VP of engineering and Luis FernĂĄndez GonzĂĄlez as VP of customer success, both based in Spain.

Partnerships

Fotaflo, a memory marketing platform, has integrated with BokĂșn, a booking management software for tour and activity businesses. This integration empowers tour providers in simplifying and automating photo and video content distribution throughout the customer journey.

Homegrown delivery app Yeepeey has activated online ordering and grocery delivery across Dubai from Ansar Group’s flagship store in Karama called Ansar Gallery. Through the Yeepeey app, customers can now order their favourite products from Ansar Gallery without having to pay any delivery fee or mark-ups over in-store prices and get the orders delivered in minutes depending upon their location.

Payment provider Zimpler and Payap, a startup within payroll management, have launched a new collaboration to disrupt the payment and payroll scene. By integrating with Zimpler’s service for instant payments, Payap becomes the first Swedish system provider to offer its customers’ salaries and expense payouts in real-time.

Nets Group extends the framework agreement with DNB, Norway’s largest bank, thereby prolonging the existing partnership. This includes several key deliveries of payment services, information technology, and other financial services. “Payments and technological developments are set to evolve at a rapid pace. Our renewed agreement reaffirms our longstanding partnership with Nets,” says Knut Peder Abrahamsen, Executive Vice President of Payments, Open Banking & Identity at DNB.

Author

  • Claire is an experienced editor and writer with 25 years of experience in the publishing industry.

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