The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 24 January brings news of funding success for Tranch, Twinco and Twemis.
Partnerships
Global payments firm Trustly has forged a strategic partnership with Nordnet, the Nordic digital platform for savings and investments. The partnership enables pay-ins via Trustly across the Nordics, making it possible for Nordnet customers to deposit funds fast, securely and with an improved user experience.
There’s also a partnership for Old Mutual and CoverGo, the no-code insurance SaaS platform. It follows Old Mutual’s investment in CoverGo’s $15 million Series A earlier in 2022. Old Mutual will leverage CoverGo’s platform to streamline its insurance ecosystem, increase sales through new channels, as well as improve user experience across 13 countries in Africa.
BNY Mellon and Fiserv, a provider of payments and financial services technology, have joined forces to deliver additional capabilities for real-time FX services to US financial institutions. Fiserv can now access BNY Mellon’s real-time FX rates for over 120 currencies. This new offering means financial institutions can execute currency conversions for cross-border payments with upfront rate visibility.
Bain & Company partners with World Economic Forum to tackle climate change in the Middle East and North Africa. The management consulting firm joins WEF to create a discourse to accelerate corporate climate action.
Hargreaves Lansdown has introduced a new online proxy voting service in partnership with Broadridge. HL clients will be able to vote on their holdings of UK and European shares more quickly and easily and access all upcoming shareholder meetings, such as AGMs, relating to their shareholdings through their online account. The service covers 5,800 tradeable equities, which is all UK and European shares on the HL platform.
More partnerships
LendInvest, the UK asset manager for property finance, announces a partnership with the British Business Bank to help finance smaller property developers across the UK. HSBC will provide up to £100million, with the British Business Bank supporting the transaction via its government-backed ENABLE Guarantee programme.
Meanwhile, Sprout.ai, the claims automation technology solution for insurance, teams up with AdvanceCare. By using Sprout.ai’s technology, AdvanceCare will unlock a full end-to-end claims automation, leveraging the product capabilities to extract relevant data from AdvanceCare’s healthcare invoices to index claims.
Amazon and Stripe sign an expanded global agreement, deepening the two companies’ long-standing partnership. Under the new agreement, Stripe will become a strategic payments partner for Amazon in the US, Europe, and Canada. Stripe will expand its use of Amazon Web Services, Stripe’s long-standing cloud infrastructure provider, to run and grow its business while reliably serving millions of internet companies.
Women in AI and Huawei join forces to promote diversity and increase opportunities for women in tech. A free Introduction to AI course aims to encourage more women to embark on a career in technology and empower them with the skills to succeed in this rapidly growing industry.
Airwallex has partnered with American Express. Airwallex customers in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK can now accept American Express Card payments from around the world through payment links, Xero invoice payments and e-commerce shopping extensions.
Job moves
Freedom Finance, the digital lending marketplace and embedded finance provider, has appointed Richard Parfitt as head of data science. Parfitt will lead the company’s data products initiative, building and managing a multi-disciplinary team to develop new services for customers and enhance data-driven capabilities driving further automation and intelligence. He joins following eight years at 118 118 Money.
BNPL platform Deko names Daniel Lee as head of consumer product. Most recently, Lee was group product manager for payments, fraud and consumer credit at retail giant Kingfisher. He is also the former head of marketing at Judopay, the mobile card payments provider.
Novatus Advisory, a risk, regulation and ESG consultancy, appoints two strategic senior hires. Will Basnett joins as head of advisory, while Richard Street joins as chief revenue officer its regtech division. The appointments follow investment from Maven Capital to accelerate the rapid growth of the firm.
Indian fintech BharatPe unveils three new appointments. Ambuj Bhalla is named chief information security officer, while Rahul Bhatia is appointed head internal audit. It has also appointed Ravinder Oberoi as head
compliance.
Rupert Bedell has joined Paysend as chief marketing office. completing Paysend’s Exco line-up. Bedell previously led B2B marketing at American Express for EMEA. Bedell began his career at Barclays before also moving on to lead B2B marketing at RBS.
Equipped.ai, the analytics solutions provider, appoints Edward Green, as CEO. He was most recently partner and head of asset management at AnaCap. Euipped was spun out of AnaCap in 2021 to form a standalone data analytics and technology platform.
Funding and investments
Tranch, the B2B buy now, pay later platform for SaaS sellers, has raised a $100million equity and debt seed round led by SOMA CAPITAL and FOUNDERSX. The credit facility is provided by Clear Haven Capital Management. The investment will be used to grow the team in Tranch’s New York office and expand the ‘Pay with Tranch’ checkout across multiple industry verticals.
Twinco Capital, the supply chain finance solution, closes a $12million equity and debt round. The investment was led by Quona Capital, and also included participation from Working Capital. The funds will be used to accelerate the company’s expansion within the major sourcing countries and strengthen its technology and data capabilities, in particular in relation to ESG.
Keyzy, the real estate fintech, has raised £3million in a seed funding round. The proceeds will accelerate its purchases of homes and the development of its technology platform. Axeleo Capital and Outward VC co-led the funding round. Seed X also participated in the capital raise alongside existing investors Global Founders Capital and ActivumSG Ventures.
Coverdash, an insurance startup, has officially launched following an oversubscribed seed funding round. The round was led by Bling Capital, with participation from other investors, including AXIS Digital Ventures and Tokio Marine Future Fund. The funding will contribute to Coverdash’s ongoing expansion and development through increased product innovation, go-to-market initiatives, as well as strategic hiring.
Digital financial crime platform Themis has successfully overfunded in its latest pre-Series A funding round, raising a total of £3.1million. The company is currently valued at £15.4million and is forecasting a robust growth.
Regtech Global Screening Services (GSS) has bagged over $45million from major investors, including AlixPartners, The Cynosure Group and MUFG. William Langford, global head of financial crimes compliance for the Americas at MUFG, will serve as an observer to the GSS board.
Mergers and acquisitions
Equisoft, a digital solutions provider to the financial industry, has revealed its recent acquisition, Altus Business Systems, has rebranded to Equisoft. Equisoft acquired Altus in July 2021. The company is made up of Altus Consulting, which will retain its independent status and name, and Altus Business Systems which is rebranded as Equisoft.
Rest Less, a digital community and financial services platform for people aged 50+, has snapped up Mirthy, a digital platform offering online events and classes aimed at reimagining retirement. As part of the acquisition, Rest Less welcomes Abbie Jessop, head of events and Mahalia Connor, head of community engagement, to its team.
