The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday brings you the latest partnerships, funding success stories and more global fintech updates.
Job appointments
Nucleus Commercial Finance has welcomed James Webb to its business development team. As its new partnerships manager, Webb’s initial focus will be to launch a channel aimed at educating and expanding the partnerships between accountants and their clients with the help of technology and financial resources.
PayFuture, the payment gateway connector, appoints James Scrivens as its global sales director. The appointment coincides with the business also going live with its technology in Nigeria. This builds on its existing presence in emerging markets including India, Brazil and Pakistan.
Accounting software developer iplicit has unveiled a new board with Lyndon Stickley named CEO. Meanwhile, Antony Ebel is chairman and Mike Eggington is named director of engineering. Rob Steele is unveiled as chief financial officer at iplicit, while Ed Gairdner will join iplicit on 4 July 2022 as chief operating officer.
Debite, the financing platform, names Uma Balachandra as its first head of revenue. He most recently served as general manager at expense management platform Jeeves. He has also held roles at GPS, Virgin Money and NatWest Group. Balachandra will be responsible for Debite’s sales, customer success, business development and partnerships, as well as identifying new revenue opportunities.
Financial technology solutions provider MonetaGo has appointed Ben Arber to the newly created role of MD US and Canada. His experience includes 24 years at HSBC in various international roles, including as head of its Canada global trade and receivables finance business. MonetaGo provides a solution to duplicate financing fraud in trade finance.
More job moves
Global payments firm PayQuicker has unveiled a board of advisors. The board will provide strategic guidance as PayQuicker expands into diverse market segments and launches new products and partnerships. The newly appointed board members include Outseer CEO John Filby, Jamba president Geoff Henry, former Arkose Labs CMO Vanita Pandey and Meta’s Tamara Romanek.
TransferGo announces the hire of Viktor Lysyuk as its new global head of banking infrastructure. His appointment reinforces TransferGo’s commitment to establishing best practice partnerships with banks, financial institutions and fintech players, as well as growing its global network to the benefit of its migrant customer base. Lysyuk was most recently partner network head for Europe and CEMEA for Visa.
Meanwhile, Swiss fintech Kashet has announced Alex Wilmot-Sitwell as its chairman. Wilmot-Sitwell currently serves as chairman of Perella Weinberg Partners’ UK business. Kashet says his knowledge of banking, corporate governance as well as international business will aid the firm’s ambitious growth plans.
Embedded finance startup Monite has named Alex Akimov as its new head of API. Akimov was formerly head of API for Dutch fintech unicorn Adyen. Monite now has ambitions to further extend its platform’s capabilities and attractiveness following the appointment.
Pendo announces a new office in central London as well as the hire of Spencer Earp as EMEA MD. Earp joins from Salesforce. Since Pendo established a London presence in March 2019, it has grown its EMEA customer base from 40 to over 300.
Finally, Griffin, the UK-based banking as a service firm, has promoted Maria Campbell to chief operating officer. Campbell, who first joined Griffin in 2021 as VP of People, is now responsible for executing the firm’s commercial growth. Current COO Adam Moulson was also recently announced as interim CEO, while David Jarvis takes parental leave.
Company updates
Buy now, pay later platform Tamara is officially expanding to the UAE. Customers across the Emirates will now be able to split their payments at retailers including Namshi, SHEIN, Styli, Fitness Time, Faces and Swarovski. It comes as new research by Checkout.com – the lead investor in Saudi-based Tamara’s $110million Series A funding round – reveals that 31 per cent of residents are planning to use BNPL technology in the coming 12 months.
Deepki, which offers a ESG data intelligence platform for the real estate sector, has acquired UK-based competitor Fabriq, as part of its international growth strategy. This follows the announcement of €150million of new funding in March. The acquisition will consolidate Deepki’s leadership position in Europe, where it already has offices in Paris, London, Berlin, Milan and Madrid.
Tabby, the payments and shopping app, has released new figures showcasing record-high user engagement driving 26 million clicks to retail partners in the last year. The app is used by two million active shoppers, driving 3.5 million clicks every month to thousands of its retailers, including brands like IKEA, Shein, Adidas, Level Shoes, H&M and Bloomingdale’s.
DIGIDOE, the UK-based fintech startup which aims to revolutionise the world’s payments infrastructure, is expanding into the Middle East. It has appointed Tony Hajjar as its head of operations in Doha. Hajjar will will enhance its presence in Qatar, build key business relationships, strengthen co-operation with the local regulator and engage directly with banks.
Partnerships
Digital payments market firm Shieldpay and global credit and risk specialists DirectID have joined forces. The partnership will implement DirectID’s open banking-powered bank account verification into the Shieldpay payments engine. DirectID’s Connect widget and Shieldpay’s payment engine lets customer transfer funds online with digital escrow and trust services.
Spire, a GCC open banking services provider, has announced a strategic partnership with Mastercard. The collaboration will help banks revolutionise consumer engagement and enhance user experiences in the region by integrating Spire Ingage and Mastercard’s Merchant Identifier solution.
SME Bank has teamed up with next-generation payment infrastructure provider kevin. The combined offering simplifies life for SME owners. It creates a single point of entry for payment infrastructure enabling account-to-account payments all across the Baltics, as well as revenue-based financing based on e-retailers’ expenses and profit.
Funding news
PennyWorks, a DeFi-based platform, has closed a $2million pre-seed funding round led by Hi2 Global. The financing will help bring the PennyWorks platform to market while funding platform development, marketing, and operations. The funding round also included participation from Zachary Harl, Putra Manggala and Leo Mizuhara.
ShopBack has raised $80million of new capital in a funding round led by Asia Partners. Existing investor January Capital also participated in the round. The capital will be invested into developing new and innovative products for users and merchant partners, deepening its presence across the Asia Pacific, and building capabilities for public market readiness.
Capital C Corporation, a Singapore-based financial services provider, bags SGD$74million in fundraising. The fresh injection of funds will serve to fuel its lending capabilities and expand its digital financial platform offerings to provide competitive credit rates to the underserved communities in Singapore.
Meanwhile, Solv, a B2B digital marketplace for MSMEs, has raised $40million in Series A funding led by SBI Holdings. This investment round will propel the company’s global expansion plans as well as the launch of additional high-margin product categories.
Finally, family app Beanstalk has exceeded its crowdfunding target with new investments taking the company into overfunding ahead of the funding round closing on 29 June 2022. Beanstalk has raised over £650,000 via the Seedrs equity crowdfunding platform.
