Tech Finance Daily Bi-Weekly News Roundup reveals the new name for fintech Limepay while Saudi fintech Hala acquires Paymennt.com.
Partnerships
Fintech Froda has formed a partnership with Visa to develop a new loan solution for businesses. Initially, Froda and Visa will also pair up with Nordic digital bank Lunar. Lunar’s customers gain access to business
loans through Froda’s proprietary embedded lending platform, featuring direct payments and
repayments via Visa’s card.
Visa is also partnering with fintech Wedge to launch a debit card connected to the Wedge app. The Wedge Visa debit card is issued through Wedge’s program manager in conjunction with a bank partner.
Arta TechFin, a hybrid fintech platform in assets, has teamed up with digital asset firm OSL, to create an end-to-end virtual asset financial service ecosystem. The partnership intends to offer a full spectrum of regulated VA solutions, including origination of asset-backed security tokens and secondary trading of physically-settled derivatives.
Mastercard has joined forces with video game commerce company Xsolla to collaborate on frictionless, secure, and rewarding payments for gamers. This will range from enhanced checkout experiences using credit card loyalty points to simple in-game currency gifting to improved creator payout processes.
WPS Advisory, a wholly-owned deVere Group company is selected as the lead pension adviser for UK Members of Parliament (MPs). WPS will provide guidance, modelling and opportunities for British politicians within the scheme in order to help them achieve their long-term financial goals in retirement.
NewDay, a provider of consumer credit in the UK, has appointed Checkout.com as its payments provider for debit card payments. The new partnership will see NewDay streamlining its payment process, operations and reporting. Checkout.com is also marking 10 years of its licence in the UK.
Funding
Ledge, a no-code payments command centre, has emerged from stealth with $9million in seed funding led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) as well as Vertex Ventures, FJ Labs. Existing investors Picus Capital also took part. With this investment, Ledge will enhance its automated finance operations platform and introduce greater treasury management capabilities. The round will also be used to expand its team and product globally with a focus on North America.
Uplinq, the credit assessment platform for SMB lenders, bags a $600,000 strategic investment from Cambrian Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage fintechs. Uplinq has raised $5.6million, following a $1.25million investment from ATX Venture Partners and a $3.5million pre-seed funding round.In addition to helping expand its global presence, the funding will empower Uplinq to scale its workforce and product offering.
Fintech Sandbox Banking has completed a strategic investment led by Horizon Ventures, bringing the company’s total seed financing to $6million. Participating investors include Forum Ventures as well as SixThirty, Tuesday Capital.
Pakistan’s end-to-end digital lending infrastructure provider AdalFi announces a $7.5million funding round. The funding round was led by COTU Ventures, Chimera Ventures, Fatima Gobi Ventures and Zayn Capital alongside angel investors including execs from Plaid.
Shift, a provider of credit and payment platforms for Australian businesses, has closed an AU$27million Series C funding round, led by Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia. The funding round follows an increase in Shift’s debt funding capacity and follows a record period of growth for the company, with both funding and revenue exceeding 50 per cent growth in each of the last three years.
Smile Identity, which provides digital identity verification solutions for Africa, has secured $20million in Series B funding. The round was co-led by Costanoa and Norrsken22. Additional new investments came from Commerce Ventures, Courtside Ventures, Two Culture Capital and Latitude. Lexi Novitske from Norrsken22 will also be joining its board.
Appointments
Deepki, the ESG data intelligence firm, has appointed Sigrid Duhamel as an independent member and chairwoman of its strategic committee, as it accelerates its growth and builds its client base globally. She has previously held positions as CEO France and global CIO of BNP Paribas REIM.
Uome has named Kent Vorland as chief commercial officer. He was formerly the CEO of SimplyPayMe and helped to power the brand into becoming one of the most disruptive mobile payment technologies providers out there. Vorland has also held senior positions at UBINU and Envirotech Norway and was previously a non-executive director for Findexable.
Salt Security, the API security company, adds Gilad Gruber to its executive team as senior vice president of engineering. Gruber will lead engineering functions as well as drive technology innovation. In 2022, Salt created the positions of chief people officer and vice president of customer success.
Lloyds Bank Business & Commercial Banking appoints Tim Biddle as head of invoice finance and asset finance field sales. Biddle will lead its UK-wide team to deliver invoice and asset finance products that enable firms to drive growth by quickly freeing-up working capital and funding new business-critical assets. He joins from Paragon Bank.
Buy now, pay later provider Deko has appointed Joseph Tucker, as chief financial officer. He joins after holding various roles at NewDay, one of the UK’s biggest credit card issuers. Tucker is expected to play a key role as Deko transitions to its next stage of corporate development.
The Bank of London has welcomed Norbert Becker as chair of the EU region for the firm. In addition to this role, Becker serves as chairman of The Administration des Biens du Grand-Duc. He also founded CBP Quilvest private bank which was acquired by Fideuram Bank Luxembourg.
More job news
WealthKernel, a provider of digital investment infrastructure, has announced Mike Rigby as its new chief compliance officer. He joins WealthKernel from Investec Wealth & Investment, where he held the position of executive director and chief risk officer. Rigby will lead the compliance, risk and financial crime function across WealthKernel and manage the day-to-day relationships between the regulator and the company.
Airwallex adds two new senior hires to its global leadership team as the global payments and financial platform focuses on its expansion into 2023. Justin Yek takes on the newly-created role of head of strategic finance and corporate development. While Jon Stona joins as global head of marketing. The Airwallex marketing team also intends to add new senior appointments across Australia and New Zealand, North America and Europe this year.
The Derivatives Service Bureau (DSB), the global source of reference data for over the counter (OTC) derivatives, has invited industry experts to join its product committee. The committee’s existing membership includes experts from the buy-side, sell-side, custodians, data vendors, trade repositories, trading venues as well as trade associations.
Ann Harris OBE, CPFA is reappointed to the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) board by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Harris has served as non-executive director on the MaPS Board since it was first established.
Company updates
Regtech Clausematch has launched a new office in Lisbon, Portugal, its first office in the Southern European country. Its the company’s third branch worldwide, in addition to the UK and North America. The team of nine employees specialises in engineering and product development. Additional employees will join the Lisbon team in coming months.
AI-powered order-to-cash platform Sidetrade has joined the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. The voluntary leadership platform is for the development, implementation and disclosure of responsible business practices, with over 15,000 companies and 3,800 non-business signatories based in over 160 countries and more than 69 Local Networks.
Australian fintech Limepay has rebranded to April. April reflects the startup’s ethos to be an ally to its banking and commercial partners, and is underpinned by its commitment to being ‘brilliant in the background’. April CEO Willie Pang says the company aims to capitalise on emerging market opportunities and moves it towards being an enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) business.
The holding company of Saudi Arabia based fintech Hala has acquired UAE startup Paymennt.com. Paymennt.com, formerly known as Point Checkout, is a payment service provider. The acquisition will help Hala further enhance its product offerings by incorporating online payments.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has renewed Cellulant’s payment service solution provider licence in Nigeria. This licence enables Cellulant to continue providing online and offline payment solutions, including collections, check-out, biller aggregation, and payout services securely to businesses across Nigeria.
