Kraken buys out digital currency data portal Cryptowatch
Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has announced the acquisition of market portal Cryptowatch, a site that provides real-time market information and trading services. The deal has been revealed to be an acqui-hire, with the exchange retaining Cryptowatch founder Artur Sapek to further develop the toolkit. As part of the news, Kraken has also debuted a new trading interface. Kraken CEO Jesse Powell said of the news: “As the industry’s leading charting tool for traders, we plan to devote more resources and talent to further enhance its offering. And we’ve purposed the technology to provide a great new charting and trading platform to Kraken clients as the first step in improving our own […]
After raising $17-million, Toronto fintech firm eyes global expansion
Sensibill Inc., a Toronto-based startup that offers digital receipt technology for banks, has raised $17.3-million to supercharge its global expansion and dig deeper into artificial intelligence. It’s one of the largest series A early-stage financing rounds for a Canadian technology startup and signals the growing quality and influence of financial technology (fintech) companies in the market. “Generally, anything over $10-million has been a bit of a challenge in Canada,” says Salim Teja, executive vice-president for Ventures at Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District. “To me, what this signals is that the quality of our ventures and the problems they’re trying to solve are important and being validated. … This is a very […]
Lending startup RedCarpet raises $2.5 mn from Lightspeed
Gurgaon-based micro-lending startup RedCarpet Tech Pvt Ltd has secured $2.5 million (Rs 16 crores) in a funding round led by venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, according to a financial daily. The funds will be deployed for improving the technology used for risk evaluation, adding new student-lending features, appointing data scientists and increasing market penetration, The Economic Times reported, citing an anonymous source. RedCarpet declined to comment on the development. Founded in 2015 by Sandeep Srinivasa, Kartik Venkataraman and Abhay Tamaria, RedCarpet finances online purchases for e-commerce and travel. RedCarpet was among the six startups selected by Google for its Launchpad accelerator programme in May 2016. As part of the […]
Indians flock to digital wallets after PM Modi killed cash
It looks like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s move to take a chunk of the country’s cash off the streets has done tremendous good for digital wallet apps — and especially PayTM. The company’s CEO Vijay Shekhar announced on Twitter that it crossed the 200 million users milestone on Monday, adding that he hopes to reach 500 million by 2020. Mobile wallets like PayTM, which let you make payments with your phone, have benefited greatly by PM Modi’s late-2016 demonetisation, which saw him controversially kill off the country’s 500 and 1,000 rupee (roughly $7 and $15) notes. Mobikwik, another digital wallet, has 55 million users, 20 million up since the […]
Prominent British entrepreneur Eric van der Kleij says Australian fintech companies are “world-class”
Leading British entrepreneur Eric van der Kleij says he is impressed with the “serious solutions” being built by founders in the local fintech sector, which he believes is on par with the rest of the world. “The quality of companies that we’ve met here are world-class,” he tells StartupSmart. Van der Kleij, who founded London’s largest fintech hub Level39, is in Australia this week for the UK government’s Australian Hunger Games-inspired event held in Sydney. Van der Kleij is a special adviser in fintech and blockchain for UK’s Department for International Trade, and is on a mission to help promising Australian startups with a “soft and accelerated landing into the […]
App-only bank Monzo’s crowdfunding is almost three times oversubscribed after less than 24 hours
App-only startup bank Monzo has attracted enough initial interest in its £2.5 million ($US3.1 million) crowdfunding campaign to fill it close to three times over, after less than 24 hours of pre-registration. Monzo opened pre-registrations for its crowdfunding at 10 a.m. GMT (5.00 a.m ET) on Tuesday, allowing users of its app to register interest in investing and pledge an amount to invest. Pledges hit Monzo’s £2.5 million target within 4 hours and, just after 8 a.m. GMT (3.00 a.m. ET) on Wednesday, the startup bank has £6.78 million pledged. CEO and cofounder Tom Blomfield says in an emailed statement: “The response to our crowdfunding campaign has been mind-blowing. Our […]
Peer-to-Peer Lender Prosper to sell $5 Billion in loans
Prosper Marketplace, America’s first peer-to-peer lending marketplace, announced on Monday that it had closed a deal to sell $5 billion of loans to a consortium of investors over the next two years. The consortium includes New Residential Investment Corp., Jefferies Group, and Third Point. “We’re very pleased to be working with this consortium of investors, and believe they will be great long-term partners as we continue to build a large-scale business,” David Kimball, CEO of Prosper Marketplace said. Founded in 2005, Prosper is an online platform that matches lenders and borrowers. The growth in peer-to-peer lending is part of a wider shift in the fintech industry as participants look to […]
FinTech investment swings from west to east, Accenture
Yet more research trumpeting Asia-Pacific’s rise to the top of the FinTech pile, this time from Accenture. It finds that global investment in FinTechs grew 10% in 2016, to $23.2 billion, driven primarily by a wave of blockbuster deals in China. Financing in Asia-Pacific in 2016 eclipsed that of North America for the first time, rising to $11.2 billion from $5.2 billion in 2015. North America attracted $9.2 billion and Europe $2.4 billion. The number of deals rose sharply in all major geographies, to nearly 1,800 from approximately 1,200 in 2015. However, the growth in total value of FinTech investments was due mainly to China and Hong Kong, where just […]
