Japanese fintech firm Paidy raises $143m from PayPal, others
Japanese fintech firm Paidy has raised a total of US$143 million in series C funding and debt financing from new and existing investors. PayPal Ventures, Soros Capital Management, JS Capital Management, Tybourne Capital Management, and an undisclosed company invested in Paidy as part of the firm’s US$83 million series C round, according to the statement. The debt financing, on the other hand, included US$52 million from Goldman Sachs Japan and US$8 million from Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. Paidy plans to increase its customer base to reach 11 million accounts by the end of 2020 by acquiring large-scale merchants and offering additional financial services. […]
Santander takes big stake in UK FinTech
Spanish bank Banco Santander is acquiring just over 50 percent of the U.K. payments platform Ebury for £350 million ($453 million), Ebury announced in a press release on Monday (Nov. 4). The Ebury payments platform gives small and medium-size companies the ability to trade internationally. The acquisition is scheduled to close in the first quarter of next year and is intended to help boost Santander’s global payments business. “Small and medium-sized businesses are a major engine of growth around the world, creating new jobs and contributing up to 60 percent of total employment and up to 40 percent of national GDP in emerging economies,” said Santander’s Executive Chairman Ana Botín. […]
Amica Financial Technologies raises $24 million in funding
Amica Financial Technologies, an upcoming digital retail bank founded by Citrus Pay cofounder Jitendra Gupta, has received $24 million in its maiden funding round. The funding is backed by a long list of institutional investors including Greyhound Capital, 3One4 Capital, Germany’s Rocket Internet, venture capital funds Matrix Partners and Sequoia Capital. Gupta, a former PayU India managing director, is among a growing tribe of second-time entrepreneurs who have attracted big bucks from marquee investors even before officially launching their companies. The Mumbai-based startup, which Gupta cofounded along with Vishnu Jerome of law firm Jerome Merchant and Partners, has also brought on board a host of angel investors. To read more, […]
Modulr invest £20m to supercharge Scottish FinTech
EDINBURGH-based FinTech Modulr has today announced it will invest the majority of £20m in the Scottish FinTech industry, to drive disruptive innovation and further boost Scotland’s growing prominence as a tech hub. The move is the latest step in Modulr’s ambition to radically transform SME banking, and its belief in Scottish tech talent to help achieve this vision. Having established its main development hub in Edinburgh, Modulr will use the funding to create an additional minimum of 53 highly skilled technology jobs in the capital. The FinTech will also nurture new technology talent in Scotland by committing to hire graduates from Scottish universities every year for the next five years. […]
Landbay says October was record month
Fast-growing Fintech Landbay says October was a great month for the real estate peer to peer lending platform. Without providing any details, Landbay tweeted out the news. Earlier this year, Landbay reported that a “leading financial institution” had committed to funding £1 billion in buy to let mortgages originated on the site. This may have something to do with its growth. Landbay offers investors the opportunity to invest in loans to buy-to-let landlords. All loans are secured by first‐ranking mortgages over tenanted residential properties across England and Wales. The P2P lender currently promotes up to a 3.45% return for investors. In a historically low interest rate environment, these returns are […]
Koyo FinTech raises $4.9M to assist underbanked UK borrowers
FinTech startup Koyo, which uses Open Banking to offer loans to underbanked UK borrowers, announced that it has raised $4.9 million in funding. The round, a mixture of debt and equity funding, was led by Forward Partners, with participation from Seedcamp, Christian Faes (founder and CEO of LendInvest) and Charles Delingpole (founder and CEO of ComplyAdvantage). Founded last year by Thomas Olszewski, the FinTech firm aims to secure loans for people with a limited credit history through the use of Open Banking data. “If someone is new to the country, or otherwise has a thin credit file, it can be difficult for that person to access credit,” said Olszewski. “For […]
Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter hits $4.5bn milestone
Kickstarter has announced it has registered over $4.5 billion that has been pledged to different projects on its platform. The result is very positive for creators and individuals that are trying to gather funds and move forward with their projects. The information was recently released by the financial news site LearnBonds.com. Crowdfunding websites have been expanding all over the world during the last twenty years. Kickstarter was launched in 2009 and it launched over 460,000 projects. This shows that each project received around $10,000 in funding on average. This data represents an increase of over 16% since October 2018 and it also shows that just 37.3% of the projects are […]
Stockholm-based fintech startup Dreams raises €9 million to help millenials fulfill their financial ‘dreams’
Stockholm-based fintech startup Dreams has raised €9 million in a late seed round. The investor pool includes AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM), the Norwegian insurance company Storebrand, Finnish Ålandsbanken and a group of private investors. Dreams helps its users fulfill their financial goals through a user-friendly mobile app using behavioural science. Launched in 2016, Dreams’ key commercial offering is a digital product platform for financial services, with a focus on financial well-being. The platform is particularly focused on serving millennials. Dreams helps its users to fulfill their financial ‘dreams’ through its user-friendly mobile app. What differentiates Dreams from other fintech apps is its deep application of behavioural science in its methodology and […]
