A new way to raise money: The Initial Coin Offering
The digital currency ecosystem has had a crazy year. The Bitcoin market capitalization has grown from $11 billion on June 5, 2016 to almost $47 billion USD on June 5, 2017. Negative news during that time included a 120,000 BTC heist from Bitfinex, worth $65m then and $350m now. The Winklevoss twins sought to create an exchange traded fund dealing in Bitcoin, but they were denied. Positive events were much broader, including Japan recognizing the coin as a legal payment method, Russia reversing their prior stand against Bitcoin, and Australia adjusting its policies to remove a double taxation problem for those accepting digital currencies. Now a new phenomenon is sweeping […]
How Thailand could become Southeast Asia’s next Fintech Hub
Increased adoption of blockchain technologies, Big Data and artificial intelligence would enable Thai fintechs to enhance the products and services available to existing customers but also to serve the country’s under- and unbanked consumers as well. Omise, a payment management platform founded by Jun Hasegawa and Ezra Don Harinsut, is Thai fintech’s greatest success story to date. In 2016, it raised a $17.5 million Series B round and currently operates in Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore. It’s an aspirational story that is indicative of the possibilities for other fintech startups in Thailand, given the right conditions. “Fintech startups have the potential [to] stimulate innovation across not just the Thai financial services […]
Addepar raises $140 million in Series D funding
Addepar, a technology provider and operating system designed to cater to financial firms, announced that it has managed to raise $140 million in a series D round co-led by 8VC, Valor Equity Partners, and QuantRes founder Harald McPike. The significant amount of funding follows the developer’s increased growth, as in under a year and a half it has more than doubled the value of assets on its platform, from $300 billion to $650 billion. A correlation has been noted, with valued wealth managers adopting the software. The new funding will assist the company in investing in R&D, the expansion of the platform and technology oriented services in order to be […]
Kasikorn Bank creates $30 million Fintech Fund
Kasikorn Bank has opened up a $30 million fund to invest in to Fintech startups, thus exemplifying the banks attitude to embrace disruptive technologies. The rapid technological developments within the financial industry has opened up new dimensions in the market, changing how customers think. People are moving towards more digital options in an attempt to improve both the quality and ease of different services. Governments are moving to acclimate laws to better encompass these new methods for business. As a result, consumers are now experiencing faster, cheaper, more secure, and more convenient services than ever before. Kasikorn Bank realizes that in order to survive in this new market, they must […]
Coinbase seeks to raise $1 Bln to expand and go beyond Bitcoin
Demand for Bitcoin has once again gone up with the price of the digital currency continuing to hit all-time highs. Cryptocurrency exchange company Coinbase has been growing strong along with this demand in order to make more improvements and gain more transactions on their end. Coinbase has recently been in discussions with potential investors, according to Reuters. The company is looking to raise a total of $1 bln for their next funding. While Coinbase, according to its blog, has grown four times since January 2017, its co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong is looking to expand and cater beyond Bitcoin. The growing demand comes from the increase in new cryptocurrency exchange […]
Peer-to-peer lending giant Zopa confirms £32m fundraise
Zopa scoops £32m in a new investment round led by Indian conglomerate Wadhawan Group, as it looks ahead to bank-build. Zopa, the UK’s original peer-to-peer lending platform, has clinched £32m in its first investment round since early 2014, when it raised £15m from Arrowgrass Capital Partners. The money will be used to help build-out the firm’s technology and product range in preparation for the submission of its banking licence application later this year. The investment round has been led by India’s Wadhawan Global Capital Pvt Ltd and European venture capital fund Northzone. Northzone is also an investor in leading invoice finance platform MarketInvoice. Zopa co-founder Giles Andrews currently serves and […]
Canadian fintech Wave raises $24 million from RBC and other investors
Toronto-based Wave, a Canadian financial technology (fintech) firm that offers financial management software to small businesses, has received $32 million CAD ($23.8 million) in capital from investors including the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Exhibition Capital and National Australia Bank (NAB). Other investors in Wave include Portag3 and PowerCorp, who joined existing backers Social Capital, BDC Capital, CRV, Omers Ventures, Harbourvest and OurCrowd in this strategic fundraising round. The fintech company says it will use the new money to accelerate product development. It particularly wants to invest further in its use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning techniques in order to automate basic accounting functions and give analytics-based insights […]
Banco BNI Europa makes €10M investment in Portuguese peer-to-peer platform Raize
Banco BNI Europa has signed a strategic agreement with Portugal’s largest peer-to-peer lender RAIZE to boost lending to SMEs in the country. The online challenger bank is looking to invest €10 million over a two year period. The Portuguese economy has experienced strong GDP growth of 2.8% in the 1st quarter of 2017 and in 2016 captured the largest amount of foreign direct investment in the last 20 years. Pedro Coelho, Executive Chairman of BNI Europa said: “The bank is extremely committed to supporting SMEs in the European space. Our partnerships with Raize and MarketInvoice are just some of the initiatives the bank is promoting with fintech businesses and more […]
