Early stage European FinTech deals include Playter Pay, Ubamarket, Billhop etc. We feature Q&As with Alex Schlicher of My Football Space and Paula Blazquez Solano of InnoCells (Banco Sabadell).
If you are an early stage startup in Europe building the next big thing in FinTech, reach out to Frank Schwab or Samarth Shekhar.
7 Questions with Alex Schlicher of My Football Space
Interviewed by FinTech Forum Co Founder Frank Schwab.
About My Football Space: My Football Space wants fans all over the world to be able to support and digitally connect to the clubs they believe in.
Now on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXB5cerfv00
http://www.fintechforum.de/7-questions-with-alex-schlicher-of-my-football-space/
7 Questions with Paula Blazquez Solano of InnoCells (Banco Sabadell)
1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, both at work and leisure.
My name is Paula Blazquez, I lead the Corporate Investment Vehicle of Banco Sabadell, the 4thlargest private bank in Spain. At InnoCells, we invest in Fintech related startups across the globe, from seed to series A (tickets between $500k up to $3M). I have worked in venture capital most of my career, having worked for a listed Venture Debt fund based out of Palo Alto, California and later on in a venture fund based in Madrid with a focus on Latam, Spain and India prior to joining InnoCells. I am a proud advisor, investor and Board Member in several Fintech startups.
7-questions-with-paula-blazquez-solano-of-innocells-banco-sabadell
Playter Pay Raises £1M in Funding
Playter Pay, a London, UK-based ‘Hire Now, Pay Later’ startup, raised £1m in both debt and equity funding. The round was led by a consortium of unnamed investors. The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations and its marketing and development efforts.
Led by Founder Jamie Beaumont, Playter Pay is a ‘Hire Now, Pay Later’ company which enables SMEs to borrow and spread the cost of their recruitment invoices over 6 months whilst paying the recruitment agency within 24 hours of invoice.
https://www.finsmes.com/2021/02/playter-pay-raises-1m-in-funding.html
Ubamarket Raises £2.9M in Growth Equity Funding
Ubamarket, a London, UK-based provider of a ‘Scan Pay Go’ retail tech app, raised £2.9m in equity funding. IW Capital led the round with an £800k investment. The company intends to use the funds to expand its business reach into new industries such as hospitality.
Founded in 2016 and led by Will Broome, CEO, Ubamarket is a provider of a ‘Scan Pay Go’ retail tech app with features such as contactless payment, interactive menus, facial recognition, takeaways and deliveries.
https://www.finsmes.com/2021/02/ubamarket-raises-2-9m-in-growth-equity-funding.html
Swedish fintech Billhop secures €4M Series A investment
Billhop, the Swedish company which makes every invoice and bill payable by card, has closed a €4M Series A investment round from financial technology VC Element Ventures.
Billhop skirts the issue of low card acceptance in supplier payments by acting as an intermediary between supplier and client, accepting credit card payments at one end and forwarding the cash to the creditor at the other. In this way, users get to pay thier due bills without putting an immediate strain on their liquidity.
Reisekosten-Startup Circula überwindet Krise und sammelt Millionen ein
Die Corona-Pandemie sorgt in allen Bereichen der Wirtschaft für tiefe Einschnitte, insbesondere bei der Reisebranche. Abgesehen von den direkten Dienstleistern, wie Buchungsplattformen, Reisebüros, Fluggesellschaften, gibt es auch noch viele Anbieter, die Services rund ums Reisen anbieten und im vergangenen Jahr durch den weltweiten Stillstand ebenfalls hart getroffen wurden. So ist es auch beim Reisekosten-Startup Circula aus Berlin passiert.
Circula wurde 2017 von Nikolai Skatchkov and Roman Leicht gegründet, mit dem Ziel, Reisekosten und andere Spesen von Mitarbeitern künftig digital zu verwalten.
Raw Labs Raises $5.5M in Pre A Funding
RAW Labs, a Lausanne, Switzerland-based data management solution provider, completed a USD 5.5M pre-A funding round.
The round was led by a group of investors specializing in investments of high growth technology companies and Investiere.ch. Claude Honegger (former global CIO of Credit Suisse) and Pyrros Koussios (former private equity investor and senior executive at international technology companies) are joining the board of directors.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate the acquisition of large enterprise clients and continue investing in the expansion of the capabilities of its core NoDB data platform.
https://www.finsmes.com/2021/02/raw-labs-raises-5-5m-in-pre-a-funding.html
London’s Globacap raises $9 million Series A extension, will launch two investment platforms in Africa
Globacap, a London-based fintech that is working to automate capital markets, has completed a $9 million Series A extension to fuel the roll-out of its private placement platform. The platform digitises and ‘semi-automates’ the process, from offering documentation, to distribution, AML, tracking, bookbuilding and settlement.
The funding extension was led by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) with participation from Moore Strategic Ventures.
The JSE and Globacap have also entered into a commercial agreement to launch two private placement platforms in Africa later this year.
https://tech.eu/brief/globacap-series-a/
Trade Ledger Raises £13.5M in Series A Funding
Trade Ledger, a London, UK-based global technology provider to the commercial banking and financial services industry, raised a total of £13.5m to complete its Series A funding round. The equity round was led by Point72 Ventures, with participation from Foundation Capital, Court Lorenzini, founder of DocuSign, Hambro Perks, and other existing investors. In conjunction with the funding, Alex Tarhini, Operating Partner at Point72 Ventures, will join the Trade Ledger board.
The company intends to use the funds to grow out its sales, marketing and customer delivery teams. Led by Martin McCann, CEO, Trade Ledger enables lenders to provide credit to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), by showing them at a glance the information they need to make good decisions.
https://www.finsmes.com/2021/02/trade-ledger-raises-13-5m-in-series-a-funding.html
Paris-based Libeo was founded just two years ago and closed its seed round of funding less than 12 months ago
Libeo, a B2B payments fintech, has raised €20m in a funding round led by partners at DST, an investor in Checkout.com, Revolut and Funding Circle among others.
Other investors in the round, which comes less than a year after Libeo’s €4m seed round closed, are LocalGlobe, Serena and Breega.
The start-up, which was founded in January 2019, helps SMEs centralise supplier invoices without the use of an IBAN and without having to connect to a bank.
IBAN numbers have become something of a casualty of EU/UK tensions. Starling Bank and Transferwise have separately warned off ‘discrimation’ in both directions of customers not being able to pay across the geographies.
Sweden-based digital bank Northmill raises $30M
Northmill Bank, the Sweden-based challenger that has around 200,000 customers across three European countries, has raised around $30 million in new funding.
Leading the round is M2 Asset Management, the Swedish investment company controlled by Rutger Arnhult, and asset management firm Coeli. The injection of cash will be used for continued geographical expansion and to accelerate the development of new products. Notably, this will include plans to launch in 10 new markets as Northmill aims to step on the gas. Next stop, Norway.
Barcelona-based Koa Health extends Series A round to €30 million
Koa Health, a Barcelona-based digital mental healthcare provider, has announced it closed an oversubscribed €30 million Series A funding round.
The round had a first close last fall, when the company also announced its spin out from Alpha, Telefónica’s startup factory. Investors in the final close include MTIP and Akilia Partners, Creas Impacto, Sabadell Asabys and Mundi Ventures.
The company’s lead product is Koa Foundations, a mental wellbeing app that helps organisations better support employees with a library of evidence-based activities focused on tackling stress, sleeping better, etc.
https://tech.eu/brief/koa-health-series-a-extension/
Finch Capital closes €150m fintech fund
Finch Capital has closed on its third fintech venture fund, raising €150 million to acquire significant minority stakes in scale up companies with €2-5M in revenues.
Since its inception in 2013, the firm has made a total of 40 investments across Europe and Asia with a current portfolio that includes a range of companies spanning fintech, regtech and insurtech, and includes Trussle, Fourthline, Grab, Hiber, BUX, Twisto, and Zopa.
As with its previous funds, Finch plans to back 15-20 European startups, targeting liquidity 3-5 years post investment, over the fund’s three year initial investment lifespan. As active investors, Finch seeks 20-49% ownership in its portfolio companies.
https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37441/finch-capital-closes-150m-fintech-fund
Uphold Acquires Optimus Cards UK
Uphold, a San Francisco, CA-based digital money platform, acquired Optimus Cards UK Limited, a debit and credit card issuer across the UK and Europe.
The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
From April, Uphold plans to start rolling out a multi-asset, crypto-enabled debit card on the Optimus platform in Europe.
An Electronic Money Institution (EMI) regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, Optimus acts as a primary card issuer (including FX multi-currency) and payments facilitator. Today, the firm serves customers in the fintech and Credit Union sectors offering a sophisticated platform that supports Apple Pay, Google Pay, Open Banking, as well as contactless and virtual cards, IBANs, UK sort-code and accounts, plus ‘cardless’ cash withdrawal.
https://www.finsmes.com/2021/02/uphold-acquires-optimus-cards-uk.html
Tenable To Buy Active Directory Security Startup Alsid For $98M
Tenable has agreed to purchase cybersecurity startup Alsid for $98 million to help customers find and fix security weaknesses in Microsoft’s Active Directory in real time.
The Columbia, Md.-based vulnerability management firm said its proposed acquisition of Paris, France-based Alsid will allow organizations to discover new attack pathways and detect Active Directory attacks in real time. Alsid leverages dynamic threat scoring and complexity ratings to recommend remediations that don’t require the deployment of agents or the leveraging of privileged accounts, Tenable said.
https://www.crn.com/news/security/tenable-to-buy-active-directory-security-startup-alsid-for-98m
Join us for Bar on The Block webinar on Thursday, March 4th to learn more about cryptocurrency derivatives.
About this Event
In this webinar, we’ll discuss one of the oldest forms of a financial contract- DERIVATIVES! We’ll deep dive into the types of crypto derivatives products, their common forms, policy, and regulatory regime. We’ll have an in-depth discussion on how derivatives are used in crypto trading, what kinds of Crypto derivatives can be traded both on traditional exchanges and regulated crypto exchanges, the biggest risks that traders face, and why investor interest seems to be surging in crypto-derivatives.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-insight-into-crypto-derivatives-tickets-137765609647
Meet us at:
Virtual South Summit – Health & Wellbeing, 23 Feb. 2021
https://southsummit.co/en/virtual-south-summit/health-wellbeing-en/
An Insight Into Crypto Derivatives, 4 Mar. 2021
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-insight-into-crypto-derivatives-tickets-137765609647
Finovate Europe, 23-25 Mar. 2021
https://informaconnect.com/finovateeurope/
Meet Our Partners:
Heussen https://www.heussen-law.de
Nagarro https://www.nagarro.com/en
Opportunity Network https://www.opportunitynetwork.com/fintech-forum
Money2020 Europe https://europe.money2020.com
InsurTech Insights https://insurtechinsights.com
Finovate Europe https://informaconnect.com/finovateeurope/
FN FinTech 40 https://www.fnlondon.com