We are pleased to announce the first set of investors who will be on stage at the 12th FinTech Forum, on 19th Nov. 2020 in Frankfurt:
– Paula Blazquez Solano: Head of Investments at InnoCells (Banco Sabadell) – also featured in our Q&A this week (see below)
– Daniel Andemeskel: Head of Innovation/ Investments at Universal Investment
– Astrid Freier: Partner, DACH, Vidici Ventures
– Manuel Silva Martinez: Partner, Head of Investments, Santander InnoVentures
If you are in the midst of a funding round, or would like to understand how to proceed in the current market situation, feel free to reach out to us via LinkedIn: Frank Schwab or Samarth Shekhar
Call for startups: apply to pitch at the 12th FinTech Forum, 19th Nov. 2020 in Frankfurt – email contact (at) fintechforum.de or reach out via LinkedIn. Investors & corporates: register here directly http://ftf12.eventbrite.com
7 Minute Pitch Template Essentials
In the past 7 years we at FinTech Forum have evaluated over 3,500 pitches and given a lot of feedback. More than 350 FinTech startups have presented their business models in 7 minutes each.
From this we developed a template. We recommend that all founders cover at least the following eight themes in their presentation.
http://www.fintechforum.de/7-minute-pitch-template-essentials/
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.
http://www.fintechforum.de/7-questions-with-paula-blazquez-solano-of-innocells-banco-sabadell/
Czech cybersecurity startup Resistant AI wins $2.75 million from Index and Credo Ventures
Resistant AI, a Prague-based security company that protects AI systems from cyberattacks and fraud, has raised $2.75 million in a round co-led by Index Ventures and Credo Ventures. Seedcamp and angel investors such as Daniel Dines and Michal Pechoucek also participated.
Deployed on top of existing systems, Resistant AI provides a typical security layer for financial services, such as protecting payments and detecting fraud or money laundering — and also detects forged documents or spots sophisticated attackers attempting to copy the underlying ML model.
“Historically, all systems that make high-value financial decisions become targeted. This is already happening with the automated systems deployed by our fintech and financial customers and we are here to protect them,” says Martin Rehak, the startup’s co-founder and CEO.
https://tech.eu/brief/resistant-ai-funding/
Fintech startup TransFICC lands £5.7M+ Series A
AlbionVC, the venture capital arm of Albion Capital, has led a £5.75 million investment in TransFICC. The UK-based startup provides an e-trading platform for the fixed income and derivatives markets. The funds will be used to expand its product and market coverage.
https://pitchbook.com/newsletter/fintech-startup-transficc-lands-57m-series-a
Berlin-based blockchain startup Gapless raises €5.5 million from Porsche, FinLab and others
Gapless, a 20-person startup based in Berlin that is building the world’s first blockchain platform for vehicle management, has picked up €5.5 million in new funding.
The investors in the round include Porsche – the carmaker has been a strategic partner and financial backer of the startup since it was founded in 2018 – as well as the FinLab EOS VC Fund (a joint venture between FinLab and Block.one), and insurance entrepreneur Kersten Jodexnis, with his family office LA ROCA Capital.
Previously, the blockchain tech startup was part of the global accelerator program STARTUP AUTOBAHN, powered by Plug and Play.
Gapless develops an app that enables users to build up a complete history of any vehicle, but is looking to grow it into a ‘platform for things you love’.
https://tech.eu/brief/gapless-blockchain-berlin-funding/
6,5 Millionen Euro für die nächste Banking-Wette
Finom baut zurzeit das nächste Banking-Start-up für Unternehmenskunden auf.
Die Gründer haben zuvor die russische Modulbank groß gemacht – und wollen diesen Erfolg nun in Europa wiederholen.
Noch ist die Erfolgsgeschichte der Modulbank in Europa relativ unbekannt: Das russische Fintech wächst schnell und machte im vergangenen Jahr nach eigenen Angaben etwa 60 Mio. Dollar Umsatz, bei einem Gewinn von mehr als zehn Millionen.
Es bedient kleine und mittlere Unternehmen mit einer Banking-Plattform, hilft beispielsweise bei Steuererklärung und Buchhaltung.
Die Gründer der Bank haben nun ihre Anteile verkauft und bauen stattdessen in Amsterdam das Fintech Finom auf.
https://www.capital.de/wirtschaft-politik/65-millionen-euro-fuer-finom
Geneva-based startup Taurus Group raises over €10 million to expand blockchain infrastructure for digital assets
Swiss fintech startup Taurus Group has raised over €10 million in funding, led by a strategic investment from Arab Bank with participation from Foundation Tezos and other investors.
The company’s co-founders, who have backgrounds in banking, asset management, and cybersecurity, remain majority shareholders.
Among other financial services, the Geneva-based startup provides an enterprise-level digital asset exchange for financial institutions. Built on blockchain, the SaaS product is an end-to-end market infrastructure for the issuance, custody, and transfer of digital assets.
French fintech startup Agicap raises €15M funding round led by Partech
Founded in 2016 by three entrepreneurs from Lyon, Agicap develops and sells a SaaS platform for SMBs to manage and forecast their cash flows. The French fintech company has raised €15M in a round led by Partech.
Existing investors BlackFin Capital Partners and Kima Ventures also participated in the round.
This financing round comes 7 months after BlackFin led the company’s €2.4M seed round. Lyon-based SaaS company will use the funding to strengthen its product and grow its sales team to meet the increasing demand for its core offering.
Cash deposit fintech Flagstone raises $15m
London-based FinTech Flagstone, developer of the UK’s largest cash deposit marketplace, has raised $15m (£12m) in venture capital in a round led by OMERS Ventures and supported by existing investors including Kindred Capital and Moneysupermarket Group plc.
Flagstone was founded in 2013 and has grown rapidly to become the leader in the UK cash deposit platform market having transmitted more than £5bn in deposits since 2015.
The business provides individuals, wealth managers, businesses and charities with access to hundreds of cash deposit accounts, many with market leading or exclusive interest rates, from 44 banks including high street names such as HSBC and Nationwide as well as a host of challenger banks.
Flagstone’s cash deposit marketplace enables clients to increase their interest income and manage their risk through diversification and greater use of FSCS protection.
Simon Merchant, Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner of Flagstone, said: “Raising growth capital from leading investors such as OMERS Ventures is a testament to the strength of our business model and the great work that the Flagstone team does every day to support clients with protecting their cash deposit investments.
https://www.uktech.news/featured/cash-deposit-fintech-flagstone-raises-15m-20200501
Cyprus-based Omilia gets $20 million to grow its conversational AI for enterprise, after 18 years of bootstrapping
Omilia, a Cyprus-based machine learning company, has secured $20 million in funding from Grafton Capital to continue expanding its conversational AI technology, built for the customer care needs of global enterprises. This is Omilia’s first fundraising of outside investment.
In what it considers “one of the few categories of AI that is already delivering significant value to large enterprises and their customers”, the Cypriot company has built a virtual assistant and customer dialog management system. Customers can experience “human-level intelligence” and machine-level efficiency when contacting a company, whether by phone, web chat, social media, SMS, email, or mobile app.
The AI consists of proprietary speech-recognition software, voice biometrics, dialogue technology and machine learning, which the company claims has trained on billions of interactions since its founding 2002. Now the service is fluent in 21 languages, serving clients such as global banks, mobile operators and insurance firms.
“We abandoned the legacy approaches and outdated open standards which were holding back the customer experience,” says co-founder and CEO Dimitris Vassos
https://tech.eu/brief/omilia-funding/
Proxymity Raises $20.5M in Strategic Funding
Proxymity, a London, UK-based digital investor communications platform developed within Citi’s Institutional Clients Group, raised $20.5m in a strategic funding.
The company will form its own entity via a global, industry-led consortium, which brings together the leading global and direct custodians and the leading issuer agents ensuring instant access to the world’s leading investors and companies.
BNY Mellon, Citi, Clearstream, Computershare, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, and State Street comprise the newly formed consortium.
Proxymity intends to use the funds to scale its platform offerings so that it can deliver its services to a wider client base and across a broad range of geographic markets. Its immediate focus will be the EU markets ahead of the forthcoming SRDII implementation.
Co-founded by CEO Dean Little and COO Jonathan Smalley, Proxymity provides a real-time and fully transparent electronic proxy voting platform, which is especially valuable amid current remote working arrangements.
http://www.finsmes.com/2020/05/proxymity-raises-20-5m-in-strategic-funding.html
Near Protocol Project Raises $21.6M in Funding
Near Protocol Project, a global project behind the NEAR Protocol, a decentralized application platform, completed a $21.6M funding round.
The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fund with participation from Pantera Capital, Electric Capital, Blockchange, Libertus Capital and Distributed Global.
The company also announced the early launch of their production MainNet network. The new funds will be used to drive a rollout strategy.
Led by Illia Polosukhin, Cofounder and CEO of Near Inc, NEAR is a decentralized application platform backed by a public blockchain which is optimized for programmability so developers can build, test and deploy applications which permissionlessly handle a wide range of digital assets.
http://www.finsmes.com/2020/05/near-protocol-project-raises-21-6m-in-funding.html
Berlin-based Zeitgold, bookkeeping automation platform, raises €27 million
Today Berlin-based fintech startup Zeitgold, which is helping small businesses to automate their accounting, has announced closing a €27 million Series B round, led by new investor Vintage Investment Partners.
Zeitgold, founded in 2015, aims to help small business owners significantly reduce the amount of work required to prepare their books, and therefore devote more resources to their core business.
So how does it work? Business owners simply scan receipts and invoices using the Zeitgold app and the software automatically matches these documents with bank account transactions.
All documents and data is then automatically transferred to their tax advisor.
N26 raises more than $100 million in extension of its Series D funding
Today, we’re delighted to announce an extension of our Series D funding with a further $100 million, bringing this current round to $570 million.
This is a huge development that includes all of our major investors, reaffirming their support of our vision to transform banking around the world.
And it’s yet another tremendous milestone in The Mobile Bank’s journey—one which positions N26 as one of the highest valued FinTech companies globally.
To this day, we’ve reached over 5 million customers, maintained our valuation at $3.5 billion and raised almost $800 million.
We are proud to partner with Money20/20 Europe- now taking place from 22nd – 24th September 2020, still at the Rai, Amsterdam (rescheduled from the original date of 16th – 18th June 2020). Join us using discount code MP20FOR: https://europe.money2020.com
Meet us at:
NOAH Conference, Berlin, 4-5 Jun. 2020 https://www.noah-conference.com/noah-berlin-conference-2020/ (subject to decision based on COVID-19)
FinTech Junction, Tel Aviv, 1 Jul. 2020 https://www.fintechjunction.com (subject to decision based on COVID-19)
Swiss FinTech Fair, Zürich, 8 Sep. 2020 https://www.swissfintechfair.com
Money2020 Europe, Amsterdam, 22-24 Sep. 2020 https://europe.money2020.com
Bank+FinTech EFMA, Madrid, 21-23 Oct. 2020 https://www.efma.com/conference/748-bank-fintech-2020
Digital Insurance Agenda, Amsterdam, 28-29 Oct. 2020 https://next.digitalinsuranceagenda.com/dia-amsterdam-2020/want-to-attend/
MoneyConf / WebSummit, Lisbon, 2-5 Nov. 2020 https://websummit.com/moneyconf
12th FinTech Forum, Frankfurt, 19th Nov. 2020 http://www.fintechforum.de/events/