The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday brings you the latest job appointments, partnerships and investment rounds.
Job moves
Propellant.digital, the data analytics fintech, has welcomed Dan Marcus as strategic advisor. Marcus is CEO of business consultancy MarcX limited. He joins Propellant.digital at an important stage of its growth journey and will support the founders Vincent Grandjean and Allan Horgan in building the business further.
Chris Stevens has joined global data reconciliation firm Duco as chief revenue officer. He joins from Nasdaq where he held the position of VP, global head of sales and account management. Duco says Stevens will help further its mission to make managing data easy for more enterprises across the globe.
Freddy Dijkman appointed CFO at Recharge.com
European branded payments company Recharge.com has appointed Freddy Dijkman as chief financial officer. Having joined the company in May 2021 as interim CFO, he is now remaining in the CFO position permanently. Recharge.com also recently hired David Lindheimer as chief product and technology officer.
Meanwhile, wealthtech startup Nucoro hires Matt Cockayne as its chief revenue officer. Most recently, Cockayne was chief commercial officer at Yapily. Nucoro is looking forward to benefitting from ‘his strong expertise in scaling technology businesses’.
Fraud firm Chargebacks911 has appointed Robert Hoover as vice president of business development, concentrating on Chargebacks911 strategic merchant accounts. He aims to target small to mid-sized companies as he beds into his new role, while laying the foundations for strategic wins later down the line to support the company’s long term growth plans.
SMC Entertainment and its majority-owned fintech subsidiary Genesis Financial has appointed Sachie McQueen to its board of directors. McQueen has more than 10 years of global equity sales and research experience in top investment banks including Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse.
Additional job appointments
Specialised payments platform Paysafe has bolstered its digital wallets team with the appointment of Rachel McShane as its chief financial officer, while Megan Oxman takes on a newly created role as senior vice president of new product development. Paysafe aims to become ‘the true payments pioneer in the digital wallets and embedded finance space’.
Banking software firm Temenos AG has appointed Erich Gerber as president and chief revenue officer. Gerber will lead the company’s global customer operations to accelerate and scale expansion to new market segments and territories. He willl also focus on generating new revenue streams through partnerships and increasing the company’s presence in large tier 1 / 2 banks.
SmartAsset appoints Meghan Lapides
Meanwhile, Paul Aplin OBE is joining untied, the UK’s personal tax app, as a senior adviser. He will work on untied’s innovations in its technology including its adviser platform and Making Tax Digital for Income Tax which untied is rolling out as part of HMRC’s pilot.
Linqto, the digital investment platform for private technology market securities, names Susan Miller as chief growth officer. She will lead Linqto’s growth and marketing initiatives with a focus on attracting more accredited investors to the platform and expanding the Linqto ecosystem.
Finally, SmartAsset, an online destination for financial information, unveils Meghan Lapides as its chief people officer. Prior to joining SmartAsset, she served as SVP, people at Vimeo. Lapides will oversee and scale a fully integrated people discipline that will help drive aggressive growth and expansion.
Mergers and acquisitions
Billtrust, the B2B accounts receivable automation and integrated payments firm, has acquired Netherlands-based Order2Cash, a B2B order-to-cash platform provider. The acquisition follows the October 2021 purchase of iController, broadening the company’s European footprint, global presence and ability to expand its business payments network.
Funding and investments
Alma, the French financial platform, has completed a €210million Series C financing round. Existing investors Cathay Innovation, Eurazeo, Bpifrance, Seaya Ventures and Picus Capital participated, as well as new investors Tencent, GR Capital and Roosh Ventures. This round will help Alma accelerate the large scale delivery of its products and vision throughout the retail ecosystem in continental Europe.
MENAP-focused fintech Hubpay raises $20million in Series A round. Signal Peak Ventures led the round alongside Olive Tree Capital and BECO Capital. Early-stage backers Stormbreaker, Emkan Capital and Aditum also took part. Hubpay will use the proceeds to grow the team and expand internationally.
Meanwhile Cognifiber has closed a $6million round A of funding to reimagine how modern computing is processed. The round was led by Chartered Group. This investment ‘opens the path to break through current processing speed barriers, unlocking many AI-driven business opportunities’.
Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo has selected Thought Machine, the UK core banking technology company, to power its new digital banking platform. In conjunction with this partnership, Intesa Sanpaolo has made a £40million investment in Thought Machine.
Meanwhile, Fiat Republic has bagged $3.5million in seed funding. Investors Speedinvest, Seedcamp and Credo have backed the startup, which is building a compliance-first, e-money-regulated banking and payments API. The company also begins its private beta.
Partnerships
Swedish fintech Zimpler announces a partnership with Rabble to offer instant payouts to customers in Sweden as the company launches its unique new cashback app. The Rabble app will lets consumers earn cashback on everyday grocery brands. Customers will only need to scan their receipt through Rabble’s app, and the money will start accumulating straight away.
Fraugster, a German-Israeli payment intelligence company, has partnered with marketplace payout specialist Payaut to provide fraud prevention services to marketplaces. This collaboration lets marketplaces have easy access to a range of fraud prevention, compliance and revenue uplift solutions.
There’s also a partnership for i2c Inc., a provider of digital payment and banking technology, and KARTY, a Qatar-based fintech. Leveraging i2c’s global payments platform, Karty’s mobile wallet will provide Visa-branded digital cards, enabling instant, cashless P2P transactions on the Visa network.
Mashreq Bank of the UAE and ThetaRay are collaborating in transaction monitoring. The UAE bank contract marks expansion of ThetaRay AI-driven solution into Middle East financial institutions. Mashreq Bank chooses ThetaRay transaction monitoring solution for correspondent banking.
Product updates and launches
Juni, the financial companion for ecommerce entrepreneurs, has launched its new VISA credit card in the UK. The Juni credit card is tailor-made for media buying, enabling entrepreneurs to work in a way that suits them by removing the limitations set by traditional credit cards.
Fintech Baanx has announced the launch of Cryptolife, a digital app built to integrate with the Tezos blockchain for new and existing Tezos token holders. The Tezos Cryptolife app will offer a new, mobile-first digital asset management platform for users to save, transfer and manage their digital assets and access services such as Cryptodrafts offered by Baanx.
Meanwhile fintech PayU has unveiled a new credit solution for Romanian shoppers. Bucharest-based online retailer eMAG is the first partner to offer its customers the possibility to either postpone a payment or to pay in four installments for all categories of products either in its own offer or for products sold by sellers active on the eMAG Marketplace.
Finally, ADQ, an Abu Dhabi-based investment company, says the Central Bank of the UAE has granted an in-principle approval to launch a new digital banking platform called Wio. Wio will ‘enhance the capital’s growing reputation as a global financial services centre at the leading edge of digital banking’.
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