Welcome to The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Thursday 23 February.
Job moves
GoCardless has appointed three executives from open banking provider Nordigen, which it acquired last year, to its leadership team. Rolands Mesters, co-founder and former CEO at Nordigen, is now VP of bank account data at GoCardless. Fellow co-founder Roberts Bernans, previously chief product officer at Nordigen, has been named VP of connectivity. While Nordigen CTO Jake Sebastian-Jones has joined the product team as a director of engineering.
Fintech Backbase appoints Sam Boggs III as senior vice president and general manager for the North American mid-market segment. Boggs will focus on enabling credit unions and community banks to deliver Backbase’s engagement banking technology to North American credit unions and community banks. He previously held positions at Conduent and Fiserv.
Intelligent document processing provider Eigen has appointed Brian Troesch as its new chief revenue officer. He will drive enhanced integration and alignment between all revenue-related functions, leading Eigen’s sales organisation, pricing and revenue management.
Siepe, a provider of technology, data and analytics, has named Robert Tomicic and Ann Kono to the company’s board. Their arrival will play a key role in helping Siepe build out its offering while providing guidance on where the company can extend its services to reach even more market participants.
Funding and investment
Holo secures seven figure funding in its latest seed round. Investment was led by Saudi-based Watheeq Proptech Venture and Hambro Perks Oryx Fund. New regional participation came from DFDF, Annex Investments and Tawaref Angel Network. Holo, the Middle East’s first digital mortgage platform, is set to launch in KSA in 2023.
Polybase, a privacy-preserving decentralised database, has raised $2million in pre-seed funding, led by 6th Man Ventures with participation also from Protocol Labs, Orange DAO, Alumni Ventures, NGC, CMT Digital and Upfront Ventures. Polybase will use the funding to expand the team and develop additional technical capabilities.
GovForce has closed a Seed round of $2.5million. The round was led by QED Investors and Humba Ventures, with participation from Cambrian and NextGen Venture Partners. GovForce powers performance, compliance and collaboration for US government contractors.
British-Ukrainian car financing startup Carmoola has raised £103.5million between a series A funding round and a new debt facility. The round was led by QED Investors, with participation from existing investors VentureFriends and InMotion Ventures.
UK credit risk platform DirectID has received €9million in equity funding from Ingka Investments, the investment arm of Ingka Group which owns Swedish retailer Ikea. DirectID uses open banking data and predictive models to track credit risks in real-time.
Company updates
Glasgow-headquartered AutoRek has unveiled an updated brand as part of global expansion plans. The firm has tripled in size since 2020. This repositioning of AutoRek’s brand will enable it to move further into new growth sectors, such as the payments industry.
Insurance data intelligence provider Percayso has snapped up Cazana, which will become known as Percayso Vehicle Intelligence. Kieran Fisher will lead the ongoing development of Percayso’s vehicle data insight proposition which will include the additional capabilities that the acquisition of Cazana brings.
Partnerships
Employment platform G-P (Globalization Partners) has partnered with Wise to help how businesses pay international freelancers and contractors. Through the integration with G-P and Wise, companies will have direct access within the G-P platform to an efficient payment system that ensures fairness and pay transparency for all talent.
Mastercard has signed an agreement with Pakistan’s Punjab Central Business District Development Authority (PCBDDA) to turn the community into a cashless economic zone and drive digital transformation in the country. The collaboration will also see Mastercard deploy its smart city solutions in the Central Business District as the preferred payments partner.
Iliad Solutions, a payment testing company, has announced a strategic partnership with Serquo adding its ATM/ device testing to its t3 testing platform. Initially the companies will work together offering this extended capability to all existing customers. As both companies extend their international reach they will work in partnership on new customer opportunities.
National Bonds, the UAE Shari’a-compliant savings and investment company, has announced a strategic partnership with Biz Group, a provider of corporate coaching solutions in Dubai and the Middle East, to offer its Golden Pension Plan (GPP) to Biz Group’s employees.
Trustly teams up with Sweden booking platform for treatments Bokadirekt. Bokadirekt can offer all merchants access to their funds much faster, by processing instant payouts instead of being limited by bank day cut-off times.
Additional partnerships
HelloSafe, an insurance and financial product comparison platform, bags a new partnership with soNomad, a company specialising in travel insurance in Canada. As part of this partnership, HelloSafe users can compare soNomad travel insurance offerings.
There’s also a partnership for MEA digital identity company uqudo and PwC. Under the partnership, uqudo will bring digital onboarding capability, including identification and verification, to PwC’s digital banking platform, Infinite for Financial Services.
SmartSave Bank has forged a new partnership with Flagstone, the UK’s leading cash deposit platform. SmartSave will make its market-leading fixed-rate accounts available to Flagstone clients while scaling up its deposit-raising activities via Flagstone’s broad distribution channels.
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