Fintech Funding: Versana raises $40M from major banks

Syndicated loan platform Versana raised $40 million from U.S. Bank , Deutsche Bank , Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo — which are also the platform’s latest clients. The platform, which aggregates and normalizes data from member banks, launched in December with its first investors and clients, including Bank of America, Citi, Credit Suisse and JPMorgan, Versana Chief Executive Cynthia Sachs told Bank Automation News . Now those banks are starting to integrate and contribute data to the platform. [caption id="attachment_57365455" align="alignright" width="300"] Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg [/caption] Through the latest funding, which closed Tuesday, Versana will use the capital to grow its technology team, Sachs said. "We’re growing and we want to be able to build the team out so we cannot only enhance the product that was launched at the end of [2022] but start building new products on top of that with the data that we’re aggregating,” Sachs said. Through the addition of the latest four banks, "we have [nearly] 75% of the syndicated loan market agent banks now, and that's a huge milestone to achieve,” Sachs said. Looking ahead, Versana is working to expand its reach, Sachs said. “We have a lot of banks and asset managers that we are starting to onboard for a serious evaluation of the product to turn into clients and users.” Spiral secures $28M in series A Sustainability fintech Spiral landed a $28 million investment in a series A funding round on Tuesday. Spiral plans to use the funding to launch its impact-as-a-service platform, with three main offerings within the platform, including embeddable donation capabilities within the bank’s products, a charitable management solution where users can send donations digitally through the banking app or platform, and a donor-advised fund charitable account where customers can accumulate funds from their accounts for giving later. The New York-based fintech’s capital totals $42 million through two rounds of fundraising, with Spiral aiming to launch products such as sustainable credit cards that round up transactions to the nearest dollar and donate the amount to charities automatically, Shawn Melamed , co-founder and chief executive at Spiral, told Bank Automation News . “Our business model is selling to banks, so they can embed [charitable giving] into their digital banking solutions, and this way, reach 200 million adults in the U.S.,” Melamed said. “A portion of it would go to the local food bank and homeless people in their neighborhood is a very alluring value proposition for people to choose a local bank.” The company launched in 2021, with its first offering being a socially responsible consumer banking app, which combined charitable giving and social impact and reached 70,000 consumers in the U.S., Melamed noted. The funding round was led by venture capital firm Team8 with additional funding from Euclidean Capital and Intuition Fund , Communitas Capital , Phoenix , and Nidoco AB , according to the release from Spiral . Fetch.ai nabs $40M investment Blockchain startup Fetch.ai received a $40 million investment from digital asset market maker DWF Labs to advance communications and actions among AI applications. “This investment will help us advance our mission to bring automation and AI capabilities to the forefront of the decentralized technology industry,” Fetch.ai Chief Executive Humayun Sheikh said in a release. The Cambridge, U.K.-based company, which helps business build, deploy and connect systems, has its own native token, FET, which is used to pay for network transactions, help deploying AI and paying for services, according to Fetch.ai. Fetch.ai has raised $66 million through four funding rounds, according to Crunchbase . Archway Software earns $15M series A investment Archway Software recently received a $15 million investment in a series A funding round, backed by Washington Federal Bank and venture capital firm Madrona . The tech provider was spun off from WaFd Bank , “So, for the past three and a half years we were building an underlying platform that powers everything from our online banking ... to human voice biometrics ,” Dustin Hubbard , president of Archway Software, said earlier this month at the Bank Automation Summit U.S. 2023 in Charlotte, N.C. The Redmond, Wash.-based business provides a single access point through API to connect the bank’s cores to consumer-facing applications in areas such as web, mobile, voice and AI, the release said. As part of its launch, Archway created a datalake that provides banks a 360-degree view of their customers to ensure they are serving them as needed. Additionally, Archway launched an integration service with call center solution TalkDesk and Amazon ’s conversational AI service Lex that allows banks to verify customer identity using voice biometrics, according to the release. Generative AI platform Hazy receives Wells Fargo backing Generative AI startup Hazy secured a $9 million series A investment from banks Wells Fargo , Intesa Sanpaolo and Nationwide Building Society . The platform uses AI-generated smart synthetic data to ensure that statistical quality of data has no real information to mitigate privacy risk, according to a company release. “This funding will solidify our position as the leading synthetic data provider for enterprises to unlock value through their data and enable us to explore the greater potential of generative AI to produce real results for businesses, with no privacy limitations,” Hazy Chief Executive Harry Keen said in the release. The platform was the winner of the $1 million Microsoft Innovate AI prize for best AI startup in Europe and has partnered with banks such as Wells Fargo and Nationwide, according to the release. Env0 earns $18.1M in series A Startup env0 raised $18.1 million in funding this week, led by VC firm Venture Guides, to conclude its series A round of fundraising. The company, which develops infrastructure-as-code (IaC) workflow automation and management software, will use the funding toward research and development of new products, according to a company release. “While IaC tools unlock amazing benefits for businesses and enable rapid iteration and innovation, the biggest rewards can only be realized by scaling it effectively,” env0 Chief Executive Ohad Maislish said in the release. “Env0 is becoming increasingly important to our customers’ infrastructures. Our solutions help them scale and manage their IaC tools — dramatically cutting their deployment times and enabling self-service for their teams without neglecting compliance.” The Giv’atayim, Israel-based company is up to $35.1 million in funding through four rounds of fundraising, according to Crunchbase . The startup’s clients include PayPal , VMWare and MGM Resorts International , according to the release. Stratyfy raises $10M for AI-driven lending solution Predictive analytics and decision management platform Stratyfy raised a $10 million investment co-led by Truist Ventures and Zeal Capital Partners . The company, which uses machine learning and AI to drive clients’ lending strategies, will use the capital for ongoing innovation of its credit risk, fraud detection and bias mitigation tools, according to a release. “With increased adoption of AI and machine learning, transparency and controls around these solutions are essential so that the biases of our past do not encode into our future,” Laura Kornhauser , co-founder and chief executive of Stratyfy, said in the release. The company is up to $11.8 million in funding through seven funding rounds, according to Crunchbase.

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