Top 5 Fintech Capital Raises: The Fintech Punks
Feeling out of place? The five startups below may have the frontier know-how you need.
Last week we looked at a group of fintech companies spanning the world with a suite of Series B rounds. This week the common denominator lies in the oddball assistance needed by entrepreneurs, businesses, and investors looking to do business in strange places, and with new or late entrees into the crediting and banking world.
From credit and digital banking services to bring the underbanked into the fintech space, to helping those doing business in nations deemed international pariahs stay in the game; from providing meta-insight platforms to compare and contrast bank loan services before initiating contact, to streamlining the meta-trading experience with better auto-trading portfolios — the following fintech companies are for the wild ones, the mad ones, and the rebels who refuse to conform:
1. Kreditech is a financial services provider to the underbanked whose last investor, World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), bumped its Series C funding total up $11 million to a total of $103 million. Based in Germany, Kreditech plans to use its funds to reinforce its Monedo platform, which offers credit services and digital banking products to the finqancially underserved, credit-poor population. To offer more precise credit ratings and offer credit at fair and risk-weighted conditions, Kreditech uses 20,000 data points, updated every minute, “to offer 24/7 access to credit decisioning for anyone in 35 seconds.”
2. CurrencyFair is a P2P currency exchange company. Its latest funding round, led by Octopus Ventures, left it at $22.3 million in total funding. Other participating investors were Proxy Ventures and Frontline Ventures. CurrencyFair also announced the hiring of former Unibet Chief Marketing Officer, Nils Anden, as its new CMO. Coming from one of the largest online gambling businesses in Europe, Anden is renown for the commercial strategy that helped Unibet’s market cap grow from $427 million to $2.85 billion from 2010 to 2015. Now he’ll help customers betting on currency exchange.
3. Pomegranate, Investment AB is a privately held investment company willing to go to any lengths to support the progression of globalization. After Iran’s economy began to suffer the drag of international sanctions, Pomegranate worked with Per Brilioth to build a portfolio of e-commerce. Raising $67 million in one round, this Stockholm-based company is sure to appear in unexpected places in the greater service of fintech.
4. Next is Fina Zero, a loan brokerage service providing a platform for users to compare loan terms from different banks. This is invaluable knowledge for the would-be entrepreneur, as a slightly lower interest rate on an early loan can make or break financial security on both the individual and corporate level. While virtually obscure for the moment, Fina Zero is new to the fintech world, but, having raised $1.2 million on its first raise, means it’s sure to start making its preence felt.
5. Finally, we end with iQapla, the Automatic Trading portfolio managing service based in Madrid. While still in beta, iQapla already understands the need for reliable expertise in the realm of Automatic Trading. By helping customers every step of the investing way, the young company embeds algorithms supporting iQapla in different modes to optimize every trader’s unique needs. The young company raised an undisclosed amount in its first round — mysterious! — but one look at its website connotes great expectations from this Spanish startup.
