Fintech funding round-up: 11 September 2017
Money is the honey keeping fintech sweet. Our latest funding round-up features Linxo, Rubique and TNG.
French start-up Linxo, which offers a budget management app, has raised €20 million from Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and MAIF (a mutual insurance firm) – bringing the funds raised since its launch to €23.2 million. MAIF is a new backer, while the other two have had capital in Linxo for a number of years. With the money, Linxo says it plans to develop an “augmented financial assistant” as it seeks to tap into the highly popular and competitive personal finance market. (As reported in June, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa chose Moneythor’s analytical engine to be at the heart of “Max”, a personal finance assistant app for its new start-up Nouvelle Vague. So its interest is clear.)
Linxo acts as a bank account aggregation solution and more than 1.4 million people in France have already used its application, and several million users have also access to its technology via banks and insurance partners. Bruno Van Haetsdaele, co-founder and CEO of Linxo, says it remains “independent” and business partnerships have been built with Fortuneo, BforBank and HSBC “to name only the companies that have agreed to publicise their partnerships”.
India’s Rubique targets $20 million funding
Online lending marketplace Rubique is looking for investors for its third round of funding as it targets $20 million. The fundraising is expected to be concluded by October, MD and CEO Manav Jeet Singh told BloombergQuint in an interview.
So far, the Mumbai-headquartered firm has raised $7 million, $1.5 million of which was seed capital invested by the promoters at the start, Singh says. Investors at this point include Kalaari Capital, Globevestor, and YourNest Angel Fund. According to BloombergQuint, during its three years of operations, the company has facilitated loan disbursements of nearly INR 20 billion ($312.8 million), two-thirds of which have been to SMEs. As reported by Banking Technology in May, Rubique was one of five firms Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) approved for its first batch of Regulatory Laboratory firms.
Over in Hong Kong, digital wallet start-up TNG has raised $115 million in a Series A round led by Chinese private equity fund New Margin Capital. TNG says the funding now puts its valuation at $565 million. TNG will use the money for expansion plans, such as in the UK, fund new unspecified acquisitions and for general investment plans in blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots and e-KYC (know your customer) platforms.
The TNG platform was developed by enterprise mobile payment firm SINO Dynamic Solutions in 2013. It was officially launched in 2015 and, according to its LinkedIn page, TNG got 200,000 active users in its first three days of launch.
