Fintech funding round-up: 27 March 2018
Whether it’s paytech or regtech, funding spreads far and wide across the fintech world. This round-up features Candex, MarketInvoice and Konsentus.
Payments firm Candex has raised $3.5 million of series seed funding from Edenred Capital Partners, Partech Ventures, Advisors.Fund, Camp One Ventures, NFX, Tekton Ventures, Big Sur Ventures and “fintech angel” Mark Goines. The money will be used for unspecified expansion plans.
Candex says it allows the creation of private eMarketplaces where employees engage with approved vendors through a chat interface, track activities and performance, and authorise payments below $100,000. Its co-founder and CEO Jeremy Lappin says: “Candex brings the speed and ease of consumer payment apps to large businesses, leveraging a private blockchain to ensure compliance and massively streamline financial system records.”
UK-based business finance company MarketInvoice has signed agreements with Portuguese bank Banco BNI Europa (BNI) and German bank Varengold Bank to add £90 million and £45 million respectively on its platform. Pedro Coelho, executive chairman of Banco BNI Europa, says its “experience of working with MarketInvoice since 2016 has been exceptional”.
MarketInvoice’s online platform enables companies to secure business loans and invoice finance. These working capital solutions are funded by a variety of sources in addition to institutional investors, including the British Business Bank, UK local authorities, family offices and investors. Last week, MarketInvoice reached the milestone of funding £2 billion worth of invoices and business loans to UK companies.
Staying in the UK, regtech firm Konsentus, launched a few months ago to provide consent and preference management facilitation to financial institutions for PSD2 open banking, has announced that Nick Caplan, chairman of UK Faster Payments, has joined the team. The funding twist is that Caplan is joining both as an investor and active advisor to the business. The other twist is that no financial details were disclosed.
According to Konsentus, Caplan joined the same week as Tuxedo Money Solutions became the latest company signing up to take its service. David Monty, CEO of Tuxedo Money Solutions, says: “PSD2 open banking provides a dramatic change in the market and Konsentus are delivering a service through a simple API solution that will enable us to manage the access, consent and permission management obligations we have to fulfil under the new regulatory regime.”
