ICYMI fintech funding round-up: Kanastra, Majority & Cloudbankin
At FinTech Futures, we know that it can be easy to let funding announcements slip you by in this fast-paced industry. That’s why we put together our weekly In Case You Missed It (ICYMI) funding round-up for you to get the latest funding news.
Brazil-based capital markets infrastructure provider Kanastra has secured $13 million in a seed round, one of the largest at seed stage in Latin America.
The investment was co-led by Valor Capital and Quona Capital, alongside QED Investors, Actyus, Collaborative, Crestone, Grão, Endeavor, Clocktower, Latitud, and Norte. A number of founders of Latin American companies also took part in the round.
Founded in 2022, São Paulo-based Kanastra simplifies debt facilities for both originators and investors through an “all-in-one, tech-driven solution”. The platform streamlines and provides all services needed to set up, run and invest in debt facilities in a digital and automated way.
The funding will be used to scale its technology platform and offer a more “streamlined, efficient and cost-effective” experience to its customers.
US-based neobank for the migrant community, Majority, has raised $9.75 million in funding from Valar Ventures and Heartcore Capital.
Majority raises $9.75m in Series B extension
The new investment serves as a top-up to Majority’s Series B round led by Valar Ventures in September last year. With this latest funding, the neobank has now raised over $86 million in equity.
The funding also coincides with Majority’s physical expansion into Laredo, Texas, which is the principal port of entry into the US from Mexico. With the opening of its physical location, Majority aims to support Hispanic migrants and grow across the US-Mexico border.
Founded in 2019, Majority offers mobile banking services to migrants in the US for $5.99 a month. Features include an FDIC-insured account, a Visa debit card, use of more than 55,000 ATMs across North America, remittance and international calling, in-person native language advisors, and access to a network of community meet-up spaces, local discounts, and events.
Indian lending start-up Cloudbankin has secured $400,000 in funding from angel investors, Upekkha, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) accelerator and early stage fund, and Kube VC.
Formerly known as Habile Technologies, Chennai-based Cloudbankin offers a digital lending SaaS solution to financial institutions. Its key offerings include low-code digital onboarding, loan origination system, loan management system and business rule engine.
The company started out as a bootstrapped venture and now claims a customer base of over 50 financial institutions from multiple countries.
“With this funding, we will enhance our AI-based low-code platform to enable customisable workflow and pluggable integrations for different financial products such as business loans, loan against property, housing loans, gold loans, buy now, pay later (BNPL) and personal loans and launch it in three weeks,” says Mani Parthasarathy, CEO of Cloudbankin.
