ICYMI fintech funding round-up: Skydo, Finora Bank, Okredo, Parfin, and more
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 so you can get the latest funding news.
Cardea bags $15 million
Cardea Corporate Holdings, a US-based wealth and asset manager, has secured a $15 million convertible note financing round.
The round comprised a mix of unnamed new backers and existing investors.
The capital infusion will be used for strategic acquisitions and technological infrastructure upgrades.
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Cardea provides a range of offerings such as portfolio management, analytics, family office services, and more.
Brazilian and UK-based Web3 infrastructure provider Parfin has landed a $10 million Series A round, led by ParaFi Capital, bringing its total funding to date to $38 million.
The round, which the firm anticipates will reach $16 million by the “end of the second closing”, saw additional participation from Núclea, Framework Ventures, and L4 Venture Builder.
Founded in 2019, Parfin serves LatAm FIs with its range of trading, tokenisation, digital asset custody, and management tools.
Parfin, which last secured funding in 2023, will use its latest capital to hire new talent, expand into Asian, Latin American, and European markets, and further develop its blockchain solution, Rayls.
Conduit lands $6 million seed extension
B2B cross-border payments platform Conduit has extended its seed round with a $6 million investment from Helios Digital Ventures, the VC arm of Helios Investment Partners.
The funds add to the $17 million originally secured from Diagram Ventures, Gradient Ventures, and Portage Ventures.
Founded in 2021, Conduit facilitates cross-border commercial transactions for global enterprises, converting local fiat currencies in emerging markets to USD via ACH or SWIFT.
According to a TechCrunch report, the start-up plans to leverage the latest cash injection to branch out from its initial markets in Latin America to pursue opportunities in Africa.
CEO Kirill Gertman says the company see “even greater potential in Africa, with impressive early growth and volumes we think might surpass Latin America by early next year”.
Finora Bank, a Lithuania-based financial institution focused on micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), has raised €5.6 million in a funding round.
The company offers business and working capital loans, leasing, factoring, and term deposits to MSMEs and says to have financed over €170 million for the sector in Estonia and Lithuania.
Finora Bank’s latest funding round, whose backers remain undisclosed, reportedly consisted of a mix of direct equity and equity-level tier 1 bonds.
Skydo secures $5 million
Indian cross-border payments platform Skydo has raised $5 million in a pre-Series A funding round spearheaded by Elevation Capital.
This follows the firm’s $5.2 million seed round, also led by Elevation Capital.
According to co-founder and CEO, Srivatsan Sridhar, the new funding will be used to “acquire payment licences across various geographies,” with Skydo recently applying for a cross-border payment aggregator licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Bangalore, Skydo claims to process payments in 32 currencies, having handled over $100 million in transactions since its inception. The platform also supports more than 6,000 Indian exporters.
Okredo, a Lithuanian fintech specialising in open data solutions, has bagged €1.2 million from the EU to advance its AI/ML-driven multi-modular scoring system for assessing credit risk.
The new solution is aimed at helping SMEs cut costs, and enhance the quality of customer lifecycle management and credit scoring.
Initially, the new tool is to leverage machine learning capabilities to analyse data from more than 15 million firms across the UK, Poland, and the Baltic states.
“Our AI-based solution acts as a financial assistant for SMEs, identifying necessary actions to enhance their financial health and improve credit scores”, says Gerda Jurkonienė, CEO of Okredo.
