ICYMI fintech funding round-up: Groov, Fundcraft, VibePay, 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.
Fundcraft bags €6 million
Fundcraft, a Luxembourg-based digital infrastructure provider for asset management firms, has closed its Series A round, securing an extra €6 million in funding.
The round, which adds to the €5 million raised in May, was led by 3VC and MiddleGame Ventures.
Founded in 2020, Fundcraft provides asset managers with a platform designed to centralise and automate fund administration, streamlining regulatory compliance, investor engagement, reporting and portfolio management.
The investment has been allocated for product development, as well as expanding Fundcraft’s workforce and European operations.
VibePay has landed a £5 million cash injection from existing investors, bringing the UK fintech’s total investment to date to £12 million.
The funding has been earmarked to support VibePay’s “mission to lead in the UK’s real-time payments and data sector”, according to a statement.
Founded in 2018, VibePay, a payment and data platform offering instant A2A payments, used its funding announcement to reveal the appointment of former Klarna executive Conor Tiernan as head of insights.
Tiernan will work on the development of VibePay Insights, the firm’s new AI-driven platform designed to provide brands with real-time consumer insights.
Algebrik AI lands $4 million
Algebrik AI, a New York City-headquartered start-up, has bagged a $4 million Series A funding round.
The firm, founded this year by former Scienaptic AI president Pankaj Jain, claims to be “pioneering the world’s first cloud-native and AI-powered digital era loan origination platform”.
In an interview with FinTech Futures, Jain explained how the company intends to help lenders overcome the constraints of legacy technology: “We created Algebrik AI to solve that problem where 98% of the process can happen digitally end to end, without a borrower jumping between offline, online, and physical paper processes.”
The funding, divided into two phases, will be used to enhance the firm’s loan origination software, with Jain hinting at an upcoming AI-powered chatbot featuring voice recognition technology.
Algebrik AI anticipates client deployments beginning in Spring 2025.
Groov, a UK fintech building an orchestration layer for embedded finance, has secured a £1.5 million seed funding round spearheaded by London-based venture capital firm Fuel Ventures.
The round also saw participation from Aperture Capital and a consortium of angel investors.
Founded in 2021, Groov connects lenders with commerce platforms through a single integration, offering platforms access to various capital solutions that reportedly provide competitive terms and high approval rates for SMEs.
The funds will be used for platform development, with a focus on cultivating a “multi region and multi lending product company” with “multiple new lending products”, Groov’s statement says.
Customs Window Technologies lands €800,000
Irish regtech firm Customs Window Technologies has bagged €800,000 in seed funding to expand its presence in the UK market.
This round, which builds on the €100,000 previously secured from the Enterprise Ireland Pre-Seed Start Fund, was privately led by EIIS investors with support from Enterprise Ireland’s High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) programme.
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Dublin, Customs Window Technologies provides enterprises with a solution designed to mitigate “the compliance risks that companies face when dealing with customs authorities”, according to COO and co-founder Brian Murphy.
Murphy notes that the firm was founded partly in response to Brexit and the broader issue of insufficient compliance in customs.
