Fintech funding round-up: 4 November 2016
Let’s put the fun in funding by keeping it mercifully brief. A round-up of some key events.
KEEN Venture Partners, a new venture capital firm operating from London and Amsterdam, has announced €90 million first close of its inaugural fund.
It will use the money to provide early growth capital for tech firms with a particular focus on innovation hubs in the UK, Netherlands, Sweden and Germany. In addition, it will consider North American-based tech companies looking to expand into Europe. It intends to invest €5 million to €10 million per company.
Grow up
In the cramped world of smartphone banking, UK-based Loot has completed a further £2.5 million funding round (added to the £1.5 million seed capital raised last year), from existing investors, including SpeedInvest (Holvi, Curve) and Global Founders Capital (iwoca, Kreditech, Facebook) and a small number of new angel investors.
The firm sees Monzo, Atom, Starling etc as its competitors and recently opened the first of its new accounts this month. The first “tranche” of nearly 20,000 new customers have started to use version 2. The company says it is aimed at millennials – or the “young at heart”.
AREX, a trading platform for SMEs to sell unpaid invoices, has raised €3 million in a round led by Finland’s Lifeline Ventures, alongside Robin Klein, general partner and co-founder at London-based investors LocalGlobe.
Founded in 2014, AREX – which stands for Account Receivables Exchange – wants to help “cash-squeezed” SMEs access short-term finance. It is already operational in Finland, and due to launch in the UK next year.
Goldman Sachs, Pivot Investment Partners and Wells Fargo are leading a $16 million investment in New York-based Droit Financial Technologies, with participation from DRW, a trading firm.
The Series A minority investment provides growth capital for Droit’s real-time decision-making engine, which provides point-of-execution compliance for sales and trading systems at financial institutions. The firm was founded in 2012 and has offices in New York and London.
