The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Thursday.
Job moves
GoCardless, the payments firm, has appointed former Mastercard executive Paul Stoddart in a newly-formed role of president. His missions is to accelerate growth while helping the company’s ambition to become the world’s bank payment network. It also plans to release its Variable Recurring Payment feature shortly in the UK and expand Instant Bank Pay, its solution for one-off payments, across Europe.
Xceptor, the no-code software platform for data automation, has named Pete Daffern as non-executive company chair. He was most recently CEO at Foresee, and prior to that president of Netsuite. His focus will be on providing expert guidance on high-performance team development, go-to-market strategies, positioning, as well as product development.
Meanwhile, UK-based tech company Finboot hires Paris Dufrayer as its first chief revenue officer. In 2021, Finboot opened its headquarters in Cardiff, UK, but retains a core base in Barcelona, Spain, where Ms Dufrayer will be based. She will work with the team to drive revenue and expand its client base.
Paycast, the marketplace payment engine and second venture of UK based fintech group SPG, has unveiled Katrina Gordon as head of customer success. She joins the business from data-sharing platform SICCAR.
Michael Cress has joined Smoove PLC as chief financial officer. He joins from My 1st Years where he was finance director and has previously held senior and executive finance roles with Kelkoo, The Digital Property Group and AOL UK. The hire follows the company’s recent rebrand to make the home moving and ownership experience better at every touchpoint.
Finally, 365 Business Finance has expanded its partnerships team with the appointment of Paris Laldee. He joins as as senior partnerships development manager. The lender has also reported a 370 per cent increase in the number of funded deals during the first quarter of 2022.
Funding news
Bluezone, an insurtech specialising in chronic illnesses, has announced a £1.5million seed round led by Insurtech Gateway and AV8 Ventures. Oxford Capital and Portfolio Ventures also participated in the round. The London-based startup plans to use the investment to expand the team and launch its first product: Type 2 Diabetes life insurance.
Masa Finance, the hybrid credit protocol, has completed a pre-seed funding round of $3.5million. Investors include Unshackled Ventures, Flori Ventures, GSR, Decentranet, as well as Intersect VC. Masa has developed infrastructure for Web3 that enables on-chain credit scoring for billions of people globally.
KogoPAY, the mobile payments fintech startup, has bagged investment from two investors in its holding company Smile Money Ltd. The investors are J Ventures and Tanat Juwiwat, co-founder of Yggdrazil Group Public Company Ltd. KogoPAY offers mobile wallet for cross border payments and local payment using QR codes.
Company updates
Velvet, a fintech focused on giving liquidity to growth-stage startup employees, has launched VELVET 360º Program, a corporate benefit. VELVET has already selected and closed deals for recurring liquidity agreements with five established startups: Neon (Brazil), Lummo (Indonesia), Favo (Brazil), Open (India) and Credijusto (Mexico).
Meanwhile, PIMFA, the trade association for the wealth management industry, has launched PIMFA WealthTech. The next generation digital marketplace and industry network aims to drive innovation and enhance collaboration between wealthtechs and wealth management and advice companies.
Betafolio, the portfolio service run by Timeline, has surpassed £1billion assets under management over a year ahead of target. This milestone arrives within two years of launch and follows sustained demand from UK financial advisory firms over the last 18 months.
Nukkleus Inc. has completd a rebrand to a blockchain and fintech business. Under the new brand and website, the firm’s subsidiary brands will be united under one suite of assets. Nukkleus’s objective is to acquire and scale high-potential blockchain, digital and multi-asset businesses in both retail and institutional markets.
Partnerships
Everyware, a contactless payments and customer engagement firm, is now offering real-time payments (RTP) following a partnership with open finance firm MX. Everyware and MX’s partnership forms direct access to share information both ways.
Mphasis has teamed up with Securonix. The collaboration brings together Securonix’s analytics-driven detection and automated response tools and Mphasis’ digital and cyber defence expertise to provide cyber monitoring and response services to enterprises, and government agencies globally.
LGT Bank has partnered with SEBA Bank to launch custody and trading services for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Digital asset investment services will be fully-integrated with traditional assets, enabling clients to seamlessly incorporate crypto into their existing portfolio.
Meanwhile, Oveit, a ticketing and cashless payments firm, has partnered with deep-tech startup Humans.ai. They will develop artificial intelligence powered NFTs for live stream shopping. The partnership is part of the company’s strategy to move towards Web 3.0 and the Metaverse by incorporating experiential digital art in the form of AI NFTs.
Finally, payments firm Worldline and Algoan, a credit scoring provider, have unveiled a collaboration agreement to jointly develop a credit assessment solution. This service is based on APIs & machine learning, making use of open banking transaction data.
