It’s time to jump feet first into The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup this Thursday 7 December 2023 for the latest fintech global updates.
Partnerships
Insurtech bolt forges a partnership with Ledger, the crypto and digital assets platform, to launch a new device protection offering for Ledger’s line of cryptocurrency smart wallets in the US. Through the partnership, Ledger will offer the option to buy accidental damage and extended warranty protection for its Ledger Nano S Plus and Ledger Nano X devices into the purchase journey.
Mintus, the fractionalised alternative asset platform, and Eurobank Asset Management MFMC, a 100 per cent owned subsidiary of Eurobank (Eurobank), collaborate to expand access to alternative assets across global markets. As a result, Eurobank has acquired a minority stake in Mintus Global (Mintus). This investment will also trigger access to alternative investment categories globally.
Magnati, a payments solutions provider in the Middle East region, is further accelerating its sustainability efforts through a strategic collaboration with Fils, an ESG focused fintech platform. Through this collaboration, Magnati aims to provide its merchants with actionable environmental insights while promoting green payments.
FE fundinfo has joined forces with Matter, a provider of sustainability and impact data, to drive a collaboration that will help improve industry access to sustainability fund-level data. The new partnership leverages FE fundinfo’s fund full portfolio holdings database and also integrates it with Matter’s sustainability data, both of which will be delivered through FE fundinfo’s Data Feed Portal.
Napier, the London-based intelligent compliance technology company, and KYC Portal CLM (KYCP), a client lifecycle management platform, have teamed up to provide financial institutions an end-to-end compliance solution. The partnership will eliminate siloes across compliance operations by seamlessly integrating know your customer (KYC) and compliance processes.
Investments and funding
French cybersecurity startup ProvenRun has raised €15million in Series A. This investment is led by Tikehau Capital, the global alternative asset manager. The Series A funding will help accelerate ProvenRun’s product roadmap (automotive security applications, Risc-V architectures) and its geographic expansion into North America.
Sunsave, the UK’s first solar subscription service, has announced a £5.4million seed round to fund its mission to make solar power accessible to all UK households. Investors include impact investor Norrsken VC (Northvolt, Olio, 1KOMMA5), Plug and Play (PayPal, Dropbox) and angels including Asda’s Stuart Rose.
Liberis, an embedded business finance solutions provider, has secured $112million in debt financing to support its further growth in North America and Europe and expansion into new markets, including Canada and Germany. The backing from HSBC Innovation Banking and BCI Capital will support Liberis’s strategic plans to serve existing and new partners in these new territories.
Appointments
Digital bank N26 appoints Juan Bongiovanni as chief marketing officer. He joins the Berlin-based digital bank in his new role in January 2024 after a tenure at German-based neo-broker Trade Republic. Bongiovanni assumes responsibility of N26’s marketing as it expands its investment product offering into stocks, equities and ETFs, and further scales up marketing efforts in the coming year.
PayPal has named Suzan Kereere as president, global markets. She will have end-to-end accountability for leading PayPal’s local businesses and growth strategies in the markets around the world where the company operates to ensure seamless execution and drive profitable growth. This includes overseeing the global sales and distribution of PayPal’s products and services.
Perkbox, the UK perks and benefits provider, has appointed Doug Butler as CEO. Butler is charged with driving continued global growth, overseeing product innovation and ensuring continued customer success by helping businesses provide meaningful support to their employees. Most recently, Butler served as CEO of Reward Gateway.
Flagstone, the UK cash deposit platform, has bolstered its senior management team with the appointment of Ruth Jakobsen. She has previously worked for fintech Acin, Moneysupermarket Group, FACEIT and SSP. Jakobsen will help drive forward the scaleup’s commercial goals and exploit opportunities to serve up faster, easier and more cost-efficient fintech solutions.
Intelligent automation platform Xceptor has appointed Craig Nickerson as chief financial officer. His appointment follows the appointment of Fleur Sohtz as CMO and Nikki Feare as chief human resources officer earlier this year. As well as executing the firm’s growth strategy and optimising value creation, he will also manage investor relations.
Additional appointments
ESG data intelligence platform Deepki has announced three new senior hires. Emmanuelle Nello is now chief people officer, Olivier Pin is chief product officer while Colin Brown is named VP UK & Ireland, head of global sales. It has also made four internal promotions. Philippe Parlange as chief client officer, Clémentine Hardy to partner operations & transverse delivery functions leader, Elise Jacques as sr. VP strategy & transformation, as well as Xana Muñiz as VP Southern Europe & LATAM.
Provenir, the AI-powered risk decisioning software company, appoints Mark Collingwood as its new vice president and regional leader of UK, Ireland and the Nordics. Collingwood is responsible for expanding the company’s customer base across the region by helping organisations drive business transformation through the use of advanced decisioning technology as well as AI.
amana, an online trading specialist in the MENA region, has named Haris Loucaides as its new chief financial officer, He succeeds Mazen Yazbeck, who sadly passed away. Loucaides will focus on implementing tools and mechanisms within the finance team that will enable amana to grow.
Company updates
365 Business Finance has rebranded as 365 finance while launching a new website. 365 finance has also significantly expanded its workforce and office space in Camden over the last 12 months, a direct result of increased demand for flexible finance from SMEs in the post-pandemic economic climate.
