Fintech funding round-up: 25 August 2017
Banknotes and stories of note. Our latest fintech funding round-up features Suretly, Ezetap and SparkLabs Global Ventures.
Crowdvouching start-up Suretly, dubbed “Tinder for loans” (a lovely image), has raised $2.8 million. The online exchange offers micro-loan guarantees and secured the funding from the cryptocurrency community. SUR tokens issued by the company will be accepted in Suretly’s mobile application as a guarantee of loan vouching.
New York-based Suretly says it helps individuals to obtain loans at lower interest rates, provided they receive guarantees from “a large number of users”. The loans themselves are provided by service partners – microfinancing institutions – rather than by Suretly or its tokenholders. Suretly users therefore “act as a collective mind, which makes a joint decision on whether to grant or deny a loan”.
India’s Ezetap gets $16 million
Fintech in India is usually doing well and mobile payments start-up Ezetap has secured $16 million from investors including Horizons Ventures, JS Capital Management and Social Capital. With the money it plans to improve its sales and marketing, and widen its range of products. This latest round brings its total equity financing to more than $50 million.
Ezetap is based in Bangalore and was founded in 2011. It has over 200,000 POS terminals in India. One of its investors includes American Express.
South Korean start-ups have got some good news, as fintech seed-stage fund SparkLabs Global Ventures has unveiled a $50 million fund to help them grow on the international stage. Initial targets include artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing.
SparkLabs says it will deal with transaction sizes ranging from $1 million to $3 million in Series A and B rounds. The secondary focus will be Southeast Asia. According to its website, some of SparkLabs’ partners include PayPal and Stripe.
Banking Technology Awards 2017 are now open for entry!
Know any innovative products, inspirational projects, skilled teams or visionary leaders that deserve a special recognition this year? Nominate them for a Banking Technology Award!
Deadline for submitting the nominations has been extended to 8 September 2017.
