ICYMI funding round-up: Pomelo Pay, Nudge, Recordent, fintus, EarlyBird, WLTH, and Basiq
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 for you to get the latest funding news.
Vincent Choi, CEO & co-founder, Pomelo Pay
Digital payments company Pomelo Pay has raised US$10 million in a Series A round led by UK-based independent investment firm Inference Partners.
This follows on from a $2.9 million seed investment in 2020, led by Force Over Mass, who also participated in this round.
The investment will be used by the start-up to expand its presence across Europe and Asia. To begin with, the company will double its workforce (which currently stands at 50) in London, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines.
Pomelo was founded in 2017 in the UK and Singapore, enabling merchants “to take payments from anyone, in any location (physical or digital), at near zero costs”. It provides an integration with over 30 payment networks globally.
The company says it surpassed $500 million in total payments processed this year and projects a fivefold growth by 2022.
It has also hired a new chief commercial officer, Sonam Bhutia, formerly commercial director for Alipay in Southeast Asia.
Tokyo-based credit card provider Nudge has attracted additional funding as part of its pre-Series A round.
The round was led by Spiral Capital and Headline Asia, with participation from Insignia Ventures Partners and Sony Innovation Fund. Existing investor Genesia Ventures and founder Takashi Okita also took part.
This brings the total amount raised by Nudge to $10 million.
Founded in 2020, Nudge describes itself as a “future challenger bank” and says it’s “on a mission to create the future of financial services through collective action”. It also advocates a “free, fair, and flat” organisational culture that constitutes its corporate philosophy.
Nudge’s credit card service, which was launched September this year, enables customers to support their favourite sport teams, artists, or creators. “With every purchase, a portion of the transaction fee goes to a participating team, artist, or creator,” the company explains. “With a growing list of options, the varied list includes a mixed martial arts champion, local basketball teams, and a Japanese music diva – just to name a few.”
India-based Recordent has raised $400,000 angel funding from the family office of Kantamaneni, IIM Calcutta Innovation Park and investors from India and US.
Recordent focuses on the non-banking payment bureau sector by building APIs for accounting software systems.
Winny Patro, the firm’s CEO and co-founder, describes Recordent as the “first mover in the industry”. It was launched in 2020 and currently has 11,000+ businesses in its ecosystem.
AnaCap Financial Partners, a specialist mid-market private equity investor in fintech, has announced a majority growth investment into fintus, a low-code software provider to financial services sector.
Germany-based fintus will use the money to expand across Europe. Founded in Frankfurt in 2017, it claims to have “a double-digit number of tier 1 to 3 banks and other sophisticated financial services companies” on its user list.
The company says it has grown more than 150% year-on-year and is “extremely well placed” for 2022.
EarlyBird raises $4m in seed funding
Investing platform EarlyBird has secured $4 million in seed funding. The round was led by Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, followed by strategic participation from Gemini’s Frontier Fund along with Network Ventures, Rarebreed Ventures, among others.
EarlyBird says its mobile app, which was launched last year, provides “families an intuitive and emotional approach to investing in the financial futures of their children”. Parents can set up an investment account and start investing on behalf of their child.
“Uniquely, EarlyBird’s approach to wealth creation for the next generation is collaborative,” the company says. “The platform empowers a child’s broader network of family, friends, and loved ones to send gifted capital accompanied by timeless video and photo memories for birthdays, holidays, or even losing a tooth that the child then uses to learn about investing and building real wealth.”
Australian non-banking lender WLTH is raising $15 million in its Series A. It is also undergoing a merger with “an established eight-year-old Australian payments platform”, for which it allocated $3 million. Its name will be publicised once the Series A found is closed in February next year.
WLTH says it has already settled more than $50 million worth of loans to date, with $655 million in the pipeline in the coming months.
Another Australian fintech, Basiq, which provides an API platform to banks and fintechs, has received “a strategic investment” from Visa.
“The combination of Visa’s proven infrastructure and networks together with Basiq APIs, technology and customer relationships will help accelerate the adoption of open banking in Australia,” Basiq says.
Basiq was launched in 2017 and its platform is currently used by 150+ fintechs across segments such as lending, digital banking, investment, buy now pay later (BNPL), and payments.
