London pension fintech Smart gears up for deals after $95m funding injection

London-based pensions fintech firm Smart said it was braced for a flurry of deals today as it secured a $95 million funding round from a number of big-name backers, including New York-based outfit Aquiline.

Smart, a savings and pensions company, said it had closed the Series E funding round led by Aquiline alongside investors including Chrysalis Investments, Fidelity International Strategic Ventures and Barclays.

The deal marks one of the biggest for fintech companies this year and comes after 12 months of fundraising in which start-ups have been forced to write down their valuations to raise money.

Smart declined to disclose a valuation from the round, but it is understood that there has not been a downgrade in the valuation in the latest round.

The bosses said they had seen a lot of growth over the past two years and the fresh money would now be funneled into deals and development of the technology platform.

“Proceeds from the funding round will also help fund near-term acquisitions and accelerate Smart’s investment in and deployment of its proprietary retirement savings technology platform, Keystone,” the firm said in a statement.

Smart has felt the lift of a wave of consumers who want to take more active control over their pension savings in recent years. Revenue at the firm rose by 65 per cent to £67m in 2022, with the firm included in a group of Europe’s fastest growing firms in February 2023.

Co-founders Andrew Evans and Will Wynne, who started the firm in 2014, said the investment was “strong recognition of Smart’s success”” and a “vote of confidence in the UK’s fintech sector”, as well as underlining the size of opportunity in the industry.

“This is a $62 trillion global sector in the early stages of being disrupted, and we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of it,” they added.

“We have already achieved scale and profitability in the UK, with Smart Pension now serving over one million savers, and this support allows us to achieve this scale and profitability in our global markets across the group.”

Smart is among a number of fintech firms that have emerged in the UK to capitalize on a move to take control of pension savings.

London-listed PensionBee and Cushon, which was acquired by Natwest earlier this year, are among the other fintech firms that have entered the market.