The pandemic’s effect on local companies was divided: While some struggled or even shut down, much of Philly tech saw accelerated business.
The latter applies Savannah, a fintech company founded in 2009 in Malvern that creates a unified banking platform for its customers. Although it previously raised a small seed round more than a decade ago, then raised nearly $3 million in early 2020, this summer marks its first major growth boost: a $45 million Series A led by Toronto-based Georgian. Fintech company Fiserv also participated in the round, and will expand its existing dealer agreement with the company.
“The banking industry is going through an incredible transformation,” said Michael Sanchez, chairman and CEO of Savana, in a statement. “This funding round will help support the growth of our digital delivery platform to enable any bank, whether new or undergoing transformation of existing technology infrastructure, to accelerate time to market for new products and services, support continuous digital innovation and drive significant operational efficiency.”
Savannah CTO Mike Wolfel told Technically the company’s API-first and cloud-based digital delivery platform creates a single architecture for banking customers to serve their customers. The technology ensures that digital account operations, account statements, transactions and other applications of digital banking take place in one place.
“To serve the customer, we use as many as 10 applications,” Wolfel said. “So that touches on it, a single, unified platform for user experience.”
Wolfel said Savana became heavily involved in the 2022 rollout Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the federal loan program to help businesses stay afloat and pay their employees. Most of their bank customers had the ability to service loans, but the OPS program and The Small Business Association loan programs brought additional requirements, he said.
At the start of the pandemic, the company employed about 75 people, the CTO said, but with PPP growth and the steady growth of the digital delivery platform since 2017, Savana quickly began adding team members. The company currently employs just under 200 people, and is expected to be around 300 within the next six months. Much of the additional talent has been for the company’s technology team, and around 30 to 40 technical and some non-technical roles are currently open.
The company’s head office is in Malvern, but it operates as a hybrid workforce, recruiting and hiring from across the country. With the $45 million Series A, Wolfel said the company will be able to execute its growth plans for the rest of 2022, which are mainly focused on continued expansion of the platform and acquisition of talent.
“It is, and the balance in 2022, for us is continued market penetration,” he said. “And we will continue to drive our brand and recognition.”
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