Atoa, Djamo, Flourish, Hardback, Nine25

On FinTech Futures, we know it can be easy to let funding announcements pass you by in this fast-paced industry. That’s why we put together our weekly magazine In case you missed it (ICYMI) funding round for you to get the latest funding news.

Atoa raises 2.2 million dollars

UK paytech Atoa has announced one $2.2 million pre-seed funding round, led by Leo Capital and Passion Capital. It also included angel investors such as Matt Robinson (co-founder of GoCardless and Nested) and Moon Capital Ventures.

“There are more than four million small businesses in the UK that have no viable alternative to debit card payments and rely on Mastercard or Visa payment rails,” the startup says.

Atoa is committed to “challenging this status quo”, reducing payment fees by 70% (compared to the card machine fees of SumUp, Zettle or Square), and “offering a new approach to making payments”.

Businesses can download the Atoa app and link their merchant bank account. Setup takes less than five minutes, the company says, after which the merchant can accept payments via SMS, Pay-by Link or QR code.

Customers don’t need to download a separate app to pay – they can scan the retailer’s QR code or click on the link sent by the retailer, select their bank, and then be redirected to their existing mobile banking app to authorize the payment, meaning the merchant receives the funds immediately (instead of having to wait one to two days, as is common with ATMs and debit cards).

Using Atoa involves no contracts (pay as you go), no hardware fees and no risk of chargeback fraud (all payments are approved via banking apps and have strong customer authentication), according to the fintech.

Atoa was co-founded by Sid Narayanan, Cian O’Dowd and Arun Rajkumar, who all previously founded Singapore KlearCard (acquired last year by Validus).

The co-founders have now moved to the UK and say their ambition over time is “to become a common, small business-friendly payment method that replaces payment cards”.

Djamo raises 14 million dollars

Djamoa personal financial management (PFM) company in the Ivory Coast, has left 14 million dollars in an equity financing round led by Enza Capital, Oikocredit and Partech Africa.

Janngo Capital, P1 ventures, Axian and Launch Africa also participated in the round.

The money will be used to expand Djamo across French-speaking Africa.

The startup was co-founded by Régis Bamba and Hassan Bourgi in 2019. It offers a money wallet and a Visa debit card (issued by Ivory Coast’s BGFIBank). Earlier this year, it added three new services – virtual accounts, automatic storage and a service to receive salaries.

Flourish FI raises $2.3 million

California-based Bloom FIan engagement and financial wellness platform for financial institutions, has departed 2.3 million dollars in a financing round led by Magma Partners.

Canary, Lightspeed Venture Partners Scout Fund, ERA Remarkable Ventures and Kadmotek Venture also participated in the round, along with impact investors Amplifica Capital and Potencia Ventures.

Founded in 2018, Flourish says it “is on a mission to empower people to establish positive money habits”. It already claims ten banking and financial institution customers in the US, Brazil and Bolivia.

The new funding will help the start-up to increase its presence in Latin America.

It also plans to expand its team, which currently consists of 20 people.

Hardbacon raises $819,000

Hard bacona Montreal-based personal finance app used by 40,000+ Canadians, has secured $819,000 in funding through the FrontFundr equity crowdfunding portal.

This brings the startup’s total funding to more than $3.3 million since its founding.

“I am very pleased to close this round with this level of success, especially considering the economic uncertainty right now,” says Julien Brault, CEO of Hardbacon. “We’re reaching 250,000 unique visitors to our website and that’s just the beginning. We have never been more ready to reach our next stage of growth.”

Fintech says it is “on a mission to be the best personal finance tool, whether for budgeting, planning, investment tracking or comparing financial products”.

Nine25 in capital raising of $2.55 million

Sydney based Nine25which describes itself as “the first-to-market salary streaming and budgeting platform”, has launched its capital raising with Equitise – starting a $2.55 million raise.

“Unlike other ‘budgeting platforms’ that claim to budget by creating dashboards and reporting, Nine25 is a first-of-its-kind Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that actually budgets for users by actively allocating funds to bills theirs using authorization to live employment and banking data,” claims the startup.

“Nine25 allows users to manage their bills, spend and grow their wealth on a fixed-price subscription model, which is the first of its kind in a market that has grown accustomed to outdated revenue models such as transaction fees, chargeback fees and late payments.”

Users are not charged interest or late fees and have predictable cost access to the platform that includes their real-time pay.

Nine25 is the brainchild of entrepreneur Leigh Dunsford who co-founded accounting software platform Waddle, which was acquired by Xero in 2020.