This week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 01/09

Fintech Times The Bi-Weekly News Roundup serves up a dose of the latest fintech news from around the world this Thursday.

The job is moving

Coremont LLP, the financial firm, has appointed Yu Xu as deputy head of product. Xu will focus on infusing a product-led culture into the organization and accelerating the firm’s growth trajectory. He joins from Qontigoan innovator in financial intelligence.

EQONEX announces senior hires as it ramps up asset management growth plans. Simon Goodman is appointed investment manager, while Benjamin Noodle takes over as head of investment analysis. The couple will both build on and improve the fund’s strategies and approach.

Lucinitythe anti-money laundering software developer, has employed Cate Wright as head of customer success. Cate has previously worked in companies including BAE Systems, RiskScreen and ALLIANCE. Georgia Couling and Hannes Stefansson has also joined the team.

Meanwhile, NMIa full commerce enablement technology company, has hired Robert Hoblit as its chief revenue officer to support its scalability and growth, as well as enhance the customer success team. He most recently served as CRO at DigiCert.

Insurtech Lumera has appointed Johan Rudén – the former CIO at the Swedish insurance company Folksam – to the group management as chief operating officer. Lumera says his appointment will help energize the organization and help develop the offer.

Visa unveils Salima Gutieva as Vice President and Country Manager for the UAE. Gutieva replaces Shahebaz Khan who is now senior vice president, head of new payment streams for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Cowen Digital LLCthe digital asset division of Cowen Inc, has unveiled a series of new deals to expand its institutional sales team. Jackie Rose is now director of institutional sales, while Chase Campbell joins as VP for the sale of digital assets. Recent hires also include David Kroger as dIdigital data scientist; Nolan Aibel, digital asset associated; and Juan Velezanalyst.

More job news

RanqxSMB digital lending platform appoints ex-JPMorgan Chase CIO and treasurer John Horner as chairman of the board. He takes over from Ranqx’s founding chairman Sir Ralph Norris. Horner is currently managing partner at MoVi Partners.

Cloud portfolio management platform provider FA solutions have named Tommy Lod as managing director. He was previously CEO of the financial technology company Clausion Oy. Lot succeeds Juha Lehtonenwho founded and has led FA Solutions since 1999. Lehtonen takes on the role of head of product and technology.

sales team, the product information software supplier appoints Aniqa Hijazi as finance manager and operations manager. The appointment follows Sales Layer’s recent $25 million Series B funding, as the company strengthens its market position and accelerates its growth trajectory.

Wael Mustafa have joined Lenovo as the new country manager for the Gulf region in the Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG). In his new leadership role, Mustafa will be responsible for delivering marketing solutions to regional organizations in both the private and public sectors. He will also support customers with insight into IT and Lenovo’s smart data center solutions.

Fintech Simpler has appointed Katarina Farmer like his new chair, as well Nicolas Köllerstedt as growth manager. Farmer replaces Peo Nilsson, who is still a board member. The pair join Zimpler following the company’s recent expansion into Norway and a successful funding round.

Fintech software company Savannah has unveiled an organizational redesign including Emily Steele becoming president and CEO. Former president and CTO of Savana Mike Wolfel becomes the company’s managing director, while former managing director, Michael Sanchez takes the position of chairman of the board.

Financing and investments

BingX, the social trading exchange, announces a charitable arm with a $10 million fund for humanitarian efforts. The purpose of this fund is to allocate donations from charitable organizations, public welfare activities and disaster relief in various regions of the world.

CompScience has closed a $6 million seed round. The company has grown fivefold from year to year, and now covers 70 percent of the American market. Investors in the platform include Working Capital Fund, Foreword Ventures, Hustle Fund plus Pathbreaker Ventures.

Cashew, a flexible benefit management platform, has raised a $25 million Series B round led by K1 Investment Management. With the funding, Caju plans to increase the efficiency of its solutions and invest in developing new products for the HR segment in Latin America.

Dubai-based digital real estate investment platform effort raises more than $8 million in an oversubscribed pre-Series A funding round. This follows a $4 million seed round that the company closed back in June 2021. The funding marks the largest capital raising by a real estate investment platform in the MENA region.

Fintech startup iPiD has announced a seed funding round of $3.3 million from investors Rapyd Ventures, Jungle Ventures, 1982 Ventures, plus Resolution Ventures. In addition, the company has announced the employment of Alain Raes as sales manager.

Grey, a fintech for sending and receiving foreign payments for Africans, has raised $2 million in seed funding. Gray also announced its expansion into East Africa, starting in Kenya, and partnerships with payments giant Cellulant and ed-tech leader Moringa.

More funding news

third party network, the technology platform for building NFT and Web3 apps, has closed a $24 million Series A funding round at a $160 million valuation. The round was chaired by Haun Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Shopify and Polygon. Thirdweb will use the funding to accelerate platform development to meet growing demand, add support for additional blockchains, and expand its user base.

British Business Bank today announces a new ENABLE funding facility to Propel, one of the UK’s largest and fastest growing independent capital finance providers. The new facility will allow Propel to provide around £165 million in funding to smaller businesses across the UK.

Capital in print has secured a £200 million financing facility with JP Morgan and Triple point to support UK small businesses. The funding will help small businesses access credit at a time when the UK is anticipating a recession and facing historic inflation rates.

Private Markets Alpha has launched with an online digital platform that provides access to private markets for the global wealth management industry. The business has so far raised close to £1 million through private fundraising.

“We aim to revolutionize private market investing because we firmly believe that broad access to these markets is critical to providing a wider range of asset classes to better meet the long-term needs of individual investors.”

Tom Douie, PM Alpha founder and CEO

Pan-African Embedded Finance Fintech Pezesha has raised a pre-series A investment of $11 million. The round was a mix of $6 million equity and $5 million debt. The funding, led by Women’s World Banking Capital Partners II (WWBCP II), will see the company scale its operations significantly in its core markets. It will also grow into new markets in sub-Saharan Africa.

Partnership and collaboration

Fintech Trovata has secured a global distribution agreement with Santander. Through the partnership, Santander will market and refer Trovata’s cash management platform to its corporate and investment banking customers. With Trovata’s platform, Santander offers its customers a way to digitally transform their cash operations workflows.

MasterCard power launch of The tents cobranded prepaid cards. Unbanked Egyptians can now get a prepaid Mastercard with a seamless onboarding process. The launch is a step towards creating a ripple effect to provide financial access to millions of Egyptians.

peak be integrated with AllianceBlock’s funds platform, which enables cross-chain peer-to-peer fundraising for dApp builders. As the first Polkadot ecosystem project to integrate with Fundrs, peaq opens access to cross-chain liquidity to the entire community.

TripleAa licensed crypto payment gateway, has launched a partnership with Wix. This partnership allows Wix sellers to accept cryptocurrency payments via a plugin. Wix sellers can accept payments across the major cryptocurrencies used for commercial transactions.

Meanwhile, online pension provider PensionBee has secured a partnership with a money-saving app snoop. PensionBee and Snoop’s partnership aims to provide “welcome support” in an increasingly difficult economic climate.

Viewsthe account-to-account payment platform, has been chosen to deliver open bank payments to Pinewood DMS. Vyne is now integrated with the car solution which gives dealers an instant payment supplement to their digital omnichannel offering.

Company updates

Flutter wave has been granted an exchange and processing license by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) This license allows Flutterwave to offer transaction exchange and card processing services to customers. Others include non-bank procurement, agency banking and payment gateway services.