Route 66 Ventures is a private investment firm focused on helping entrepreneurs shape the financial services landscape of tomorrow by providing Venture Capital and Credit solutions to emerging financial technology and services companies.   Route 66’s Venture Capital team invests globally in early and growth stage disruptors, incumbents and service providers throughout various sectors in the financial services ecosystem.   Route 66’s Credit team seeks to fund alternative lending platforms and business models with balance sheet needs by purchasing whole loans or providing secured debt facilities.

Route 66 Ventures

SenaHill is a merchant bank connecting the dots between global financial institutions and the entrepreneurial innovators of financial technology. They ensure the right ideas get in front of the right people. As former operators with incredible domain expertise in the Fin-Tech space, they view their client’s business from the perspective of experience, not a spreadsheet. Their powerful business model includes two primary and complementary offerings: Principal investing with the SenaHill Investment Group, LLC, an investment banking with SenaHill Advisors, LLC. They're uniquely positioned to assist their clients throughout their company’s lifecycle from inception and capital raising, through scaling and growth. They're driven to build sustainable businesses and create franchises that can stand-alone or have successful exits.  As partners, they offer grounded insight and advice while leveraging our experience and relationships to achieve our client’s strategic objectives. Wall Street is in its DNA. Collectively they have 150 years of operating experience in the Fin-Tech space. They're former entrepreneurs and CEOs. We intimately understand the challenges facing new founders and established leaders. Through our extensive relationships and expertise, we bring a perspective that allows them to strategically connect the technology creators with the technology consumers. They are proactive investors and advisors who are passionate about technology, entrepreneurship, and helping companies realize their maximum potential.

SenaHill Partners

FSV provides insights and capital to entrepreneurs re-inventing the multi-trillion dollar financial services industry and building innovative companies, strong brands, and world-class teams. FSV primarily makes early stage investments but will also consider promising growth stage investments.

Fenway Summer Ventures

Raptor Group Holdings is an alternative investment firm that provides investment management and advisory services. Raptor Group sources and invest in companies across various stages and asset classes, ranging from early-stage venture to both private and public equity. Raptor focuses on various industries including, but not limited to Sports, Consumer, Technology, Media, Entertainment, and Financial Services.  It was founded in 2009 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

Raptor Group

Point72 Ventures is a global venture capital firm that invests primarily in Fintech, AI/ML, and Enterprise technologies. As an independent arm of Point72, the global asset management firm led by Steven Cohen, Point72 Ventures offers well-informed insights into the global economy. Point72 Ventures has offices in New York City, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Stamford, Connecticut.

Point72 Ventures

SBI Group aims to become a corporate entity that provides a variety of one-stop financial services over the Internet now that two major events, the Financial Big Bang resulting from deregulation, and the Internet Revolution resulting from IT innovation, have radically transformed the financial industry.

SBI Group

Quiet Capital is a technology investment firm.

Quiet Capital

Mouro Capital is a venture capital firm backing entrepreneurs who are shaping the future of financial services. With $400 million in assets under management and supported by Banco Santander, Mouro invests across the fintech value chain in early to growth stage start-ups across Europe, North America and Latin America.

Mouro Capital

Fidelity International Strategic Ventures invests in fintech businesses and technologies. FISV's team seeks to partner with visionary entrepreneurs that are redefining Wealth and Asset Management. It invests in category leaders that can create new markets, enhance portfolio returns or disrupt traditional processes.

Fidelity International Strategic Ventures

Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that powers a global community of entrepreneurs. Accel backs entrepreneurs who have what it takes to build a business.  Accel’s vision for entrepreneurship and business enables it to identify and invest in the companies that will be responsible for the growth of next-generation industries. Accel-backed companies include Atlassian, Braintree, Cloudera, DJI, Dropbox, Dropcam, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Lookout Security, MoPub, Qualtrics, Slack, Spotify, Supercell, Vox Media, and others.

Accel

Insight Partners is a global software investor that partners with growth-stage technology and software companies. Insight has a deep focus in Fintech, Cybersecurity, AI/ML, DevOps, and Healthcare sectors. Across their people and their portfolio, they encourage a culture around a core belief growth equals opportunity. As of December 31, 2022, the firm has over $75B in regulatory assets under management. Insight Partners has invested in more than 750 companies worldwide and has seen over 55 portfolio companies achieve an IPO.

Insight Partners

Fidelity International offers world class investment solutions and retirement expertise to institutions, individuals and their advisers - to help their clients build better futures for themselves and generations to come. As a private company they think generationally and invest for the long term. Helping clients to save for retirement and other long term investing objectives has been at the core of their business for nearly 50 years. They offer their own investment solutions and access to those of others, and deliver services relating to investing: For individual investors and their advisers they provide guidance to help them invest in a simple and cost effective way. For institutions including pension funds, banks and insurance companies they offer tailored investment solutions and full-service asset management outsourcing. And for employers they provide workplace pension administration services on top or independently of investment management. They are responsible for total client assets of : USD $379.2* billion from over 2.4 million clients across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and South America.

Fidelity International

Citi Ventures harnesses the power of Citi to help people, businesses, and communities thrive in a world of technological change. Headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, London, Palo Alto, Tel Aviv, and Singapore, Citi Ventures accelerates discovery of new sources of value by exploring, incubating, and investing in new ideas, in partnership with Citi colleagues, clients, and the innovation ecosystem.

Citi Ventures

Base 10 Ventures invests in founders developing identity management and cybersecurity technology. b10v delivers a proven track record of 10+ fold increase in the equity value for targeted acquisitions. They believe their focus on markets they know so well, and their ability to be much more to their portfolio companies than just a board seat, set them apart from other venture build investors. They remain laser focused on the identity management and cybersecurity market. They are able to be involved either at start-up phase or during the need for a significant company pivot. They are able to add value via an immersive venture build process. Paul Tourret & Steve Waite, founders of Base 10 Ventures, used these guiding principles to co-found GMO GlobalSign and grow the company from a small Belgian based Certificate Authority into a world class identity services provider trusted by some of the largest companies in the world.

Base 10 Ventures

Greyhound is a specialist growth equity investment firm. By focusing on long-term concentrated investments, we partner with outstanding management teams to help build enduring companies that improve everyday lives. The firm manages assets on behalf of institutional investors, non-profit organizations and individuals. Since 2017, Greyhound has backed notable companies including Revolut, Guideline, Freee, Brex, Toss, TravelPerk, N26, Weee!, Satispay, DriveWealth and WealthNavi.

Greyhound Capital

Bienville is an investment advisory and asset management business managing capital on behalf of family offices and top performing institutional investors. We invest across public and private markets, crypto and venture capital, and through our partnership with Fractal we launch around 25 SaaS companies per year.

Bienville Capital

SoftBank Vision Fund is a subsidiary of Softbank Group that specializes in growth capital and social impact investments. Sectors that the fund invests in include the internet of things, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, communications infrastructure, telecoms, computational biology, biotech, cloud technologies and software, consumer internet businesses, financial technology, and mobile apps. The Fund is designed to be a catalyst for technology progress in anticipation that it will expand SoftBank's capabilities, accelerating progress towards SoftBank 2.0. It aims to invest in businesses and foundational platforms that SoftBank believes to revolutionize and innovate the world tomorrow.

SoftBank Vision Fund

FTX Exchange is a cryptocurrency exchange company that develops a platform for professional trading firms. They strive to build a platform suitable for professional trading firms and intuitive enough for first-time users. FTX supports quarterly and perpetual futures for all cryptocurrencies, leveraged tokens, and OTC. FTX was incubated by Alameda Research, a top cryptocurrency liquidity provider. Because of this, FTX has had industry order books from day one.

Flight Deck Capital is a consumer fund that invests globally in disruptive public and private companies. It was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Flight Deck Capital

Vetamer Capital Management is a global growth-oriented investment firm that makes concentrated, long-term investments in public and private financial technology and software companies. It specializes in the fields of venture capital. financial services, and finance.

Vetamer

DriveWealth

Zero Hash is a B2B embedded infrastructure platform that allows any platform to integrate digital assets natively into their own customer experience quickly and easily (a matter of API endpoints). Zero Hash’s turnkey solution handles the entire back-end complexity and regulatory licensing required to offer digital asset products. Zero Hash powers neo-banks, broker-dealers, and payment groups to offer digital asset trading and custody, crypto-backed rewards, and round-ups programs. and more. Clients include MoneyLion, Transak, Wirex, Deserve, MoonPay, and tastyworks. Zero Hash is backed by investors including Point72 Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, and NYCA.  Our mission is to enable businesses to easily create amazing crypto products, unlocking digital assets for everyone, everywhere. Zero Hash enables developers and businesses to focus on building experiences and products.

DriveWealth, the global fintech investment rail and pioneer of fractional equities trading, is a visionary technology company that empowers more than 100 partners around the world to engage their customers by placing the markets in the palm of their hands. We believe the future is fractional, transactional, and mobile. Every mobile device should be a gateway to accessing investing and savings products, services, advice, and assistance for global citizens of all ages, wealth stages, and levels of financial expertise. DriveWealth’s consultative support and cloud based, modern technology platform allow partners to seamlessly offer branded investing experiences to drive customer acquisition, loyalty, retention, and revenue growth.

DriveWealth provides an API-based white-label infrastructure platform for FinTechs to access the US securities market and build FinTechs. The platform can be used by online stock brokers, digital advisors, and mobile online financial service companies to embed investment experiences on their mobile apps to serve retail investors. It runs on the company’s patent-pending “Fracker” technology, which is cloud-based and provides the ability to invest in real-time fractional shares on a dollar equivalent basis.

Democratizing financial technology with a suite of API-based solutions

FinTech Infrastructure

DriveWealth Announces Hiring of Venu Palaparthi as Chief Operating Officer

Zero Hash

Nyca Partners

DriveWealth provides an API-based white-label infrastructure platform for FinTechs to access the US securities market and build FinTechs. The platform can be used by online stock brokers, digital advisors, and mobile online financial service companies to embed investment experiences on their mobile apps to serve retail investors. It runs on the company’s patent-pending “Fracker” technology, which is cloud-based and provides the ability to invest in real-time fractional shares on a dollar equivalent basis.In February 2022, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8311">the company announced plans to offer cryptocurrency trading </a>access to partners and retail investors. The roll-out was to take place through the launch of two subsidiaries, DriveLiquidity and DriveDigital, together with the acquisition of the crypto firm, Crypto-Systems.As of May 2022, DriveWealth powered over 100 customers including Block, Revolut, GBM, and Navy Federal, which provided millions of retail investors in over 150 countries access to the US securities markets. It also partnered with Access Softek in 2020 to bring its offering to community banks and credit unions. Drivewealth’s revenue and number of customers reportedly rose 100% YoY in 2021, as international business grew 140% YoY. The company has also expanded its senior management team with several C-level hires in April/May 2022, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10316">including Terry Angelos (CEO) </a>, Gayathri Rajan (CPO), and Harshal Deo (CTO). DriveWealth raised <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5083">USD 450 million in a Series D funding round in August 2021 </a>, co-led by Insight Partners and Accel, at a USD 2.85 billion valuation. The round came less than a year after the company raised USD 56.7 million in Series C funding in October 2020. The newly raised funds were earmarked for product and service expansions, recruitment, and technology innovations, as well as in launching self-clearing while entering strategic acquisitions and partnerships. Following the funding, Drivewealth partnered with two Latin American investment platforms, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6007">Grupo Bursátil Mexicano (GBM) </a>and Racional, to improve access to the US stock markets for Mexican and Chilean investors, respectively. It also <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6670">partnered with Chipper Cash </a>to offer US stock market access to Ugandan investors.

Cross River Bank provides a white-label banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform for enterprises, combining banking services, payments, and marketplace lending infrastructure to build fintechs. Its solutions comprise demand deposits, savings accounts, credit and debit cards, and payment clearing services, including automated clearing house (ACH) and real-time payments. The company also provides banking and payment infrastructure for the crypto industry, including risk management services for its crypto clients. Key customers and partnerships As of December 2020, the company had over 400 employees, and had entered into more than 30 partnerships. Moreover, as of March 2021, the platform had been used to support over 375,000 small businesses through the paycheck protection program (PPP).Cross River Bank teamed up with UK-based BaaS provider <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/421515">Railsr </a>in January 2019 to launch a common API for their platforms to be used globally. As of April 2022, Cross River had over 80 clients including lenders such as Affirm, Best Egg, and Upstart, neobanks such as <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/220119">Revolut </a>, and blockchain-based payment processing platform GreenBox. The platform reportedly originated over USD 24 billion in loans per annum, around 10x the value of loans it originated in 2015. Cross River Bank has expanded its operations by acquiring Betterfin, a platform offering lending-as-a-service (LaaS) solutions, in November 2021. Through the acquisition, Cross River Bank leveraged Betterfin’s software to digitize parts of the small-business lending process (such as origination and underwriting).The company partnered with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/1643">American Express </a>(Amex) to enable FinTechs to issue credit cards through Cross River Bank, on the Amex network, while also providing select Amex benefits to the FinTechs.Funding and financials The company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9458">raised USD 620 million in funding </a>co-led by Eldridge and a16z, at a valuation of over USD 3 billion, to invest in product developments, recruitment, international expansion, and boosting strategic partnerships.

Cross River Bank

Synctera was co-founded in 2020 by Peter Hazlehurst, the former head of Uber Money, who previously led the development of Google Wallet. The company offers an API-based infrastructure platform for community and regional banks to find and partner with FinTechs. This enables FinTechs to leverage the former’s licenses to embed FDIC-insured mobile checking, debit cards, savings accounts, and payment innovations, among other features. The API platform offered to the banks will then be sold to the FinTechs to code on. Although the end customers interact with the FinTechs, they legally belong to the bank.<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8117">Synctera mainly charges the banks </a>based on the interchange fees they earn (half of the interchange fees, as of January 2022) from the services provided. It does not charge them an initial amount to use the platform. Moreover, the platform also embeds fraud-as-a-service and charges FinTechs on a per transaction basis (4 cents per transaction) should they choose to use it. It subsequently shares that revenue 50/50 with the banks.The company launched the “t-minus10” project in January 2022, which offers a live sandbox for FinTechs to build apps, test, and go to market, enhancing their access to banking partners. It subsequently launched a “Smart Charge Card” (APIs to build, launch, and issue charge cards) and “White-label Banking App” (a codebase for developers to build embedded banking products or neobank apps) infrastructure in October 2022.Key customers and partnershipsIn February 2022, Lineage Bank (a community bank in Tennessee) and GoGetr (FinTech aiming to promote health and wealth management) became the first companies to launch a banking solution using the Synctera platform. As of March 2023, the platform was working with around 50 fintechs, of which 14 were live (including Wayapay and Float). Synctera reportedly had over 20 implementations set for launch in the following two months.Synctera announced a new card issuing and management infrastructure offering (Card-as-a-Service), in July 2021, which it developed in partnership with Mastercard and leading card issuing infrastructure disruptor, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/64287">Marqeta</a>.Funding and financialsIn March 2024, Synctera raised USD 18.6 million in <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27244">Series A1 extension</a> co-led by Lightspeed and Fin Capital. The company earmarked the funds to support business growth by facilitating more complex use cases across the US and international markets. The company also <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16980?industryIds=53">raised USD 15 million</a> in funding led by NAventures in March 2023, to invest in expanding the platform’s use cases and broadening its geographic footprint beyond the US (including expanding to Canada). Meanwhile, Synctera has also partnered with the National Bank of Canada to enable companies to launch FinTech apps and embedded banking products in Canada.

Synctera

Based in the UK, Weavr, formerly known as Open Payments Cloud, was spun out of payment provider Ixaris in 2019. Weavr offers the infrastructure for enterprises to embed banking services across various industries, including education, fitness, logistics, etc. Weavr’s “Meta” platform combines multiple banking and payments partners in one platform through application programming interfaces (APIs). Using the APIs, enterprises can embed virtual banking services such as card payments, fund transfers, and international banking accounts.Weavr expanded its operations to Singapore in November 2022, as part of its global expansion plans. Key customers and partnerships As of July 2021, Weavr’s customers included Finway, Thanks Ben, and MySkillCamp, among others. In October 2019, Weavr partnered with payment service providers Global Processing Services (GPS), Paynetics, and iDenfy to enable developers to create and run sophisticated and streamlined payment experiences for their European customers through Weavr. Funding and financialsWeavr <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8647?industryIds=53">raised USD 40 million </a>in Series A funding in February 2022, led by Tiger Global, less than a year after <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4166">raising GBP 4 million (USD 5.5 million) </a>in seed funding in July. The funds were earmarked for business development and recruitment to support Weavr’s expansion to the US market, while also supporting its continued expansion in the UK and Europe.

Weavr

MX offers an open finance portal, data connectivity application programming interface (API), and MX platform API for banks, credit unions, and other financial service providers. The company’s solutions allow its clients to utilize financial data to reduce fraud, approve loans faster, and improve their customer experiences. In addition to APIs and connections, MX also offers a range of capabilities, including data aggregation, analytics, financial feed insights, wealth and investment services, and verification services. MX looks to enable banks and financial institutions to launch next-generation services and apps that automate and personalize financial experiences. As of January 2021, the company noted that it worked with more than 2,000 banks, credit unions, and FinTech companies, and its platform reached over 200 million end-users. Moreover, it also powered 43 of the top 50 digital banks as of the same period. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8753?industryIds=53">February 2022, MX partnered </a>with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/361160">Rize </a>, to enable users to access Rize’s banking infrastructure to build, launch, and scale financial products through a single API, thereby reducing the development time and cost. In January 2021, MX raised USD 300 million in a Series C funding round led by TPG Capital, at a valuation of USD 1.9 billion. The newly raised funds are to be invested in improving MX’s capabilities, expanding its global presence, and increasing its workforce. In January 2021, MX noted that its headcount tripled over the past two years, reaching 550 staff members. The company appointed Shane Evans as interim chief executive officer (CEO) in January 2022, to prepare the company for an IPO or sale (at a valuation of over USD 5 billion) and oversee its growth.

Bankable is a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) infrastructure provider allowing financial institutions and corporations to utilize its API to integrate banking services. It provides a platform for its enterprise customers to offer modular banking services, including ledger management (process data from multiple banks to support cash management for global corporate affairs), digital banking, payment cards, and e-wallets. The company expanded its platform by <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19662">acquiring Arex Markets </a>in June 2023, to embed working capital solutions (such as flexible invoice financing, corporate credit cards, lodged cars, and revolving credit). The company has a global presence, with operations spanning from the US to the Middle East as of January 2021. Bankable noted that the expansion of its global footprint also helps its European and US FinTech clients expand their operations internationally. Key customers and partnerships In January 2020, the company partnered with the diversified FinTech infrastructure provider <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/85350">Plaid </a>, which enabled Bankable’s customers to use Plaid’s tech to connect to more than 15,000 banks in the US and Europe. Funding and financialsIn April 2019, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/13061">Visa </a>invested an undisclosed sum in Bankable and entered a partnership with the startup. Through the partnership, Visa members obtained access to Bankable’s platform, while Bankable used VisaNet (Visa’s electronic global payments network) to extend its international payment and banking solutions.

Bankable

Platforms that allow FinTechs to integrate banking services such as opening and maintaining accounts, facilitating card payments, etc.


Platforms that enable FinTechs to integrate a range of payment-related services such as one-time payments, subscriptions, and receipt management for domestic and cross-border transactions.


Companies that enable organizations to embed anti-money laundering (AML), identity verification, and know-your-customer (KYC) solutions.


Platforms that allow FinTechs to integrate lending services,  by typically applying AI/ML technology to a spending analysis to analyze creditworthiness.

Companies providing APIs and integrations for FinTechs to access securities markets, facilitate transactions and clearing, and provide insights to help end-users manage their finances.

May specialize in promoting inclusiveness in financial services, primarily in the investment and lending spaces

AI/ML can improve the quality of their offerings, such as using AI/ML to reduce biases

Used for payment completions, accessing banking and transaction data, and providing financial insights, among others

DriveWealth

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