We are in a moment in history where entrepreneurs have disproportionate influence on everything from the social problems they work on to what they consume, practice, believe, and desire. As Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Square, recently declared on the cover of Forbes, ''the most efficient means to spread an idea today is corporate structure.'' Moreover, according to the Kauffman Foundation, 54% of millennials have started an organization or have the desire to start one. Given all of this, we believe the future of our world depends largely on the ventures the next generation creates.   To create an institution for this context, we've created Praxis as a venture group, structured as a non-profit, that focuses on equipping and resourcing a growing portfolio of faith-motivated entrepreneurs who have committed their lives to cultural and social impact, renewing the spirit of their age one organization at a time. Praxis was conceived in 2010 by Dave Blanchard, then a Principal Designer at IDEO and Josh Kwan, the Director of International Giving for the David Weekley Family Foundation, and developed in collaboration with Q, a learning community that mobilizes Christians to advance the common good in society.  Each year, Praxis welcomes 12 businesses and 12 nonprofits into their two Accelerator programs, where they provide the top-decision makers in these organizations with the knowledge, network, and personal discipleship necessary to build sustainable, high-impact organizations. In summer of 2014, they'll also launch Praxis Academy, a summer program focused on training Christ-following undergraduates at the intersection of faith, startups, and culture. Academy graduates will have a chance to apply for their Future Founders program, where they'll have an unique opportunity to do a summer apprenticeship with their Accelerator alumni.

Praxis

Patamar Capital is emerging Asia’s leading impact venture capital firm aggressively driving early-stage investments into tech-led companies. Since 2011, our vision is to change the future of South and Southeast Asia by making technology accessible to transform the everyday lives of the emerging middle class. The Fund will primarily invest in companies across five industry sectors: Financial Services, Education, Health, Supply Chain Services, and Agriculture. Our early-stage investments are dispersed to tech entrepreneurs harnessing the economic power of the emerging middle-class consumers. By addressing market linkage inefficiencies, the Fund’s investments will seek to unlock economic value not only for Limited Partners, but also for low-income communities who are disproportionately affected by these inefficiencies. We continue to drive economic impact and yield great financial returns.

Patamar Capital

Choice Bank covers all areas of financial management, from investment and retirement planning to risk management and estate conservation. They specialize in building a partnership with their clients and understanding exactly what they need to develop a comprehensive, cohesive financial strategy.

Choice Bank

American Capital Partners, LLC (“ACP”) is a full service investment firm founded in 2002: Headquartered in Hauppauge, New York with four offices in East Meadow, NY; New York City, NY; Columbus, GA and Atlanta, GA. American Capital Partners, LLC is a member of FINRA, MSRB and SIPC, and its clearing firm is RBC Correspondent Services, a division of RBC Capital Markets, LLC.

American Capital Partners

BankTech Ventures is a newly launched venture capital fund with the mission to invest in technology companies whose products serve community banks and their end customers, ultimately helping drive banks’ competitiveness and growth in this evolving industry.

BankTech Ventures

FUSE is a venture capital firm focusing on early-stage software companies. The firm primarily invests in Seattle-based seed and Series A companies.

FUSE

Curql empowers credit unions with fintech solutions, offering expertise and support to drive innovation from incubation to acceleration.

Curql

EJF Capital is an alternative asset management firm focused on regulatory event-driven investing in financials and real estate. The firm specializes in the fields of financial services, management, and investment.

EJF Capital

Btech Consortium invests in emerging technology companies serving the community bank sector.

Btech Consortium

PortX

ModusBox's mission is to improve lives by accelerating universal access to reimagined financial services. They believe that technology is the key to driving this access for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people. And, it is the underlying network infrastructure that exploits and excludes.

PortX, a spinoff from ModusBox, offers a banking and payment API-based infrastructure platform for community financial institutions (FIs) – banks and credit unions. The platform enables community FIs to access and integrate core banking data and connect to FinTech partners to modernize banking services including online banking, credit checks, as well as mortgage and loan applications.

Democratizing financial technology with a suite of API-based solutions

FinTech Infrastructure

PortX Joins AppMarket From Fiserv to Simplify Fintech Integrations and Accelerate Time to Market for Financial Institutions

PortX, a spinoff from ModusBox, offers a banking and payment API-based infrastructure platform for community financial institutions (FIs) – banks and credit unions. The platform enables community FIs to access and integrate core banking data and connect to FinTech partners to modernize banking services including online banking, credit checks, as well as mortgage and loan applications. The platform enables integrations with several real-time payment networks, including ACH, Fedwire, Mojaloop, and Zelle. Funding and financials PortX <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22236">raised USD 16.5 million </a>in a Series B funding round in September 2023, co-led by FUSE and Curql. The funds were expected to be used to accelerate the development of new products and support, enhance AI offerings, and expand the company's marketplace of connectors for integrating FinTechs and third-party apps.

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 partnershipsAs 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

PortX, a banking and payment API-based infrastructure platform for community financial institutions, has raised $16.5 million in a Series B funding round. The round was co-led by FUSE and Curql, with participation from BankTech Ventures, EJF Capital, and the Btech Consortium. The funding will be used to accelerate product development, enhance AI offerings, and expand the company's marketplace of connectors for integrating FinTechs and third-party apps. The investment will also support PortX's focus on providing technology tailored to meet the complex demands of banks and credit unions.

PortX

About EDGE

Contact Us

Resources

Area of Focus

Technology Research Made Effortless