Sequoia is a venture capital focused on energy, financial, enterprise, healthcare, internet, and mobile startups. The firm helps a small number of daring founders build legendary companies. It spurs them to push the boundaries of what’s possible. The firm seeks to invest in all sectors with a focus on energy, financials and financial services, healthcare and healthcare services, Internet, mobile, outsourcing, and technology.

Sequoia Capital

Andreessen Horowitz is a venture capital firm specializing in investing in seed, start-ups, early, mid-stage, growth, and late-stage. It prefers to invest in the social media business and technology sector with a focus on software, back-end infrastructure, the infrastructure of the Internet, cloud computing, enterprise software and services, consumer, business Internet, mobile-Internet, consumer Internet, cloud computing, data storage, social network browsers data-storage, consumer electronics, networking functions, software related biology, biotech, and medicine companies at the intersection of computer science and life sciences with a focus on digital therapeutics, cloud technology in biology, and computational medicine.

Andreessen Horowitz

SV Angel is a San Francisco-based venture fund. Their experience spans helping companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, Databricks, DoorDash, Faire, Flexport, GitHub, Notion, Pinterest, Snap, Square, and Stripe Scale. Over the last 30 years of investing, their core values of trust, loyalty, and integrity along with a founder-first approach have driven our strategy. They are a service organization, investing in founders who share these values. They support entrepreneurs in building lasting companies by assisting at key inflection points and leveraging networks to help them propel their businesses forward.

Y Combinator is a startup accelerator that invests in a large number of startups twice a year. It created a new model for funding startups. Twice a year, the company invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups. The startup accelerator works intensively with the companies for three months, to get them into the best possible shape and refine their pitch to investors. Each cycle culminates in Demo Day when the startups present their companies to a carefully selected, invite-only audience.

Y Combinator

Redpoint has partnered with visionary founders to create new markets and redefine existing ones since 1999. The firm invests in startups across seed, early, and growth phases. In total, Redpoint manages $4 billion across multiple funds.

Redpoint

General Catalyst is a venture capital firm that provides early-stage and growth equity investments. The company provides ongoing momentum that accelerates ideas, careers, and companies toward standout success.

General Catalyst

American Express Ventures is American Express's strategic investment group. They invest in innovative startups in order to enhance American Express’s core capabilities and accelerate the company’s efforts in consumer commerce and B2B services.

American Express Ventures

Founders Fund is a venture capital firm that invests at every stage in companies building revolutionary technologies. It has been investors, founders, and early employees of prominent technology companies. It has historically invested in a wide variety of sectors, including aerospace, artificial intelligence, advanced computing, energy, health, and consumer Internet.

Founders Fund

JMCR Partners is a venture capital firm based founded in 2013. The firm seeks to invest in the biotechnology and healthcare sectors.  JMCR family office was established in 2013, founded to manage the private assets for founder‘s family and close relations，including  隽华资本 JMCR Capital ® , 隽华国际 JMCR Partners ® and JMRE.

JMCR Partners

Allen & Company is a family-owned investment and advisory firm. The firm advises on M&A and capital raises, with an emphasis on the technology, media, healthcare, and sports sectors. Allen & Company was established in 1922 and is headquartered in New York, United States.

Allen & Company

Khosla Ventures invests in companies that are bold, early and impactful. The firm was started in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, to provide venture assistance to entrepreneurs.  Headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., Khosla Ventures invests in a range of areas including AI, climate, sustainability, enterprise, consumer, fintech, digital health, medtech and diagnostics, therapeutics and frontier technology.

Khosla Ventures

Lowercase Capital is a private equity and venture capital firm specializing in investments in seed/startups, mature, and acquisition of later-stage companies. The firm typically invests in wireless, media, commerce, infrastructure, energy, and transportation sectors. It also advises businesses and funds.  Lowercase Capital was founded in 2010 and is based in New York, New York.

Lowercase Capital

Thrive Capital is a venture capital investment firm that focuses on building and investing in Internet, software, and technology-enabled companies.

Thrive Capital

Designer Fund invests in tech startups that are design leaders including Stripe, Gusto, and Omada Health. Designer Fund specializes in helping design products and scales design teams through their professional development programs Bridge and Designer Founder Guild. Their community includes exceptional designer founders and design leaders from companies like Apple, Facebook, Google, Airbnb, Pinterest, and Dropbox.

Designer Fund

Kleiner Perkins is a venture capital firm specializing in investing in early-stage, growth, and incubation companies. The firm continues that legacy, investing in founders with bold ideas that span industries and continents, partnering with them from inception to IPO and beyond to maximize the potential of their ideas. They also focus on early computer firms using their devices and programming and service companies. It also invests in the digital, life sciences, and healthcare industries.

Kleiner Perkins

Alven Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm with over $500 million under management. Alven backs primarily ambitious French and French-related entrepreneurs in the digital technology space. Alven’s sectors of interest include notably AI, data management platforms, Saas, security solutions, as well as disruptive consumer models with a particular focus on marketplaces and web brands.

Alven

Visa is an American multinational financial services company that facilitates electronic payment systems throughout the world. The company operates the retail electronic payments network through the transfer of value and information among financial institutions, merchants, consumers, businesses, and government entities.   Visa also provides electronic payment, risk management, and payment security solutions to online merchants; digital goods transaction services in online games, digital media, and social networks; and mobile financial services for mobile network operators and financial institutions in developing economies.   Visa’s global payment brands include Visa, Visa Electron, PLUS, and Interlink. Together they provide payment options through credit, debit, prepaid, and commercial programs in 200 countries and territories. Visa's global network, VisaNet, delivers value-added processing services such as fraud and risk management, dispute resolution, rewards, and other business-enhancing applications.

Visa

SquareOne is a Berlin-based venture capital firm. Established in 2010 and funded only with management money, SquareOne has built its way up to become a leading tech investor in Berlin. SquareOne invests in European early-stage B2B Software companies, acting both as lead or co-lead investor. Their focus is on sectors where they can add the most value to your business: Enterprise Software, Software as a Service, Industry 4.0, Deep-tech (Robotics, Security, IoT, AI/ML, NLP, DevTools..)   Paua provides a broad range of services and the team is truly committed in being the best partner for entrepreneurs, aiming to be the bridge between new businesses and the corporate world.

SquareOne Venture Capital

Playfair is a generalist VC fund with a contrarian approach to pre-seed technology investing. Based in London, Playfair invests across the UK and Europe with an intentionally high conviction, low volume approach: making 6-8 investments a year and preserving time, capital and resource to help companies post-investment. Playfair has backed 70+ companies across two funds including Thought Machine, Andela, Mapillary, Recycleye and Orca AI.

Playfair Capital

Square Peg invests in emerging technology companies across the internet economy in Australia, Singapore and Tel Aviv. The fund supports outstanding entrepreneurs solving big problems in a unique and differentiated way. The company is a group of individuals united by a passion for technology and its potential to change the world. It partners with outstanding entrepreneurs that are building online and technology leaders of tomorrow and support them by leveraging their decades of experience building, investing in, and advising technology businesses, from start-up to multi-billion dollar public enterprises. We focus on Australia and New Zealand, South-East Asia, and Israel.

Square Peg Capital

FJ Labs is a stage-agnostic investment firm that focuses on marketplaces and consumer-facing startups. Their investments are seed and series A. The investment range of the company is $50,000 to $5,000,000. It invests in Alibaba Group, Beepi, BrightRoll, Betterment, Adore Me, and Earnest.

FJ Labs

DST Global is an investment firm that funds late-stage ventures in the internet industry. Its investments include some of the world’s fastest-growing and most valuable companies. DST Global has offices in Menlo Park, New York, London, Beijing, and Hong Kong. The firm was founded in 2009 by Yuri Milner, Saurabh Gupta, John Lindfors, Rahul Mehta, and Tom Stafford.

DST Global

Tiger Global Management is an investment firm that deploys capital globally. Tiger Global seeks to earn superior risk-adjusted returns for its investors over the long term. The firm’s fundamentally oriented investments focus primarily on the global Internet, technology, telecom, media consumer, and industrial sectors. The private equity strategy has a ten-year investment horizon and targets growth-oriented private companies. The public equity efforts emphasize deep due diligence on individual companies and long-term secular themes.

Tiger Global Management

Proioxis Ventures is an investment firm that bridges the gap between individual investors and institutional venture capitalists.

Proioxis Ventures Fund

Abstract Labs LLC

Seek Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests globally in technology and internet companies through their growth phase.

Seek Ventures

Google Ventures supports innovative founders who are moving the world forwards. They invest across the life sciences, consumer, enterprise, crypto, climate, and frontier technology sectors. With Alphabet as its sole limited partner, GV operates on long time horizons and deals in decades, not rounds. Their operating partners help startups with company building across design, equity, diversity & inclusion, talent, and engineering. They also help startups interface with Google, providing unique access to the world’s best technology and talent. Launched as Google Ventures in 2009, GV has over $8 billion in assets under management and 400 active portfolio companies across North America and Europe. Notable investment outcomes include Uber, Nest, Slack, GitLab, Duo Security, Flatiron Health, Verve Therapeutics, and One Medical. GV is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in Cambridge, New York, and London.

Google Ventures

All Blue Capital they manage multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, real estate and blockchain, and through their strategic partners, hedge funds. Leveraging the strength of the team's global presence and network they are able to provide differentiated investment themes across asset classes, industries, and geographies. The Group’s focus on its core values of entrepreneurialism, innovation, and institutionalization has led to a history of delivering excellent risk-adjusted returns. B's Partners currently work across several offices including London, New York, UAE, Singapore, Shanghai and Toronto.

All Blue Capital

Base Partners is a growth equity firm backed by a group of Brazilian business owners. The firm focuses on investing in technology companies. Base Partners was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Base Partners

AXA is a insurance firm that focuses on global insurance, investment management, and other financial services.

AXA Group

The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) manages assets and liabilities on behalf of the Irish Government.

National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA)

Baillie Gifford is an independently owned investment management firm. It is owned and run by 39 of its senior executives, who operate as a partnership, a structure that has endured for over a century and provides stability for clients and motivation for employees. It enables them to manage the business for the future as well as the present, with an emphasis on genuine long-term thinking rather than lurching haplessly between short-term targets.

Baillie Gifford

Fidelity Management and Research Company is a privately owned investment manager. Fidelity Management and Research Company specialize in the fields of retirement, investments, online trading, and asset management. Fidelity's goal is to make financial expertise broadly accessible and effective in helping people live the lives they want- from people investing their life savings to businesses managing their employee benefits to advisors needing technology to invest their clients' money.

Fidelity Management and Research Company

Allianz X is the digital investment unit of the Allianz Group and part of the Group’s Single Digital Agenda. Allianz X invests in digital growth companies that are part of its ecosystems related to insurance: Mobility, Connected Property, Connected Health, Wealth Management & Retirement, and Data Intelligence and Cybersecurity. It provides an interface between portfolio companies and the digital ecosystem within Allianz as well as drive innovation across Allianz’s operating entities and global lines of business.

Allianz X

Counterpart Advisors is a Venture Capital, Private Equity & Consulting firm that engages in highly competitive and visible markets.

Counterpart Advisors

The firm invests in both primary rounds, tenders, and secondary transactions with company executives or employees. We are focused primarily on US-based companies with some concentration in Africa & LATAM FinTech.

Ethos VC

CapitalG, Alphabet's independent growth fund, invests in remarkable companies transforming the fields of consumer products and services, enterprise tech, cybersecurity, fintech, cryptocurrency, and transportation tech. CapitalG partners with growth-stage companies in their transition from startup to scale-up through hands-on assistance from its in-house growth team and connections to Google's engineering, product, marketing, sales, and people operations experts worldwide. More than 2,500 Googlers and Alphabet leaders have already engaged with CapitalG portfolio companies, including Airbnb, Collibra, CrowdStrike, Curated, DCG, Duolingo, Freshworks, Gusto, ID.me, Lyft, Robinhood, Stripe, UiPath, Whatnot, among others.

CapitalG

Temasek Holdings is a lender provider. The company offers debt financing and focuses on transforming economies, increasing middle-income populations, developing comparative advantages, and emerging champions. Financial services, transportation, industrial, consumer, real estate, telecommunications, media, technology, and life sciences are among the industries served by the firm.

Temasek Holdings

GIC is a global investment firm established in 1981 to manage Singapore's foreign reserves. A disciplined long-term value investor, GIC is uniquely positioned for investments across a wide range of asset classes, including equities, fixed income, private equity, real estate, and infrastructure. GIC invests through funds and directly in companies, partnering with its fund managers and management teams to help world-class businesses achieve their objectives. In tech investing, GIC seeks to be a lifetime partner to the companies it invests in. GIC has investments in over 40 countries around the world. Headquartered in Singapore, GIC employs over 1,700 people across 10 offices in key financial cities worldwide.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management provides institutional and individual investors with investment and advisory solutions, with strategies spanning asset classes, industries, and geographies.  They seek to build long-term relationships based on conviction, sustainable outcomes, and shared success over time. It was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in New York, United States.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management

MSD Partners is a firm that seeks to make investments that consistently generate attractive risk-adjusted returns over the long term. They help clients sustain and grow their businesses, manage their legacies, and create social impact.

MSD Partners

Stripe

Democratizing financial technology with a suite of API-based solutions

FinTech Infrastructure

<div>
 
 TrueLayer is a UK-based company offering an open banking platform to connect developers to banks&rsquo; application programming interfaces (APIs), allowing them to access customer banking details and integrate banking features within apps or websites. The platform was available in the UK, Europe, and Australia, with more than half of the UK&rsquo;s open banking traffic directed through its platform as of September 2020.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 In 2018, TrueLayer emerged as one of the first UK companies to be authorized and registered by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to provide account information and payment initiation services under Open Banking and PSD2 (European regulation for electronic payments).
 
 
 
 
 TrueLayer offers a payments API (including payment links for email, text messages and QR codes), data API, identity verification, and a direct pay solution for apps.&nbsp; TrueLayer&rsquo;s verification API, launched in June 2021, combined open banking with machine learning, to improve the customer onboarding process. It claims its verification API is faster and more effective (success rate of over 20% higher than credit bureaus) than traditional verification processes.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 The company reportedly doubled its customer base year-to-date September 2021, with payment volumes growing 400% and payments up 800%.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 In June 2022, cross-border payment infrastructure provider 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/750327">
 Thunes
 </a>
 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10829">
 partnered with TrueLayer
 </a>
 , to integrate TrueLayer onto its platform and allow British and European customers to enable cross-border open banking payments. It 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18874">
 also partnered
 </a>
 with 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/359227">
 Airwallex
 </a>
 in May 2023 to mutually improve cross-border, multi-currency open banking payments, by leveraging Airwallex&rsquo;s localized infrastructure for global payments.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 Bybit, a crypto derivatives trading platform, partnered with TrueLayer in September 2022, to enable fiat deposits across Europe.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 The company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5582">
 raised USD 130 in funding
 </a>
 led by Tiger Global Management in September 2021, at a valuation of over USD 1 billion. The funding comes just five months after TrueLayer raised USD 70 million in Series D funding in April, and will be used to expand TrueLayer&rsquo;s payments network and customer base. Meanwhile, the company&rsquo;s revenue for 2020 reportedly totaled less than GBP 5 million (USD 7.1 million). 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Imprint offers a white-label API infrastructure platform for merchants to develop payment and loyalty cards (physical and digital) and solutions. The platform aims to facilitate greater reward offerings from brands to their customers by eliminating middle-men from payment and loyalty reward processing. 
 
 
 
 
 End customers should connect their bank accounts to the branded cards (or &ldquo;buttons&rdquo;) to make payments and receive the rewards accordingly. Therefore, the cards function is similar to debit cards, with no credit checks or interest charges. In addition to the payment cards, the infrastructure also allows merchants to offer branded payment buttons (checkouts) on their apps and websites, which Imprint claims reduces payment processing costs by up to 90% (vs 50% for payment cards). 
 
 
 
 
 Notably, Imprint&rsquo;s infrastructure is powered by Visa&rsquo;s card network, and Stripe&rsquo;s issuing infrastructure. The company claims that users can design and launch branded cards in less than a week through Imprint&rsquo;s infrastructure. Moreover, end customers can reportedly earn 1-5% of their spending in loyalty rewards, as merchants can pass on a portion of their payment cost savings. 
 
 
 
 
 Imprint raised USD 38 million in Series A funding in November 2021 led by Kleiner Perkins, along with participation from Stripe, which was earmarked to invest in growing its business, expanding its market, and developing partnerships. 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Balance, formed by former PayPal executives Bar Geron and Yoni Shuster, offers payment infrastructure to build digital checkout experiences as well as vendor payment automation and reconciliation, for business-to-business (B2B) organizations. The platform enables merchants to offer business customers an array of payment options such as real-time payments, paying with net terms, recurring payments, and payments after delivery. 
 
 
 
 Balance is built on top of Stripe’s infrastructure, and accepts a range of payment methods, including card, wire, check, and automated clearing house (ACH) payments. However, Balance’s infrastructure goes beyond payments, and evaluates the risk of customers, merchants, and payment terms selected.  
 
 
 
 The company also offers buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) solutions to its users, for which it charges a factoring fee. Balance operates through its offices in Tel Aviv (Israel) and New York.       
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 Balance’s customers range from startups to large listed enterprises, across a range of industries such as steel, freight, construction, medical supply, etc. and even included ecommerce businesses such as BigCommerce (B2B edition) and Magento. As of July 2022, the company had over 300 enterprise and marketplace users. 
 
 
 
 In November 2022, Balance noted that its customer base had grown by 10x since its launch (February 2021). 
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 Balance received 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/14885?industryIds=53">
 a USD 350 million credit facility
 </a>
 in November 2022, from Viola Credit, shortly after raising 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11872?industryIds=53">
 USD 56 million in Series B funding
 </a>
 in July. The funds raised during the year were earmarked for increasing the company’s financing capabilities, scaling its net terms product, customer acquisitions, and recruitment. 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Israeli company, Rapyd, provides FinTech infrastructure for businesses to embed online payment mechanisms using application programming interfaces (APIs). It primarily caters to ecommerce platforms, labor and goods marketplaces, and lenders and financial services providers.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 Rapyd launched &ldquo;Virtual Accounts&rdquo; in May 2022, which function similar to local banking accounts in enabling cross-border payments through local bank transfers. The Virtual Accounts do not have the typical transaction fees and operational costs of local bank accounts, and can be integrated with Rapyd&rsquo;s other solutions (disbursement, payment acceptance, and wallets). At the time of launch, Virtual Accounts supported bank transfers from over 40 countries and 25 currencies.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Rapyd announced two major acquisitions in 2021, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7276">
 Neat
 </a>
 , a Hong Kong-based cross-border trade enablement platform for SMBs (in December) and Icelandic omnichannel payment services provider 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3930">
 Valitor
 </a>
 (in July; for USD 100 million). The company subsequently 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20618">
 acquired a part of PayU
 </a>
 in August 2023 for USD 610 million; the deal is subject to regulatory clearance, and PayU will retain its operations in India, Turkey, and Southeast Asia, reportedly three primary regions for the business.
 
 
 
 Post-acquisition, Rapyd had 41 licensed or regulated countries it operates from, which enhances its ability to offer card-acquiring solutions across Europe and Latin America. At the time time, Rapyd&rsquo;s payment network supported over 1,200 payment methods supported by 18 settlement hubs
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 Rapyd noted that its customer base in August 2021, comprised around 12,000 small and medium-sized businesses and about 650 large enterprises including large multinationals such as Uber and Ikea.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 Additionally the leading payment infrastructure provider, Stripe, is a key investor in Rapyd. In July 2022, Rapyd also partnered with 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11967?industryIds=53">
 Rakuten Viber,
 </a>
 the operator of messaging and voice-based communication platform Viber, to offer in-app payment transactions to the Viber app.
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 In Q4 2020, Rapyd reportedly generated USD 23 million in revenue, up 241% year-over-year (YoY). The company expected the total payment value handled by the platform to exceed USD 20 billion in 2021, incidentally around 4x the value handled in 2020.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 The company raised multiple funding rounds in 2021, starting with a USD 300 million Series D funding round in January, followed by an undisclosed amount of funding in April, as well as a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4660">
 USD 300 million Series E
 </a>
 round in August. The funds earmarked for product developments, expanding its international presence, recruitment, and exploring strategic acquisitions.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 The company was valued at around USD 15 billion in March 2022 - during secondary dealings - from USD 2.5 billion in January 2021, reportedly making it the highest valued private tech company in Israel at the time.&nbsp;
 
</div>

Distributed workforces require new solutions for office operations, HR, payment, and more.

Remote Work Infrastructure

<div>
 
 Assembled is a workforce management tool founded by three former Stripe employees, Brian Sze, John Wang, and Ryan Wang. The platform provides a space for customer support teams to manage tools and customer support data, measure team performance, and forecast demand. It integrates with Salesforce, Zendesk, Intercom, Kustomer, Gladly, and other third-party tools through API integrations. The platform operates a SaaS model with paid tiers starting at USD 15 per user per month.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company reported that its customers grew five times during 2020. As of May 2022, Assembled’s has 180 enterprise clients, including brands such as Etsy, Stripe, Zoom, TaskRabbit, Asana and Restaurant Brands International. The company’s partners include  customer experience vendors Five9 and MaestroQA.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 Assembled announced its USD 51 million Series B funding round led by New Enterprise Associates in 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10732">
 May 2022
 </a>
 . The fresh capital was earmarked for product development, which includes integrations with HR software, the introduction of schedule optimization algorithms, and launching CX Scholars—a corporate initiative that will commit a portion of the company’s revenue to continue education for support workers. Moreover, the company planned to double its team by the end of 2022, open a New York office, expand in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe. In 2021, Assembled’s headcount grew by 4x to 63 employees, and its revenue grew 4x from March 2021 to May 2022. 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Forma (Formerly Twic) is an employee benefits platform that enables employers to design and provide their global workforces (onsite and remote) with flexible benefits programs. As of March 2022, Forma offers 250+ benefits products covering six broad categories, including family and relationships, education and career, and wellbeing and lifestyle, along with analytics services to track and optimize benefits programs. Once the employers define the limits for benefits spending accounts on Forma, the employees can select their choice of benefits from its marketplace or spend their budget outside of Forma using a company-issued pre-programmed debit card.
 
 
 The company claims its selection of benefits are offered at a 10-30% discount to retail prices. In 2021, Forma’s revenue grew 4x, employee headcount 5x, and customer base by 330%. As of March 2022, Forma served over 300,000 employees(in over 60 countries) across 125+ corporations including Zoom, Twitch, Lululemon, Palo Alto Networks, and Stripe, with a retention rate of 99%. 
 
 
 In its most recent funding round (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8987">
 March 2022
 </a>
 ), Forma raised USD 40 million in Series B funding led by Ribbit Capital. The fresh funds will be used to accelerate product development, invest in sales and marketing to focus on large enterprises, and expand its scope to cover more areas such as flexible spending accounts (FSA) for healthcare, dental, commuter benefits, vision insurance benefits, and retirement savings plans. The company also plans to expand its headcount to 250 employees by the end of 2022 (currently 135+) and double its headcount further in 2023. The company plans to use the fresh funds to expand its product offerings and double its team size by 2023. Forma has already expanded its headcount from 22 at the beginning of 2021 to ~140 as of March 2022.
 
</div>

Making banking work, without the paperwork

Neobanks

UK-based Monzo provides banking services to both individuals and businesses online and via a mobile app. It has its own banking license and operates under three segments: consumer banking, personal lending, and business banking.For consumers, it offers free checking accounts and debit cards with features such as P2P payments and no overdraft fees. Its paid plans are priced at GBP 5 (Monzo Plus) and GBP 15 (Monzo Premium) per month that provide additional features such as premium cards, interest on checking accounts, insurance, and virtual cards. Users can also make contactless payments through Apple Pay or Google Pay using a virtual card (launched in November 2021), which is available for transactions over GBP 30 (~USD 40). In addition, it offers automated savings features, whereby it rounds up the cost of any purchases to the nearest pound and saves the change to one of the pots, savings pools created by the customer for specific requirements. Under personal lending, Monzo offers personal loans and overdraft facilities up to GBP 8,000 (~USD 9,110) as well as a BNPL product named Monzo Flex, which allows users to spread their purchases over three, six or twelve months. Moreover, Monzo offers an investment platform called, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21781">Investments</a> (launched in September 2023), allowing customers to create investment pots and invest in three curated funds managed by BlackRock, each associated with varying levels of risk.Business clients receive basic features along with free UK bank transfers and digital receipts under the Lite account. They can gain access to additional features such as accounting software integration with Monzo, virtual cards, multi-user accounts, and invoicing management for an additional GBP 5 per month under its Pro account.In July 2023, it was reported that Monzo was considering an acquisition with Danish neobank, Lunar. Through the acquisition, it aimed to benefit from the latter’s European banking license to expand rapidly into new European markets. However, the discussions were believed to be in the early stages with no guarantee of reaching a deal.Key customers and partnershipsAs of May 2023, the company had over 7.4 million customers, including 7.2 million personal customers, with the remaining 200,000 being business customers. Furthermore, it claimed that 75% of its customer base consists of users between the ages of 18 and 34.Funding and financialsIn December 2021, Monzo raised USD 500 million in a funding round led by Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, valuing it at USD 4.5 billion. The fresh funds are expected to be funneled into talent acquisition, marketing, and product development, with plans to launch a stock trading platform for retail investors. In January 2022, Monzo also raised USD 100 million in an extension to its previous funding round, with a minority investment from Tencent Holdings, a Chinese technology company.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19059">FY 2023 (ending 28 February 2023)</a>, Mozo reported a revenue of GBP 355.6 million (~USD 441.8 million; up 130.6 % YoY). Its net loss declined marginally to GBP 116.3 million (~USD 144.5 million) from a loss of GBP 119 million (~USD 165.1 million). However, the company reported achieving profitability in the first two months of FY 2024.

<div>
 
 Step provides digital banking services specifically for teenagers between the ages 13-18 via a mobile app. Teenagers are able to sign-up for the account via the app and it also requires parents or guardians to download the app separately to authorize these accounts.&nbsp;
 
 
 The platform provides a digital banking account, which facilitates deposits, and also includes customized credit cards which the company refers to as &lsquo;Step Cards&rsquo;, which are offered free with no fees, under the license of Visa. The primary goal of a Step Card is to enable teenagers to build up and improve their credit history before they turn 18. It does this by linking Step Cards with deposit accounts, enabling users to spend up to the amount in their deposit accounts via their Step Cards.&nbsp;
 
 
 Following this, the platform offers a &lsquo;Smart Pay&rsquo; option through which the platform automatically pays outstanding credit dues via the user&rsquo;s deposits, in turn contributing to building a positive credit score. It also offers a premium card called the 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19463">
 Step Black Card
 </a>
 , which provides rewards and benefits such as a 5% savings bonus on balances up to USD 1 million. Additionally, it features priority customer support, exclusive experiences, and a laser-engraved metal card. The Black Card was open for signups to join the waitlist as of June 2023.
 
 
 In addition, the platform also enables users to link and integrate other debit cards and bank accounts with their Step account, and also set up direct deposits for paychecks. Step also launched a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18721">
 high yield savings account
 </a>
 in May 2023, that offers 5% return on balances up to USD 250,000 held in its direct deposit accounts. To qualify, customers need to deposit a minimum of USD 500 per month. Moreover, the platform also facilitates payment transfers among users and enables users to send and receive money directly via the app. The app also integrates with digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, allowing users to make contactless payments.&nbsp;
 
 
 Step also offers 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13706">
 cryptocurrency
 </a>
 and 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16750">
 stock
 </a>
 investing features through its platform. Users can trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and the platform also aims to incorporate additional features such as NFTs and decentralized finance (DeFi) tools like staking in the future. The stock investing feature provides access to over 1,000 stocks and ETFs, enabling users to build a portfolio based on risk rankings assigned to each security. Furthermore, it allows users to buy fractional shares for as low as USD 1.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of October 2022, the company claimed that it had added nearly 4 million users since its launch in September 2020. The steep growth in customers has mainly been attributed to strong social media awareness campaigns, which include collaborations with popular social media personalities, and to its referral program, which pays out USD 5 to customers, for every new person that signs up.
 
 
 Step offers its banking services under the license of Evolve Bank &amp; Trust.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In October 2022, Step secured 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13706">
 USD 300 million
 </a>
 in debt financing co-led by Triplepoint Capital and Evolve Bank &amp; Trust. It had geared the funds towards its staff and product development.
 
 
 
</div>

Now anyone can become a software developer.

No-code Software

<div>
 
 Pico offers an audience management tool for media enterprises (newsrooms, trade publications, fan clubs, and others) which allows users to improve CRM. It provides a no-code platform to implement paywalls, checkouts, memberships payments, and analytics, among other functions. The tool is built for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to convert users from anonymous readers to paying customers with the goal of improving retention.
 
 
 
 
 The company raised USD 4.5 million in Seed funding in May 2019, which it intended to invest in improving its analytics and revenue tools. 
 
</div>

The innovative cost dynamics of serverless computing allow more customers onto the cloud without breaking the bank.

Serverless Computing

<div>
 
 Autocode/Polybit, formerly known as StdLib, allows users to generate JavaScript code to connect APIs together to develop custom workflows. It also offers an open-source standard library (StdLib) of connector application programming interfaces (APIs) that can be used to script apps and tools. StdLib also launched Code.xyz in June 2018, an online code editor to create serverless apps, targeted at professional engineers and less technical knowledge workers.
 
</div>

Artificial intelligence is helping sales teams manage relationships and optimize the customer lifecycle.

Sales Engagement Platforms

<div>
 
 Founded by Ross and Ryan Rich, former employees at Google and Stripe, Accord is a B2B sales workflow automation platform for sales reps and buyers to collaborate on purchasing decisions. The platform integrates with CRM systems, such as Salesforce and Sales Playbook, and functions as a hub for document storage.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In January 2023, the company raised 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16031?industryIds=27">
 USD 10 million in Series A
 </a>
 funding from Matrix Partners, Nat Friedman, and Y Combinator to increase its headcount, particularly in the engineering, sales, and marketing teams from 13 to more than 30 by the end of the year. 
 
</div>

Giving creators the power of content monetization and audience engagement.

Creator Economy

<div>
 
 Hype (formerly known as Pico) is a marketing and payments platform aimed at content creators and media companies. When the company first began, it targeted journalists by helping them monetize their blogs, before subsequently shifting its focus toward link-in-bio tools.
 
 
 Hype offers ready-to-use customizable &ldquo;Hype Kits&rdquo; to content creators to help them monetize their online following. The features offered in its Hype Kits include drag-and-drop mobile website builders, CRM tools, and integrations with newsletter tools such as Mailchimp and ConvertKit. Hype Kits also include plugins that allow content creators to establish paywalls on websites.
 
 
 Among Hype&rsquo;s other services is Hype&rsquo;s Monetization App, which lets creators connect their own Stripe accounts to create custom membership plans, and Hype&rsquo;s Design Pro App, which lets creators build multiple Hype Pages to suit different target audiences. The platform also introduced pre-designed and customizable web pages for creators in February 2023.
 
 
 Hype levies a processing fee of 5% for subscription and pass payments as well as a 2% fee for tips and donations. Hype&rsquo;s Design Pro App is priced at USD 9 per month, while Hype&rsquo;s Website Pro App, which lets entrepreneurs add Hype to any custom website, varies based on the number of contacts the creator collects in Hype.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Its key customers include The Colorado Sun, Defector Media, and The Generalist.&nbsp;
 
 
 As of April 2023, creators earned ~USD 30 million in revenue, with over four million email and phone contacts acquired through the platform.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In April 2023, Hype announced its USD 10 million in Series A funding led by King River Capital. As of April 2023, the company noted that it incurred losses and aimed to reach profitability by mid-2024.
 
 
 
</div>

Buy Now, Pay Later

<div>
 
 Ramp offers tools for business expense management, including expense cards, expense reimbursement platforms, bill payment solutions, and automated accounting and reporting. The company entered the B2B BNPL market with &ldquo;Flex,&rdquo; the flexible payment option incorporated into its automated accounts payable offering &ldquo;Bill Pay.&rdquo; This feature was introduced to cater to the increasing demand of Ramp&rsquo;s existing customers, especially in the ecommerce, construction, and manufacturing sectors.&nbsp;
 
 
 &ldquo;Flex&rdquo; allows customers to pay back in 30, 60, or 90 days for a fee of 1%&ndash;2% for the transaction value of 30 days. Customers are also provided with the option of offsetting the fee with the discount offered for a quick payment. The spending limit will be decided by the customers&rsquo; creditworthiness, similar to Ramp&rsquo;s cards. As of August 2022, the feature is currently in early access and will be launched in most states in the US. The main revenue generator of the company is interchange fees, where the company receives a percentage for every transaction that occurs through its cards. The company claims that its solutions help customers reduce spending by 3.5%.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key partnerships and customers
 
 
 As of March 2022, the company had a customer base of more than 5,000 businesses consisting of both SMEs and large enterprises. Ramp&rsquo;s customer base had a 7x YoY growth in 2021.&nbsp;
 
 
 In March 2022, Ramp partnered with Amazon Business to integrate features such as spend control, receipt matching, and auto-categorizing transactions.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials&nbsp;
 
 
 In August 2023, Ramp raised USD 300 million in 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21234">
 Series D funding
 </a>
 co-led by Thrive Capital and Sands Capital. The company planned to utilize the funds towards product development and expand its team during the second half of 2023. Following the recent funding round, Ramp&rsquo;s post-money valuation declined by 28% to USD 5.8 billion, from USD 8.1 billion in March 2022.
 
 
 Ramp reported a 10x YoY revenue growth, exceeding USD 100 million in annualized revenue as of March 2022. Meanwhile, its growth in June 2022 was 221% higher than that of December 2021.
 
</div>

Clear the air on carbon capture, reuse, and storage

Carbon Capture, Utilization, & Storage (CCUS)

<div>
 
 UK-based Mission Zero Technologies develops direct air capture (DAC) technology that can recover high purity carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. Mission Zero Technologies is a spinout from Deep Science Ventures, a UK-based R&amp;D company.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 In July 2021, Mission Zero was awarded a grant of EUR 120,000 (USD 140,000) from the Repsol Entrepreneurs Fund (REF) for DAC technology demonstrations in Spain. In May 2021, the company received an award of USD 500,000 from Stripe. The award also included an early purchase fee for up to USD 1 million worth of CO2 captured from an upcoming pilot project.&nbsp;The company has supplied DAC solutions to Stripe at a cost of USD 319 per ton and expects to further reduce the cost to USD100 per ton in future.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 The UK Government also awarded GBP 240,000 (USD 326,000) to a consortium led by Mission Zero for pilot deployment of DAC technology by 2025. Mission Zero was to work closely with Optimus, O.C.O Technology, and Equinor for the pilot project known as DRIVE. During the second implementation phase, the project was expected to bring Mission Zero&rsquo;s DAC technology to commercial maturity by the end of 2024. The company also looked to partner with carbon utilization and sequestration companies.
 
</div>

Platforms, apps, and cards to keep the corporate wallet in check

Business Expense Management

<div>
 
 Ramp offers a comprehensive set of tools for expense and payout management. Its &ldquo;5-in-1&rdquo; software covers business expense cards, expense reimbursement platforms, and bill payment solutions (through ACH, checks, and virtual cards) and also includes automated accounting and reporting. Ramp came out of stealth in February 2020 with its business expense card offering (including physical and virtual cards) and thereafter expanded to other expense and payout solutions.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 The platform lets users set and implement spend controls and expense policies and also helps enterprises manage their expenses through categorization, real-time reporting, and insights. Ramp claims it can enable businesses to close their books 86% faster than through traditional expense methods and reportedly reduces its users&rsquo; spending by 3.3% on average.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Ramp 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19688">
 acquired Cohere.io
 </a>
 in June 2023, to drive AI-related projects to help customers save time and money, through further automations and getting better deals on software. Ramp also offers autonomous agents that concentrate on essential tasks such as expense management, fraud detection, and contract negotiations, utilizing both internal data and the broader linguistic context from GPT and the internet.
 
 
 
 
 Ramp can also be integrated with a range of third-party apps and service providers, including Amazon Business, Lyft, Corporate Traveller, Google Suite, and BambooHR.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 The company primarily generates revenue through card payment interchange fees, and was yet to generate revenue from its bill payment solution as of March 2022, despite seeing volume growth. Ramp expanded its bill payment solution in August 2022, by
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13437">
 launching buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) solution
 </a>
 , &ldquo;Flex.&rdquo;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 Although Ramp initially focused on the SMB market, the company has expanded its focus market to larger enterprises, including Ro, Avelo, and Anduril. Ramp had over 15,000 business customers as of August 2023. Based on the new customer sign-ups in June 2022 (compared to May) Ramp reported faster growth in its enterprise segment customer base - up 300%&nbsp; - than its mid market (up 50%) and SMB (up 22%) customers.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 Ramp has also invested in several expense management companies across the globe, including MENA-focussed 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/1833119">
 Pluto
 </a>
 (February 2022) and Indian fintech 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/947785">
 Karbon
 </a>
 .&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 
 Ramp handled over USD 5 billion in annualized payments volume as of March 2022, and its revenue run rate reportedly more than doubled year-to-date in July 2022. The company further noted that its annualized revenue had crossed the USD 100 million mark, as of March.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 Ramp 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21235">
 raised USD 300 million
 </a>
 in a funding round in August 2023, at a reduced valuation of USD 5.8 billion, compared to its USD 8.1 billion valuation in March 2022. The funds were earmarked for accelerating expansion, product developments, and recruitment.
 
</div>

Digital Wallets

<div>
 
 Rapyd is a payments platform that inserts fintech services into any app and simplifies the complex offering of local payment methods. It enables e-commerce merchants, gig platforms, challenger wallets, remittance platforms, online lenders, and traditional banks to break free of their old infrastructure and limitations and create new mobile-friendly solutions. By utilizing Rapyd's payments network and Fintech-as-a-Service platform, businesses and consumers can engage in local and cross-border transactions in any market. The Rapyd platform unifies the fragmented payment systems by bringing together 900-plus payment methods in over 100 countries. Investors such as Stripe, General Catalyst, Oak FT, Coatue, Tiger Global, Durable Capital, Target Global, and TaL Capital backs the company. In 2016, Arik Shtilman, Arkady Karpman, and Omer Priel established the company in London, England.
 
</div>

Cryptocurrencies

<div>
 
 Stellar Development Foundation is a decentralized, fast, scalable, and uniquely sustainable network for financial products and services. It is both a cross-currency transaction system and a platform for digital asset issuance, designed to connect the world’s financial infrastructure. Dozens of financial institutions worldwide issue assets and settle payments on the Stellar network, which has grown to over 4 million accounts. The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) is a non-profit organization that supports the development and growth of Stellar. Founded in 2014, the Foundation maintains Stellar’s codebase, supports the technical and business communities building on the network, and serves as a voice to regulators and institutions. The Foundation seeks to create equitable access to the global financial system, using the Stellar network to unlock the world’s economic potential through blockchain technology.
 
</div>

Educational technology plays a pivotal role in driving and enabling the revolution in post-secondary learning

Higher EdTech

<div>
 
 Lambda School is a combination of a school and an investment fund. Lambda School's mission is to find untapped or underutilized talent, and train that talent for the most in-demand jobs in the world. Lambda School is pioneering a new model of higher education in which the school invests in the students, instead of the other way around.
 
</div>

Ramp provides solutions for organizations of all sizes and stages to modernize financial operations and help their company succeed. Ramp builds finance tools from corporate cards and expense management, to bill payments and accounting integrations designed to save businesses time and money with every click.

Upollo is to develop more quickly and create more useful products, and helps them convert, keep, grow, and understand their users.

Complete helps teams get compensation right from the very beginning. Through their communication tools -- like interactive offer letters and total reward statements -- in addition to real-time dashboards, companies are able to make smart decisions, efficiently.

WorqHat is a groundbreaking no-code platform builder that utilizes the power of Generative AI to produce brandable Custom Apps, Workflows, and Automation for businesses of all sizes, from solopreneurs and startups to medium-sized enterprises. By automating complex workflows, WorqHat streamlines team collaboration, enables top-notch productivity, and ensures that your business thrives. At the core of WorqHat is our advanced deep learning model - AiCon (short for AI Content Optimization Network). This revolutionary language model has been trained on vast amounts of data to understand natural language with exceptional precision and unmatched speed, allowing for faster and easier platform building. Whether you need to improve your sales and marketing strategy, optimize financial operations, or manage HR workflows, WorqHat offers the flexibility and adaptability necessary to meet your needs. With our intuitive drag-and-drop interface, you can easily design and deploy custom apps with zero coding experience required. Say goodbye to lengthy development cycles, limited functionality, and expensive developers - WorqHat empowers you to bring your vision to life, your way.

Pulley is a San Francisco-based company that provides a platform to help startup founders and employees figure out their equity. It also offers a cap table management product for startups to provide employee and investor equity information and maintain accurate ownership records. The platform is used to issue employee and investor equity and maintain accurate ownership records as the company scales. Pulley manages the cap table and runs the client's business with a clear understanding of the ownership of the business. Founded in 2019 and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, USA.

We help online businesses grow with Our best marketing tips and insights. We provide content on digital marketing tools, software, and online marketing education, All in one place

we help coaches, course creators, and trainers to build an online coaching business

We identify and thoroughly vet undiscovered talent. You hire them directly for onsite or remote jobs, diversifying and accelerating your team. Our mission is to accelerate the growth of the Arab tech sector by untapping its human potential. Did you know that 52% of computer science graduates in Palestine are women? Follow us and visit our website to learn more.

Digital Marketing and E-Learning Solution

PayMongo is providing modern payments for forward-thinking businesses. It helps businesses in the Philippines accept online payments from multiple channels fast and easy, in just minutes. It aims to become the invisible engine of commerce that gives everyone the opportunity to participate and succeed in the rapidly transforming digital economy. The company was founded in 2019 by Francis Plaza, Luis Sia, Jaime Hing, and Edwin Lacierda.

Check is a payroll infrastructure startup that lets people embed payroll directly in their vertical SaaS, HR, or time-tracking platform. The company offers all the building blocks necessary to build a fully customizable payroll product, with an API, modular white-label onboarding components, and a dashboard to manage it all.

Burrata is a computer software provider and developer that bridges Web2 to Web3.

SendOwl is a software company that develops tools for selling digital products through social media and blogs. SendOwl offers custom checkouts, different payment methods, 1-click upsells, fast and safe deliveries, pdf stamping, drip emailing, streaming, reports, analytics, and more. They integrate with common platforms and payment tools like MailChimp, Drip, Shopify, PayPal, Stripe, Linktree, and more.

Imprint is a financial service company building the future of payments, rewards, and loyalty services. The company was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in New York, USA.

Archive automates e-commerce digital marketing workflows with two products: (1) Archive App (AA) is a digital asset manager built for modern digital marketers. App automates the collection and metadata labeling of all your brand's social content (including ephemeral stories) and automates the workflow to convert and distribute this content as optimized advertising creative across your favorite retention marketing and media platforms. (2) Archive Communities (AC) automates a brand's influencer seeding program to drive impressions and generate affiliates.

Forma is simple, easy to use and gives employees direct access to all their available benefits options through an intuitive interface. Employees spend benefits stipend through a curated collection of vendors that offer preferred pricing without the hassle of reimbursements, which saves time and money.

ClearTax is a Tax & Investing platform that simplifies financial lives for Indians. ClearTax is Built on top of India’s Massive Digitization of its Tax Systems. They are a Bangalore-based Financial-Technology platform providing solutions for Income Tax filing, GST, and Mutual Fund Investments. Founded by 3 friends, Archit Gupta, Srivatsan Chari, and Ankit Solanki, ClearTax became the first Y-Combinator-funded company of India in 2014. As ClearTax took this journey, we have added mentors and Investors like Max Levchin, founder of Paypal, Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm, Neeraj Arora of Whatsapp, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Sequoia, Ryan Peterson of Flexport. SAIF Partners had invested $12Mn in ClearTax. Composite Capital has invested $50Mn in ClearTax.

XFlow is a software company that builds payments infrastructure that enables businesses to send and receive money. They perform compliance checks such as determining the purpose of transfers, completing required forms, and generating electronic foreign inward remittance advice.

TrueLayer is a fintech platform utilized to build financial apps that connect to bank data, verify accounts, and access transactions in real-time. It uses its toolkit to develop consumer and server message block (SMB) applications in the areas of payments, online lending, personal financial management (PFM), robot-advisors, insurance, investment services, p2p marketplaces, and cryptocurrencies. It aims to grow the open banking economy by creating a platform for companies to develop new financial services and products. In 2016, Francesco Simoneschi and Luca Martinetti established TrueLayer in London, England.

Wave Mobile Money provides an app-based financial solution to save, transfer, and borrow money. Wave Mobile Money is on a mission to make Africa the first cashless continent. On a continent where less than 10% of the population has a bank account, Wave is building the first modern financial network — no account fees, instantly available, and accepted everywhere! It is building life-changing financial infrastructure. When mobile money succeeded in Kenya, it lifted about a million people out of poverty. And yet, over 10 years later, most Africans still lack access to affordable ways to save, transfer or borrow the money they need to build businesses or provide for their families. Wave is solving this problem by using technology to build a radically inclusive and extremely affordable financial network.

Balance is a digital payments platform designed to make the B2B online purchasing experience delightful for buyers and vendors alike. The company was founded in 2019 by Bar Geron and Yoni Shuster and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Mission Zero is a DAC startup with patent-pending breakthrough technology and close the carbon cycle.

Bouncer is an innovative fraud prevention technology company that has build some of the industries highest performing machine learning credit card scanning technology, which was built from the ground up to improve the user experience at checkout, improve customer conversions, and with providing companies with card-present level security in a card-not-present environment. Bouncer was sold/acquired in May 2021 by Stripe, a international payments processor in order to integrate the Bouncer technology into their Stripe Radar fraud prevention offerings.

Step is a financial services company that builds mobile-based banking for teenagers. It helps teens and young adults achieve financial independence and knowledge at an earlier age. The company's mission is to create a bank that gives its users the tools to become smarter with their money and reward them along their financial journey. It was founded in 2018 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

Hype is an all-in-one, verticalized SaaS platform giving creators and small business entrepreneurs the tools and insights to turn their social media audience into a business. Founded in 2016, the company is supporting the next generation of audience-driven marketing and commerce through its full suite of products and tools.

Assembled is a modern workforce management platform that helps modern organizations scale customer support. They help teams to forecasts, scheduling, and unified metrics, capturing to build for themselves with a mix of spreadsheets and internal tools. They automatically forecast support volume and translate it into the right staffing plan. Assembled provides an intuitive team calendar that works across time zones and/or multiple specializations. For individuals to interact with their own calendar, they meet people where they already are by integrating with tools like Google Calendar and Slack. It also makes support schedules and metrics, like response times, visible across all levels. The platform also provides a way to forecast inbound support query volumes and to map that into staffing plans that cover multiple channels like chat, email, phone, and social media.  Assembled was founded in 2018 and is based in San Francisco, California, United States.

Safepay provides a single integrated payment solution that interoperates with local and international payment options.

Accord is a customer collaboration platform built for high-growth sales leaders who need to hit scaling rev targets & build a repeatable process. Our dedicated workspaces between buyer & seller drive engagement on everything needed to consistently build strong partnerships:   - Shared next steps & milestones to align on / track together - A resource hub to avoid sorting through 100+ email threads for a doc - Stakeholder mgmt to make sure the right ppl are looped in at the right time - All integrated into CRMs like Salesforce for enhanced pipeline insights.

Monzo (previously Mondo) is a bank for people who live their lives on their smartphones and is targeted at people who want to get things done in a click and who don’t see the need for branches and cheque books. The platform is focussed on building the best current account in the world and ultimately working with a range of other providers so that Monzo can be an intelligent hub for your entire financial life.

Pilot offers bookkeeping, tax, and CFO services for growing businesses. The company's platform offers accurate financial reports and automated accrual basis bookkeeping to produce on-demand and error-free reports, enabling businesses to reduce time, cost, and labor associated with traditional outsourced bookkeeping practices.

Fast's mission is to make buying online faster, safer and easier for everyone. Its Fast Login and Fast Checkout product enable a one-click sign-in and purchasing experience that makes it easier for people to buy and merchants to sell. The company's products work on any browser, device or platform for consistent, stress-free purchasing, either on a merchants own domain or through headless checkout on any other website. Fast invests heavily in its user privacy and security, with a Zero Fraud Guarantee on chargebacks for sellers. Headquartered in San Francisco, Fast is a privately held company founded by Domm Holland and Allison Barr Allen and funded by Stripe, Addition, Index Ventures, Susa Ventures and Sugar Capital. Headquartered in San Francisco, Fast is a privately held company funded by Stripe, Index Ventures, Susa Ventures, Global Founders Capital, and Brian Sugar – who also serves on the board.

Lambda School is a combination of a school and an investment fund. Lambda School's mission is to find untapped or underutilized talent, and train that talent for the most in-demand jobs in the world. Lambda School is pioneering a new model of higher education in which the school invests in the students, instead of the other way around.

Stedi is a platform of developer-focused building blocks for business integrations. We've raised $71 million from Addition, Stripe, Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital, Bloomberg Beta, and other top investors.

Cuenca is a Mexican finance company that offers online banking services. The company's application provides savings by allowing interest rates and offers loan facilities, enabling users to securely deposit or borrow money digitally and pay it back according to their convenience.

Rapyd is a payments platform that inserts fintech services into any app and simplifies the complex offering of local payment methods. It enables e-commerce merchants, gig platforms, challenger wallets, remittance platforms, online lenders, and traditional banks to break free of their old infrastructure and limitations and create new mobile-friendly solutions.

Paystack lets businesses in Africa accept payments by anyone, anywhere in the world via credit card, debit card, money transfer, and mobile money on their websites or mobile apps. It specializes in the fields of financial services, the internet, and payments. The company was founded in 2015 and headquartered in Ikeja, Lagos.

With billions of $ lost on online ads due to ad blocker technology and millennials becoming harder and harder to reach we built a marketplace where brands can hire gamers to directly promote their product or brand to millions of viewers across the world.

Polybit is a software company that offers automated cloud deployment and scaling solutions. Polybit offers Nodal, an open source software solution that enables developers to build APIs for web, mobile, and IoT applications. It also offers automated infrastructure management and PostgreSQL hosting services. Polybit offers its cloud services for a payment. Polybit was founded by Keith Horwood in February 2016. It is based in San Francisco, California.

An online code editor with API autocomplete, instant hosting, and a Standard Library. Sync data, build bots and customize workflows.

Stellar Development Foundation is a decentralized, fast, scalable, and uniquely sustainable network for financial products and services. It is both a cross-currency transaction system and a platform for digital asset issuance, designed to connect the world’s financial infrastructure. Dozens of financial institutions worldwide issue assets and settle payments on the Stellar network, which has grown to over 4 million accounts.   The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) is a non-profit organization that supports the development and growth of Stellar. Founded in 2014, the Foundation maintains Stellar’s codebase, supports the technical and business communities building on the network, and serves as a voice to regulators and institutions. The Foundation seeks to create equitable access to the global financial system, using the Stellar network to unlock the world’s economic potential through blockchain technology.

Stripe is a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the Internet. Businesses of every size, from new startups to public companies like Salesforce and Facebook, use the company’s software to accept online payments and run complex global operations. The company combines economic infrastructure with a set of applications for new business models like crowdfunding and marketplaces, fraud prevention, analytics, and more. Stripe navigates global regulatory uncertainty and partners closely with internet leaders like Apple, Google, Alipay, Tencent, Facebook, and Twitter to launch new capabilities.

<div>Stripe provides the infrastructure for businesses to build online and app-based payment services using application programming interfaces (APIs). Stripe also offers point-of-sale hardware (in competition with Square and Zettle) through its &ldquo;Stripe Reader,&rdquo;(launched&nbsp; in June 2021), a standalone card scanner. Reader can be integrated with Stripe&rsquo;s Terminal and the rest of the Stripe ecosystem, thereby allowing users to offer an omnichannel payment solution.&nbsp;</div>

<div>
 
 Stripe provides the infrastructure for businesses to build online and app-based payment services using application programming interfaces (APIs). Stripe also offers point-of-sale hardware (in competition with Square and Zettle) through its &ldquo;Stripe Reader,&rdquo;(launched&nbsp; in June 2021), a standalone card scanner. Reader can be integrated with Stripe&rsquo;s Terminal and the rest of the Stripe ecosystem, thereby allowing users to offer an omnichannel payment solution.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Stripe also offers commercial card issuing infrastructure, &ldquo;Stripe Issuing,&rdquo; for which it charges interchange fees from transactions. The company expanded Stripe Issuing and 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19091">
 added charge card features in June 2023
 </a>
 , enabling end-customers to spend on credit terms rather than exclusively through pre-funded accounts.
 
 
 
 
 The company has grown through multiple acquisitions. It expanded its operations to Nigeria in October 2020 by acquiring Lagos-based payment integration service infrastructure provider, Paystack. In May 2021, Stripe acquired Bouncer, a technology provider that authenticates cards to reduce fraud in online transactions, and in October 2021 the company acquired 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6113">
 Indian company Recko
 </a>
 .
 
 
 
 
 Stripe is present across the globe serving nearly 50 countries (as of October 2022), across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Stripe expanded its platform solutions, by launching &ldquo;
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3563">
 Stripe Tax
 </a>
 &rdquo; and &ldquo;
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3564">
 Stripe Identity
 </a>
 &rdquo;. Stripe Tax automates the calculation and collection of multiple types of taxes for transactions made through the platform, and came on the heels of Stripe acquiring TaxJar, a sales tax software provider, in April 2021. Stripe Identity is a low-code/no-code verification tool for online businesses to prevent fraud, account takeovers, and bad actors. It also launched &ldquo;
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10153">
 Financial Connections
 </a>
 &rdquo; in May 2022, for enterprises to connect directly with end customer bank accounts to verify accounts, check balances, and confirm ownership, and &ldquo;
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10666?industryIds=53">
 App Marketplace&rdquo;
 </a>
 to provide access to third-party apps.
 
 
 
 
 In October 2021, Stripe also announced that it plans to offer infrastructure for merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments by forming a new crypto team to build out Web3 (highly decentralized web networks) payment solutions.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 &nbsp;
 
 
 As of January 2022, Stripe&rsquo;s enterprise customers included Shopify, Google, Peloton, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7819?industryIds=53">
 Ford
 </a>
 , and Amazon, among others. Stripe also enhanced its platform functionality and reach by partnering with leading global financial service companies and payment networks. In December 2020, it expanded the partnership with Goldman Sachs to add more functionality to &ldquo;Stripe Treasury&rdquo; (solution to embed financial services to marketplaces) in the US. Stripe also 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5215">
 partnered with China&rsquo;s UnionPay
 </a>
 International in August 2021, to complement its Alipay and WeChat pay integrations. This enables Stripe merchants in several markets to accept payments from Chinese customers residing in and outside the mainland.
 
 
 
 
 Stripe has also partnered with leading buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) solutions providers, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6217">
 Klarna
 </a>
 and 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10799">
 Affirm
 </a>
 , to allow merchants using Stripe to offer its US and European customers an option to pay in installments.
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 &nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Stripe reportedly processed transactions worth more than USD 817 billion in 2022, up 26% YoY, with more than 100 companies handling over USD 1 billion in payments annually. Moreover, as of February 2021, Stripe handled over 250 million API requests per day in more than 135 currencies across over 35 countries. The company also reported that around 90% of US adults had purchased products from businesses using Stripe.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Stripe reduced its internal valuation to USD 63 billion in January 2023 (from USD 95 billion during its March 2021 funding round), following laying off around 14% of its workforce in November 2022. The company noted that the layoff was owing to Stripe being overly optimistic about the internet economy&rsquo;s growth in 2022 and 2023. In January 2023, the company also reportedly set itself a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15977?industryIds=53">
 12-month deadline to go public
 </a>
 , either through a direct listing or a private market transaction (offering a secondary market exit for employees).&nbsp;
 
 
 
 The company subsequently 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17162?industryIds=53">
 raised USD 6.5 billion
 </a>
 in Series I funding, in March 2023, at a USD 50 billion valuation. The funds were nor earmarked for running business operations, and instead should be put toward offering liquidity to employees (current and former) and address employee withholding tax obligations related to equity awards.&nbsp;
 
</div>

<div>
 
 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.
 
 
 
</div>

Cross River Bank

<div>
 
 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&rsquo;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.&nbsp;
 
 
 <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.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 The company launched the &ldquo;t-minus10&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Smart Charge Card&rdquo; (APIs to build, launch, and issue charge cards) and &ldquo;White-label Banking App&rdquo; (a codebase for developers to build embedded banking products or neobank apps) infrastructure in October 2022.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 In 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.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 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>
 .&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 
 The company 
 <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&rsquo;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. 
 
</div>

Synctera

<div>
 
 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&rsquo;s &ldquo;Meta&rdquo; 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.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 Weavr expanded its operations to Singapore in November 2022, as part of its global expansion plans.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 As of July 2021, Weavr&rsquo;s customers included Finway, Thanks Ben, and MySkillCamp, among others.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 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.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 Weavr 
 <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&rsquo;s expansion to the US market, while also supporting its continued expansion in the UK and Europe. 
 
</div>

Weavr

<div>
 
 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. 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Synapse offers a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) infrastructure primarily for banking and financial service providers. The infrastructure applies machine learning and automates repetitive back office tasks, covering a breadth of products, including deposit, lending, investment products, and payments platforms, among others. Its white-label infrastructure is available through application programming interfaces (APIs), allowing developers to launch customer-facing FinTech services.  
 
 
 
 
 In June 2019, the company claimed that its integrations allow developers and apps to reduce the incremental cost of operating financial products to zero, from around USD 130-USD 150. Moreover, its annual recurring revenue was estimated at around USD 20 million-USD 30 million in April 2020, and the company reportedly doubled its revenue in 2020 and saw a 150% revenue growth year-to-date July 2021. Notably, as of January 2021, Synapse had more than 7.8 million users and processed over USD 39 billion in transactions. 
 
 
 
 Synapse looks to broaden its global footprint by gradually entering Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. As of June 2019, its operations were limited to the US; however, the company intended to begin its foreign expansion to Canada and Europe by initially launching payment, deposit, and debit card issuances, expanding to lending and investment products thereafter.
 
 
 
 
 In June 2020, the company laid off nearly half of its workforce across 11 departments owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was largely due to the pandemic having a negative impact on its customers, who primarily comprised early-stage startups. 
 
 
 
 The company expanded its platform by launching the “Credit Hub” offering in August 2021, for financial institutions to help individuals build and access credit, and offer cards, credit building tools, lending accounts, and cashback rewards. Synapse claims its platform enables users to build FinTech solutions in six weeks, compared to the 18 months taken by typical alternatives. The Credit Hub was in private beta until August 2021, and in private beta it had issued around 1 million credit accounts and extended over USD 40 million in credit. Moreover, the company also 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7574">
 partnered with TrueAccord
 </a>
 in January 2022 to offer debt collection service infrastructure for its clients.   
 
</div>

Synapse

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

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

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.


Stripe

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Stripe: Global payment and card issuing infrastructure provider

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