Fuel Venture Capital is a firm located in the heart of Miami's iconic Coconut Grove where it works to fund the world's most promising startups and integrate lifelong investors into the creative economy. Fuel Venture Capital applies a tested methodology to mitigate the risk of early-stage investing. Founded in 2016, Fuel Venture Capital is industry agnostic in its venture sourcing, targeting instead exceptional entrepreneurs with experience and vision. The firm’s “founder-focused, investor-driven” approach is led by a core team with decades years of combined experience in investment banking, wealth management, and executive leadership.

Fuel Venture Capital

IDC Ventures is the venture capital arm of Grupo IDC, a Latin American investment bank founded in 1995. Grupo IDC’s activities cover Private Equity, Venture Capital, Real Estate, Infrastructure, Corporate Finance, and a Guatemalan Broker-Dealer. For the past decade, IDC has been involved in technology start-ups through co-managed funds, direct investments, and joint ventures, working with tech companies to accelerate their penetration and expansion across LATAM. The latest fund is created by a select group of corporate leaders, successful entrepreneurs. and venture capitalists from Latin America. This fund will invest in tech start-ups from Series A to growth stages across Europe, the US, and Latin America.

IDC Ventures

Endeavor Catalyst is the co-investment fund set up to invest exclusively in led companies and to sustain Endeavor’s long-term operations in a mission-aligned way.

Endeavor Catalyst

Visa Ventures is the corporate venture investment function of Visa, Inc. With a global focus, the team engages with innovative payments, fintech, and technology companies and seeks to identify and invest in the most attractive opportunities that give Visa early access to innovative technologies and emerging themes.

Visa Ventures

Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital is a private equity platform targeting late-stage growth investments in technology, health care, consumer, digital media and other high-growth sectors. For nearly three decades, Morgan Stanley has successfully pursued growth investment opportunities. Expansion Capital’s experienced investment team combines extensive growth equity and franchise experience to pursue a value-creation strategy focused on operational and financial measures. The team works closely with the successful entrepreneurs and business professionals underlying its investments to assist in building proprietary advantage for portfolio companies. Expansion Capital also leverages the brand and global network of Morgan Stanley to source investment intelligence and opportunities.

Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital

NovoPayment

NovoPayment accelerates financial innovation globally via API-enabled banking as a service platform. It enables digital financial and transactional services in support of varied use cases. NovoPayment utilizes APIs and other flexible delivery models to help banks, financial institutions, merchants, networks, marketplaces, neo banks, and other financial service providers to leverage their existing systems to generate new deposits, transaction streams, and customer experiences.

NovoPayment offers a multi-currency, multi-country, banking-as-a-service (BaaS) infrastructure platform for financial institutions, merchants, neobanks, and marketplaces. The infrastructure covers digital banking, payments (via Visa Direct, Mastercard Send, ACH, and SWIFT), and card solutions (to issue and manage prepaid, debit, and credit cards).

Democratizing financial technology with a suite of API-based solutions

FinTech Infrastructure

Morgan Stanley makes $20m investment in NovoPayment to fuel product and commercial growth

Mastercard

NovoPayment partners with Mastercard through the Network Enablement Partner program, certifying its processing platform in Mexico for Mastercard transactions. This partnership allows for faster product innovation, reduced time to market, and enhanced operational efficiency, benefiting clients in the evolving payment ecosystem.

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.


NovoPayment offers a multi-currency, multi-country, banking-as-a-service (BaaS) infrastructure platform for financial institutions, merchants, neobanks, and marketplaces. The infrastructure covers digital banking, payments (via Visa Direct, Mastercard Send, ACH, and SWIFT), and card solutions (to issue and manage prepaid, debit, and credit cards). The Miami-based company primarily focuses on the Latin American region and is present in 14 markets (as of April 2022). It generated around 85% of its revenue from the region as of September 2021, with the remainder coming from the US. Its revenue in 2021 reportedly amounted to “tens of USD millions.”NovoPayment is connected to over 60 endpoints (as of April 2022) and claims that users can build banking solutions in under a month, using the platform. The company’s customer base grew by 40% in 2021 and then reached about 50 customers in April 2022.NovoPayments <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9812?industryIds=53">raised USD 19 million in Series A funding </a>in April 2022 co-led by Fuel Venture Capital and IDC Ventures to invest in product development, broadening its partner network, expanding its customer base in the US and Latin America, and recruitment.

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.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).&nbsp;Key customers and partnerships&nbsp; As of November 2024, 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.As of November 2024, the company had over 500 employees and had entered more than 80 partnerships.&nbsp;In September 2024, Cross River Bank partnered with Forward, an embedded payments company, to offer payouts-as-service solutions featuring same-day automated clearing house (ACH) payouts through Forward's proprietary API technology.&nbsp;Cross River Bank also 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.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.&nbsp;

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>.In August 2024, Synctera partnered with<a href="https://thepaypers.com/payments-general/synctera-partners-marqeta-to-introduce-fleet-cards--1269833"> Marqeta&nbsp;</a>to develop a fleet card solution that helps companies create and manage their own fleet card and banking products.

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.In March 2023, the company acquired Comma Payments in a primarily equity-based transaction to integrate the latter’s technology. The integration will allow customers to transition from making payments via existing bank accounts to using Weavr-provided accounts with enhanced controls and payment options.Key customers and partnershipsAs of February 2023, Weavr had served over 1,500 enterprises, including Wectory, AllGravy, Corplife, Finway, Thanks Ben, and MySkillCamp.&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.In June 2023, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.weavr.io/blog/weavr-and-visa-to-deliver-embedded-finance-to-the-global-stage/">partnered with Visa</a> to integrate its financial plug-ins with Visa's payment capabilities to create embedded finance solutions that are easy to deploy and cost-effective.

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.Key customers and partnershipsAs of January 2021, the company noted that it worked with more than 1800 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.&nbsp;As of November 2024, the company maintained connections with more than 13,000 financial institutions and FinTechs. Moreover, the company had processed transactions worth USD 170 billion, averaging around USD 150 million per day.In November 2024, the company partnered with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pymnts.com/news/banking/2024/american-express-forms-data-sharing-partnership-with-mx/">American Express</a> to enable the latter’s customers to securely connect their accounts with third-party financial institutions and FinTech apps through MX's platform.In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8753?industryIds=53">February 2022, MX partnered</a> with&nbsp;<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.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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 partnershipsIn 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.

Bankable

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


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

<div>
 Banking-as-a-service (BaaS) provider NovoPayment has raised USD 20 million in growth funding in a round led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital. Past investors include IDCV, Fuel Venture Capital, IDB, Visa, and Endeavor Catalyst.
 The new funding will be used to help NovoPayment continue its expansion and establish further commercial partnerships.
 Operating across 15 markets in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the US, NovoPayment's platform offers digital banking, payments, and card solutions. Its services range from digital wallets and instant deposit accounts to virtual cards, real-time payments, cross-border transfers, digital lending, and cash management.
</div>

NovoPayment

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