BACKED is the human-centric venture capital fund. We invest in exceptional founders, at Seed, in Europe. We provide founders with an extensive support system to catalyse their development as a company operators and leaders. Through our Founder Experience Platform and energetic portfolio community we help entrepreneurs across all areas of a startup: from talent management to business development, further fundraising and international expansion. Founded in 2015 by partners Andre de Haes and Alex Brunicki, we invest across sectors including BioTech, Blockchain, Financial Services, Advanced Manufacturing, and more. Investments to date include Hutch, Thought Machine, LabGenius, THIS, Enterprise Alumni, and many more.

BACKED VC

Force Over Mass Capital is an FCA regulated venture capital firm focused on early stage technology investments across UK and Europe. We invest in B2B innovation across four verticals, i.e. Fintech, Artificial Intelligence, SaaS and Industry 4.0. FOM cap operates both seed and scale-up funds to support early stage businesses through their growth journey.

Force Over Mass Capital

Acrew is a leading stage agnostic venture capital firm focused on investing in transformative companies, as well as diversifying the perspectives and cap tables of leading technology growth companies.

Acrew Capital

Kuvi Capital

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

Insight Partners

Citigroup is a financial services holding company that provides financial products and services. The company operates through two segments, Global Consumer Banking (GCB) and Institutional Clients Group (ICG). The GCB segment offers traditional banking services to retail customers through retail banking, commercial banking, Citi-branded cards, and Citi retail services. The ICG segment offers various banking, and financial products and services to corporate, institutional, public sector, and high-net-worth clients. This segment provides wholesale banking products and services, including fixed-income and equity sales and trading, foreign exchange, prime brokerage, derivative services, equity and fixed-income research, corporate lending, investment banking, and advisory services, private banking, cash management, trade finance, and securities services. Citi is committed to sustainability and social responsibility, and the company invests in initiatives that promote economic progress.

Citi

NAB Ventures is an Australian Venture Capital fund backed by National Australia Bank (one of the largest 20 banks globally).

NAB Ventures

Rapyd Ventures invests in capability providers building the next generation of FinTech infrastructure and end-user platforms.

Rapyd Ventures

Bank of America is a financial institution, serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses, and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management, and other financial and risk management products and services. They serve approximately 51 million consumer and small business relationships with approximately 5,300 retail banking offices and approximately 16,350 ATMs and award-winning online banking with 30 million active users and more than 13 million mobile users. It offers industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business owners through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations in more than 40 countries. Bank of America is a wealth management company specializing in corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions, and individuals around the world. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States.

Bank of America

Firestartr helps the most promising digital entrepreneurs take their companies from seed stage to Series A and beyond.  Beyond providing capital, they draw on their entrepreneurial successes and senior operational experience with leading technology companies to support sustainable growth in their portfolio. Their deep domain expertise, combined with an unrivalled network of advisors, enable us to make meaningful connections at the right time and propel companies with hands-on support.

Firestartr

Edenred Capital Partners is the Venture Capital investment arm of Edenred group. They are looking for ambitious teams of entrepreneurs reshaping interactions between companies, workers and merchants. Edenred Capital Partners has a traditional Venture Capital governance and provides financial and operational support to entrepreneurs. They invest up to €10m, from Series A to Series C, usually alongside other investment funds. The structure of their organisation facilitates relationships within Edenred's ecosystem to generate operational synergies.

Edenred Capital Partners

Sidekick is a value-add venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups and focuses on the consumer and technology sectors. The Sidekick community members have deep networks and are based primarily in New York, Texas, and California. Our members fall into three main buckets: successful entrepreneurs, private equity executives, and Fortune 100 executives. Our community is excited to provide strategic value every step of the way.

Sidekick Partners

OM2 builds Fintech companies together with entrepreneurs and partners who transform how people and enterprises finance, transact & interact. With long-vision flexible funding based on true collaborative partnership, we share resources and a common vision to build strong fintech companies that make significant impact on people and industries. We work shoulder-to-shoulder, infusing our extensive experience in company- and product-building into every venture. Together, we evade typical startup pitfalls to smooth and expedite the journey to capture and grow markets.  We are technology driven Innovators. Born from the epicenter of high-tech innovation, we invest in deeply rooted technology assets including proprietary open source platforms like Scalecube and Capsula to empower our companies, overcome obstacles and bring new opportunities to global markets.  We believe in fintech as the great enabler for enterprises and individuals worldwide. We believe in people we trust and respect, to flatten company hierarchies and provide flexible financing that empowers great companies with the freedom to grow. We also believe that the work place is a fun place, motivated by a collaborative, problem-solving environment of teamwork and triumph. Together, we create new Fintech opportunities, efficiencies and savings for people and companies around the world.

9Yards Capital provides entrepreneurs with long-term, strategic capital and have a deep understanding of how governments and regulators operate. They take a focused approach to the industries they invest in and have a proven track record in financial services and logistics investing.

9Yards Capital

FinTech, PropTech, ConsumerTech funds at Seed to Series A stage.

Love Ventures

Banked

Founded in 2018 with offices in Palo Alto, London, Sydney, Melbourne and Vilnius, Banked is a global payments network that enables a transparent, secure and real-time payment process. Built on modern banking rails, the company provides a comprehensive platform that allows for maximum flexibility across account-to-account payments. By reinventing the legacy transaction process, Banked eliminates costly fees and powers financial fluidity.

<div>Banked is a British company offering an API-based open banking payment infrastructure platform for banks, payment providers, gateways, and technology platforms. It allows customers to handle payments directly from bank accounts for customer checkouts and business payouts in place of card payments. The company claims that users can checkout in under 30 seconds and noted that bank details are not shared with the merchants. The platform charges customers a 0.1% flat fee to process payments.  </div>

Democratizing financial technology with a suite of API-based solutions

FinTech Infrastructure

<div>
 
 Banked is a British company offering an API-based open banking payment infrastructure platform for banks, payment providers, gateways, and technology platforms. It allows customers to handle payments directly from bank accounts for customer checkouts and business payouts in place of card payments. The company claims that users can checkout in under 30 seconds and noted that bank details are not shared with the merchants. The platform charges customers a 0.1% flat fee to process payments.  
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 In February 2022, Bank of America partnered with Banked to launch an online payment solution “Pay by Bank” for ecommerce companies. 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 Banked raised 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/14626?industryIds=53">
 USD 15 million in funding
 </a>
 in November 2022, led by Insight Partners, as an extension 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8480">
 to its USD 20 million Series A funding
 </a>
 round in February. The company had earmarked the funds for investing in supporting its geographic expansion, mainly to the US. 
 
</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

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

Synctera

<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.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 The company expanded its platform by launching the &ldquo;Credit Hub&rdquo; 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.&nbsp;
 
 
 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.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 October 2023, Synapse 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22521">
 laid off nearly 40% of its workforce
 </a>
 due to worsening macroeconomic conditions having unfavorable impacts on business circumstances, clients, and platforms. 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.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In January 2022, Synapse 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7574">
 partnered with TrueAccord
 
 </a>
 to offer debt collection service infrastructure for its clients.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In April 2020, the company&rsquo;s annual recurring revenue was estimated at around USD 20 million-USD 30 million 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.
 
 
 &nbsp; 
 
</div>

Synapse

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

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


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