Clim8 Invest (Clim8), the UK’s leading sustainable investing app, has closed its latest crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube, hitting £2.85 million from over 1,800 investors. 

The most recent funding round takes the total raised to £10 million following the two previous rounds, including capital secured from Channel 4 Ventures (the venture arm of the TV channel), 7percent Ventures and two previous crowdfunding campaigns.

The third fundraise coincided with the public release of the Clim8 Invest app in the app stores to allow its community of customers to also join the company’s growth journey. 

Clim8 raised over £1.26 million in the first 24 hours, smashing its £750,000 target on the first day of the crowdfund with significant demand from existing investors and app users. 

Clim8 will use the investment to execute its ambitious growth strategy, focused on growing its user base and driving product innovation. This includes the ongoing rollout of its app and the forthcoming launch of its new Junior ISA and Self Invested Personal Pension in the UK. To deliver this, Clim8 plans to expand its team over the course of 2021.

Duncan Grierson, Founder and CEO of Clim8 Invest, says: “Our customers have been asking for an opportunity to become involved in Clim8 not just as users, but also as shareholders. So we launched this campaign to give them a chance to join us as we embark on the next stage of our exciting journey to expand our offering. We’ve been amazed by the level of interest we’ve seen over the past few weeks, and I’m excited to welcome our new investors on board.”

Jonathan Keeling, VP Commercial at Crowdcube, adds: “Crowdfunding is a barometer of investor sentiment, and it is always interesting to see which high-growth businesses resonate with our community. Clim8’s vision for a more sustainable future through tangible climate impact has inspired thousands of new investors from over 50 countries to join their journey. The campaign has been a huge success, and we look forward to following their growth trajectory.

This crowdfunding round caps a transformative 12 months for Clim8. It has quadrupled its team size, including senior hires from Monese and Expedia. The Clim8 Invest app has already attracted thousands of active users, investing between £25 and £100,000.

BSO, a global pioneering infrastructure and connectivity provider, today announced that it has upgraded its main routes between Shanghai and key financial hubs in London, Hong Kong and Tokyo. The upgrade delivers the fastest connectivity to Shanghai equities and futures markets of any provider and bolsters BSO’s position as the reputed market leader in low-latency connectivity.

Shanghai hosts China's largest stock exchange and third largest in the world, establishing itself as the gateway to Chinese equities and futures markets, by upgrading these routes BSO strengthens its already established position in Asia. The upgraded routes are now live and further demonstrate BSO’s ongoing commitment to improve and extend low-latency connectivity to international traders and banks.

Michael Ourabah, CEO of BSO said: “Developing a truly reliable low-latency route into China is a major technical challenge, but being at the forefront of connecting the trading community to high-growth regions such as Shanghai is core to BSO’s service-led approach. We have brought together the most robust technology and knowledge of working in every corner of the world to supercharge these routes. This combination equips our customers with a potent blend to trade the fastest into some of the world’s highest-growth regions.”

Nucleus Commercial Finance, one of the UK’s leading fintech lenders, has today announced enhancements to its Business Cash Advance (BCA) to support more SMEs as England eases Covid-19 restrictions.

With SMEs showing high demand for finance as they prepare for post-lockdown trading, the fintech lender has made a number of changes and new additions to the BCA solution, providing businesses with more options and flexibility. The enhancements are:

• New customers can now borrow up to 175% of their monthly card volumes, rising from 150%

• Renewals have been increased to 200% from 175% of monthly card revenue

• For the first time, businesses can now receive a secured Business Cash Advance with a limit of up to £2 million

• Lending decisions are now based on one month of card statements, instead of the previous requirement of 4 months.

Commenting, Chiarg Shah, CEO of Nucleus Commercial Finance, said: “The changes to our Business Cash Advance solution arrive at a significant time for SMEs as lockdown restrictions are eased in England. We recognise that trading has been difficult for many businesses over the last 18 months, that’s why we have introduced a number of new, market-leading enhancements to provide SMEs with access to fast and flexible finance solutions they need for summer trade.

“Introducing secured facilities of up to £2 million and making lending decisions based on one month of card statements are major developments in this industry. No other lender is able to offer this support to businesses, however we have been able to make these significant enhancements due to the power of our technology.”

Bridgeweave, the Fintech building AI products to help investors make better decisions, today announced the UK launch of its AI-powered investment information app, InvestorAi. 

InvestorAi acts like an AI-powered personal investment analyst for retail investors, using algorithms trained for global equity markets. These algorithms produce powerful predictive insights that level the playing field between retail investors and professional money managers by providing the same sophisticated quality of information, in an easy-to-understand way.

InvestorAi’s algorithms cover over 4,500 stocks and 1,500 ETFs. They crunch more than 800 million calculations every day to create over 600 signals and ideas that help self-directed investors make smarter investment decisions. 

“The world has seen an explosion in new, digital retail investors entering equity markets. These investors often gravitate towards familiar name stocks like Apple, Tesla and Google, ignoring hidden opportunities, said Akshaya Bhargava, Founder and Executive Chairman of Bridgeweave. “Our algorithms analyse each stock in equal depth, giving access to the same high-quality research that has historically only been available to professional investors.”

“We’re on a crusade to close this investment information gap by giving DIY investors the same high-quality predictive market insights from a mobile app that top hedge fund managers and investment bankers get from a team of quant research analysts.” 

InvestorAi’s algorithms learn from user behaviour and market conditions and automatically tune themselves to become smarter and more personalised over time. The accuracy of each algorithm is measured every day and is shown to the user in the app.

“We believe that human plus machine is an incredibly powerful combination – we call this notion “You+AI” – and our mission is to make it easier to invest intelligently, empowering every investor to make more informed decisions”, Bhargava continues.

InvestorAi is currently in the process of integrating its innovative technology, using APIs, with some major UK brokerage firms to ensure a seamless end-to-end experience for its customers.

The app offers a wide range of intelligent features that can be used by all types of investors, whether they are occasional investors, regular investors or high-volume day traders. Once registered on the app, a user can: 

• Look for investment Ideas: These are machine generated predictive ideas, ranging from as little as 3 day ideas, to 30 day ideas to longer term signals on value stocks.
• Discover ideas on their own: The algorithms present a curated universe of stocks and ETFs and allow the user to personalise what they see, using a wide range of criteria.
• Compare stocks before buying: The “Play” algorithm allows the user to compare any two stocks in a visual way, across multiple criteria or against the Index
• Intelligent monitoring: This algo enables a user to monitor individual stocks and thematic baskets, set up custom alerts for profit or loss limits, find similar stocks, see past signals, or be alerted with a new signal on a stock.

The InvestorAi app is available at a flat monthly subscription price of £14.99 per month, with discounts available for quarterly and annual subscriptions, giving everyone access to the same high-quality investment information, no matter how much they actually invest. Early adopters will access a 15-day free trial to get comfortable and start investing smarter.

Download the InvestorAi app for iOS or Android here: https://t.co/CYeXGfL7Uq?amp=1

Barclaycard Payments today announces it has agreed to join Mastercard Track™ Business Payment Service, making new services available to Barclaycard Payments’ customers later this year.

The innovative, open loop network delivers value to both Buyers and Suppliers by simplifying and automating the set up and execution of business payments using multiple payment rails and enhancing the exchange of payments-related data. In turn, it enables Buyers and Suppliers to utilise the best available option for paying each-and-every invoice.

The agreement builds on Barclaycard Payments and Mastercard’s strong existing relationship in Commercial cards. The two businesses have recently signed a new multi-year agreement, ensuring that together they can continue to deliver outstanding commercial payment services to businesses around the world.

Individual companies connect to Mastercard Track™ Business Payment Service through a ‘Payment Agent’, who assists them in getting the best value from the service. Highlighting its position as a leading global payment business that helps merchants both make and take payments, Barclaycard Payments has agreed to join Track as both a Buyers and a Suppliers Payment Agent. This enables corporate customers to solve both Payables and Receivables challenges – meaning painstaking manual reconciliation, and lengthy delays in allocating cash, will become a thing of the past.

The challenges that result from manual processes are highlighted by research from Barclaycard Payments* revealing that more than four in 10 (44 per cent) businesses seek greater automation when it comes to payment processes. Nearly a third (32 per cent) also say they would like to add functionality that automatically matches supplier invoices against purchase orders – both of which participation in Track will accelerate.

Marc Pettican, President, Barclaycard Payments commented: “We are delighted to be building on our successful partnership with Mastercard. This announcement further strengthens our relationship and I look forward to continuing to drive transformational change across our industry to benefit businesses. What excites me most about today’s B2B payments landscape is the opportunity to help save time, money and working capital – especially now when it is most important – and our partnership with Mastercard is another step forward toward that goal.”

Mark Barnett, President, Mastercard Europe commented: “Barclaycard has been a longstanding partner and we are delighted to be expanding our relationship further, offering new services to make B2B payments work harder, faster and smarter. We have a mutual goal to give businesses a better way to maintain control, manage cash flow and be more operationally efficient – all things that are incredibly important for companies navigating today’s economic challenges.”

James Anderson, Executive Vice President of Commercial and B2B Solutions at Mastercard said: “There is a paradigm shift happening in the B2B payments landscape. Our partnership with Barclaycard Payments will work at scale to give businesses a multi-rail experience to manage working capital, get better quality information, improved payment security. We are honoured that Barclaycard Payments has chosen to work with Mastercard as they deliver on their mission to make B2B payments work better.”

Modernising B2B Payments Through a Multi-Rail Strategy

In November 2020, Mastercard announced its commitment to continue delivering on its multi-rail strategy with the addition of Account-to-Account payments functionality to Track Business Payment Service in the United States. Global expansion of Account-to-Account services and cross-border payments are forthcoming.

Universo, one of Portugal’s leading financial institutions, with more than 900K cards issued, announced a partnership with open banking platform Token to improve account top ups for Universo’s flagship credit card product. The deal is part of Universo’s strategic plan to digitally transform its services and marks their first partnership with an open banking solution. Now, customers of its Cartão Universo will be able to easily load funds into their accounts to increase their monthly spending limits with a click of a button.

Owned by Sonae, a multinational company managing a diverse portfolio of businesses in retail, financial services, technology, shopping centres and telecommunications, Cartão Universo has over 500,000 digital customers. The Cartão Universo card product brings together all loyalty and payment cards from Sonae’s brands, together with the advantage of a universal Mastercard without any fees. Cartão Universo also allows the customer, for each purchase, and directly at payment terminals, to choose between a set of repayment options: pay at the end of the month, and instalments across 3, 6 and 12 payments.

The partnership with Token streamlines payments for Cartão Universo’s  ‘end of the month’ option,  which now allows users to effortlessly transfer money onto their cards to increase their monthly spending limits. Before teaming up with Token, Cartão Universo’s payments process was more complicated, as users had to make transfers using IBANs or bank references. Token’s technology makes the experience much smoother. Now, users don’t have to use a different app or go to their home bank to affect the transfer; they can move money more securely, completing the process in only two clicks.

Sara Raquel Pinto, Digital Solutions Manager at Universo, says: "Token is the first open banking platform they have used to improve their products’ functionalities. “We decided to partner with Token because they presented the solution to one of our biggest issues, while providing the best user experience we could find in the market”, she said. “We are always looking for easy solutions to improve the engagement of our clients in a digital world.” 

Luis Costa, Core Solution Manager at Universo, added: “Token’s API connectivity makes the integration of the payments systems with our functionalities really easy and smooth. Working with simple APIs and sandbox environments allows us to have the correct vision of the final solution.”

Founded in 2016, Token empowers enterprises to drive the shift from traditional payment methods to faster, lower cost and more secure account-to-account payments. It currently processes live transactions through over 1,000 PSD2 APIs in 14 European countries. By providing API connectivity to thousands of European banks, Token delivers rich open banking payments functionality to merchants, PSPs and banks. It started operating in Portugal in 2020 and is connected to over 20 banks in the country.

Todd Clyde, CEO of Token, said: “We are delighted to be working with Universo to help improve their customers’ experience with Cartão Universo. This partnership is instrumental to increasing Token’s presence in the Portuguese market as we continue to build on the success of our products across Europe, and solidify Token’s position as the go-to open banking payments platform in the region.”

Token’s complete open banking payments toolkit enables a range of open banking payment use cases, from funding an account to paying bills, paying off debt via loan or credit card repayments, and making account-to-account e-commerce payments. Complimentary open data use-cases include streamlined customer onboarding, access to rich transaction and account data, accounting package integration, credit risk analysis and cash flow management. Earlier in 2021, Token announced USD 15 million in Series B funding, with investment from SBI Investment Co. Ltd. and Sony Innovation Fund by IGV as well as from existing investors Octopus Ventures, EQT Ventures and Opera Tech Ventures: the venture arm of BNP Paribas.

365 Business Finance has formed a new partnership with credit solutions provider CRIF Realtime, the creator of Credit Passport, as part of its mission to assist SMEs with flexible funding and services.

Since the easing of lockdown restrictions from April of this year*, 365 Business Finance has experienced a 22% increase in the number of enquiries received for merchant cash advances from UK based small to medium sized businesses. With this latest fintech partnership from the London-based financier, it has opened up access to fast, flexible funding to even more SMEs and Credit Passport customers over the last month.

Credit Passport helps SMEs navigate the financial system and access funding by improving their business credit score. Clients will now be able to apply for merchant cash advances, which can be used for any business purpose. 

Glen Keller, Chief Product Officer at CRIF Realtime, said: "With Credit Passport, it has always been our mission to bring the best support and innovation to the SME sector, allowing businesses to create resilience, remove friction and enable growth, especially in these challenging times. That is why I’m delighted that by partnering with 365 Business Finance we can allow our Credit Passport customers to realise their funding needs in a truly simple and clear way, even if they have already received government backed loans or grants. It’s the perfect complement to our highly curated business support service.”

Managing Director at 365 Business Finance, Andrew Raphaely, commented:  “Through this latest fintech partnership from our strategic partnerships team, we will be able to help even more SMEs achieve growth after what has been such a difficult time during the pandemic. It’s always hugely rewarding to support companies when they require just that extra little bit of financial assistance which can then go on to make a big difference to their businesses in the long term.”

Credit Passport and 365 Business Finance are working with UK based SMEs that accept card payments, offering a seamless real-time credit score and merchant cash advance application process, as this form of unsecured business funding for £5,000 up to £200,000 is continuing to increase in popularity.

Merchant cash advances are often utilised by businesses to ease cash flow and assist with business expansion, along with the refurbishment of premises. Repayments are taken as a small percentage of debit and credit card sales, with no fixed terms or APR and funding can be approved within just 24 hours. 

For further information on how merchant cash advances can be applied for and how they can assist SMEs, visit www.365businessfinance.co.uk.

To find out how SMEs can access their real-time business credit score, visit www.creditpassport.com.

CoinSwap Space, a decentralized exchange on the Binance Smart Chain, this week announced the option to stake their native CSS token and earn rewards in ADA. This new feature, along with the ability to earn rewards in ETH and LINK, is one of a trio of staking options for CSS that have recently been launched. These new staking offer users rewards in major crypto tokens to allow them to minimise risk through the volatility the market is currently seeing.

CoinSwap was launched this year on April 30th with a comprehensive suite of DeFi options. Since then, the decentralized exchange has attracted new users through its ease of use and its low transaction fees which, at $0.20, are even less than the already very affordable PancakeSwap. Similar to PancakeSwap, CoinSwap utilizes the Automated Market Maker (AMM) model which allows its users to add capital to liquidity pools in return for native CSS tokens. 

Since the launch, CoinSwap has seen many new pairs, new features, and new staking options launched on the DEX. The goal of CoinSwap is to supply a myriad of different DeFi features on one easy to use interface and in doing so make DeFi more accessible to the average retail investor.

CoinSwap has several features that users can utilize to make interacting with deFi easier and quicker. For example, CoinSwap offers a mass harvest and mass stake option. These features allow CoinSwap users to instantly harvest all of the returns across all of their liquidity pools and either send them directly to their wallet or compound them by staking them on CoinSwap. As well as being easier and taking just a couple of clicks to do, this is also cheaper as all of the tokens are collected via just one transaction on the BSC. 

The recent volatility in the crypto market has been particularly hard on small cap tokens. While the major tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum are currently a little above 40% of their all time high, some smaller tokens have seen losses of nearly 97%. This is why CoinSwap is offering rewards in LINK, ETH and now ADA. The long term viability of these tokens should protect them from the heaviest losses. 

Currently, as crypto might be entering a bear market, a lot of investors are seeking a place to store funds for the long term. Having the option to earn rewards in these tokens makes CoinSwap worthy of consideration for this long term storage. Another point that makes CoinSwap viable in the long-term is that CSS tokens, unlike PancakeSwaps native CAKE tokens, have a hard cap. The hard cap of 19,999,999 together with the fact that the community can decide every step of the way for the CSS to become more of a deflationary, should provide some stability through a bear market. 

CoinSwap is also a rare case where as already before launch it got audited by Certik, one of the most trusted security technology companies in the blockchain industry. Certik carried out security audits of CoinSwap’s smart contracts by testing them with an industry-leading Formal Verification Tool. The audit verifies the ability for CoinSwap’s liquidity pools and staking pools to stand up to hacks. 

Stax by Fattmerchant, the industry’s only complete all-in-one solution for managing everything in the payments ecosystem, today announces its partnership with PHA-Web, a fully integrated Public Housing, Section 8 and Financial Management software designed specifically for housing authorities. The partnership will enable PHA-Web users to accept credit card and ACH payments in an all-in-one platform efficiently and safely with contactless acceptance of rent and all applicable fees.

​​“We’re continuing to diversify our roster of SaaS partners at a rapid pace and expanding into the government housing realm is the latest example of Stax Connect’s versatility,” said Sal Rehmetullah, president and founder of Stax. “We are proud to partner with PHA-Web to offer customers an integrated solution that will allow them to safely accept contactless rent payments while getting paid faster and seamlessly managing their housing authority in an integrated, easy to use platform.”

PHA-Web provides housing authorities an affordable, web-based management solution to manage all aspects of PHA operations. By joining forces with Stax, users of the PHA-Web platform have the capabilities to get paid faster and offer safer payment options to their customers, while also speeding up the signup process for net-new and existing customers.

“Our partnership with Stax allows us to provide housing authorities with a contactless solution to collect rent payments, creating a more accessible experience for PHA-Web users and their tenants,” said Scott Gleason, President of PHA-Web. “With payments powered by Stax, we are helping housing authorities spend less time on rent collection and more time managing their property, adding convenience to their day and allowing them to get paid faster.”

For more information on Stax please visit, staxpayments.com, and to learn more about PHA-Web, please visit https://www.pha-web.com/public/.