Paytrix, the London-headquartered fintech that simplifies global payments for high-growth businesses, announces that it has raised US$ 18.3 million in Series A funding to drive product development and international expansion.  

Through one platform, one contract and one API, Paytrix’ payments curation solution provides access to the best payment infrastructure around the world — reducing the inefficiency, cost and complexity of international payments. In contrast, existing international payments solutions typically require businesses to source, negotiate and maintain a minimum of 10 to 15 partners, contracts and APIs. 

Unusual Ventures, Motive Partners and Bain Capital Ventures co-led the Series A investment. Bain Capital Ventures participated in an earlier funding round in May 2022 with Fin Capital, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Hambro Perks, ClockTower Ventures, The Fintech Fund, D4 Ventures and a number of notable angel investors all also participating in both rounds. 

Coming amid a global economic slowdown and a slump in investment into the fintech space, the size of the investment reflects confidence in the ability of the Paytrix solution to solve an acute business problem and underlines the scale of the opportunity. 

Aran Brown, CEO and Co-Founder of Paytrix, said: “High-potential companies struggle to cope with large volumes of international payments and there is a huge gap in the market — at one end you have inefficient local solutions; at the other, you have the tier-one global providers, inaccessible to all but the world’s biggest businesses. Businesses have no option but to stitch together a costly and complex patchwork of service providers and this is the pain point that Paytrix is stepping in to solve.”

Brown continued: “People have been telling us that this is the worst time to raise funding in 20 years. Given that backdrop, we’re delighted to have attracted such high-calibre investors. They bring a wealth of experience in fintech and e-commerce, which will be invaluable as we build out the next phase of operations.” 

Targeted at high-growth businesses, Paytrix’ global payments solution is of particular relevance to online marketplaces. Analysts predict that up to 70% of online sales will happen on marketplaces by 2025. But many marketplaces face a number of obstacles in seizing this opportunity — such as inadequate regulatory capabilities, a lack of internal expertise or the commercial relationships needed to evolve into a global platform from a regional one. By providing access to best-in-class payments providers around the world through one API, Paytrix’ curation layer eradicates these barriers.   

Paytrix currently has a fully in-house engineering team across multiple locations and a growing team in Ireland, which includes customer support and heads of finance, IT and operations. To fuel expansion across Europe, Ireland will become Paytrix’s centre of global operations. Paytrix is actively hiring, particularly for business development roles, to ensure it can scale smoothly and quickly. 

The Paytrix senior leadership team has deep industry experience in financial services, fintech and payments. Co-Founder and CEO Aran Brown contributed to the growth and sale of Travelex and Skrill to corporate buyers. Co-founder and CPO Eddie Harrison built market-leading global payment products at Western Union and Travelex. CFO David Sola previously served as Managing Director at firms including Houlihan Lokey and UBS, and was Partner at Softbank. The team also includes CTO Ed Addario, who held the same role at Currencycloud, and Chief Compliance Officer Mike Southgate, who previously served in a similar position at Google. 

Quotes from investors 

Lars Albright, General Partner at Unusual Ventures, said: "Paytrix has assembled a world-class team with deep expertise in payments, fintech and financial services. Not only does the team have a strong track record, they have a powerful vision for the future of global payments. We look forward to deeply supporting the Paytrix team as they build out their payments curation service to deliver on that compelling vision.”

Ramin Niroumand, Partner at Motive Ventures, said: "As ever more commerce moves online and businesses look to expand their global reach, we see a considerable market opportunity for Paytrix. There is a pressing need for best-in-class international payments infrastructure that can be easily integrated and managed without requiring huge specialist teams. Paytrix is forging something truly unique and we at Motive are thrilled to be part of their journey."

Matt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, said: "Paytrix is addressing a critical need for businesses operating in an international marketplace. The complexity and cost of cross-border payments has long been a major pain point for companies looking to scale, and Paytrix’ solution neatly tackles these challenges. We believe there is a global need for this kind of payments infrastructure and we're excited to continue our support of Paytrix as they expand their solution to businesses around the world."

Xelidoni has chosen to implement award-winning software from Wolters Kluwer Finance, Risk & Regulatory Reporting (FRR), having selected the OneSumX for Risk Management solution.

Xelidoni uses blockchain technology to create a more efficient house rental process and address the issues associated with current rent deposit models. Its business model enables tenants to earn interest income on their deposits and streamline administrative processes for a faster, more secure, and more convenient rental experience.

OneSumX for Risk Management gives banks and financial institutions advanced ways to measure, mitigate and manage financial and regulatory risk, featuring a fully scalable, dedicated data management platform that provides analytics and reporting with speed and accuracy.

“Xelidoni uses smart contracts to connect to our rental agency customers’ Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems,” said Joana Morais, Founder and CEO of Xelidoni. “We were looking for a strong, industry-recognized risk management solution to support our model, helping ensure that the data transfers between those agencies and Xelidoni are extremely fast and secured. With its industry-leading technology, Wolters Kluwer provides us a superior level of capabilities and domain expertise, enabling us to leverage the benefits of the blockchain and generate interest income to reward our clients’ tenants.”

“This arrangement builds on Wolters Kluwer’s longstanding strength in cultivating deep customer relationships, driving continuous engagement, and reinforcing our purpose in being a responsive and trusted partner to the clients we serve,” said Kris Van Bavel, Managing Director of Wolters Kluwer FRR for the EMEA region. “We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with Xelidoni to deliver a risk management solution that will complement their offerings and support their long-term growth strategy.”

Wolters Kluwer FRR, which is part of the company’s Corporate Performance & ESG division, is a global market leader in the provision of integrated regulatory compliance and reporting solutions. It supports regulated financial institutions in meeting their obligations to external regulators and their own board of directors.

DoiT International (DoiT), global provider of cloud technology and consulting services, and Tenity (formerly known as F10), a global innovation ecosystem and early-stage investor for the financial industry, with hubs in Switzerland, Singapore, Nordics and Baltics, and Spain, are forging a partnership to enable accelerated growth for Tenity’s portfolio companies.

Through this partnership, DoiT will become one of Tenity's trusted cloud partners, providing Tenity’s incubated startups, both current and alumni, with round-the-clock access to best-in-class cloud technology and services on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure.

Tenity is a startup incubator and accelerator with a focus on fintech and insurtech startups across Europe and Asia. Since its inception in 2015, more than 250 early and growth stage startups have participated in its programs, with alumni including names such as Relio, Oper, Stableton, Vestr, Yokoy or Keyrock. Tenity has attracted over USD 370 Mio. in funding and has an extensive partner network, including UBS, Julius Baer and SIX. The company has recently announced the first closing of the Tenity Incubation Fund I.

DoiT is a leading provider of cloud technology and consulting services, and an award-winning partner for both AWS and Google Cloud. Founded in 2011, DoiT is a 8x Google Cloud Partner of the Year and a strategic partner for Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services, and a Microsoft Gold Partner. A fast-growth unicorn scale-up itself, DoiT supports thousands of digital native companies around the world. With a team of over 500 employees, DoiT operates in nearly 70 countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, United States, Australia, Israel, Singapore or India.

Through this important partnership, Tenity will unlock access for its incubated startups and alumni to over 150 senior cloud experts at DoiT, who will offer training workshops and consultancy in building cloud-based products and optimising cloud costs. DoiT will provide the fintechs with expert knowledge on cloud cost optimization, implementation of built-in sophisticated Big Data and Machine Learning (ML) services as well as Cloud Marketplace Integration and GTM support. This will enable Tenity to play an ever more active role in stimulating growth for its portfolio companies, helping them to accelerate go-to-market strategies and opening up the paths to growth, scale and revenue.

DoiT is leveraging the partnership with Tenity to further drive its growth in the EMEA region, with a particular focus in Switzerland and Austria, where it has enjoyed rapid growth. DoiT supports digital native technology companies in various industries, including a broadening range of fintech businesses across the globe, with prominent examples such as US-based Current, German neo bank N26, or Israeli-based eToro, one of Europe’s largest trading platforms.

“The partnership with Tenity will enable its portfolio companies to accelerate growth and reshape the customer experience, by harnessing data and cloud technology to improve decision-making, build high-performing cloud-based products and optimise their cloud costs. DoiT looks forward to supporting Tenity’s innovative ecosystem of fintech and insurtech startups on their cloud journey. We are excited to stimulate their growth by providing best-in-class technical support and consulting”, says Marc Stolz, Partner Development Manager EMEA at DoiT.

“We are delighted to team up with DoiT. The partnership enables our portfolio startup companies to leverage the latest cloud technologies, stay ahead of the curve and take advantage of new business opportunities”, adds Marc Hauser, Head of Tenity Europe.

Elon Musk, along with a group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives, is calling for a six-month pause in the development of systems more powerful than OpenAI's newly launched GPT-4. The open letter, issued by the non-profit Future of Life Institute and signed by over 1,000 individuals, cites potential risks to society and humanity as reasons for the call to action.

The letter urges a pause in advanced AI development until shared safety protocols are developed, implemented, and audited by independent experts. The signatories stress the need for greater caution in AI development to ensure that the benefits of AI are maximized, while its potential dangers are minimized. The group believes that an ethical approach to AI development must be grounded in a commitment to safety and security for all.

Fintech scaleup credolab, the leading provider of bank-grade digital scorecards and data enrichment solutions, has announced a transnational partnership with Provenir, a global leader in AI-powered data and decisioning software. The partnership aims to unlock the potential of behavioural data for better and faster credit risk, marketing, and fraud detection decisions for financial organizations, ultimately increasing the financial inclusion of their customers.

Credolab's mobile SDK will be available in the Provenir Data Marketplace, a comprehensive ecosystem that provides organizations with a one-stop data hub for Open Banking, KYC/KYB, fraud, credit risk, verifications, social media, collections, affordability, and more.

Credolab's technology is built on proprietary Machine-Learning algorithms that analyze over 10 million behavioural features to make a predictive credit risk score, marketing predictions or fraud alerts without processing any personal data. It enables banks and neobanks, digital lenders, BNPL players, and any industry at the intersection with financial services to gain clear and measurable benefits by delivering outcomes such as up to a 40% predictivity uplift, up to a 22% drop in fraud costs, and up to a 32% increased approval rate.

"Credolab believes that traditional lending processes exclude many people because they target applicants with pre-existing credit history, typically in the middle- and high-income groups. Our aim is to make credit available to all by giving lenders access to a previously untapped, highly predictive source of behavioural data," said Peter Barcak, CEO and Founder of credolab.

The collaboration between credolab and Provenir has already contributed to an increase in financial inclusion in LATAM, where only 42% of adults in the region declared they had access to financial services in 2021. The new partnership opens up even more prospects on a global scale.

"We are thrilled to collaborate with credolab following the excellent results joint customers have achieved in selected markets over the past few years.  As part of the Provenir Marketplace, more financial companies and digital lenders worldwide will have access to behavioural data through a single API, enabling them to make more precise and predictive decisions. This will ultimately increase access to financial services, improve the customer experience, and promote financial inclusion," said Kim Minor, Provenir’s Senior Vice President, Global Marketing.

PatentRenewal.com, a rapidly growing Danish SaaS scale-up raised €2M from Finnish early-stage SaaS Investor Vendep Capital. The company is already one of the market leaders in the Nordics when it comes to renewing patents, and with the help of the investment they aim to continue their journey in expanding in the IP industry. 

A growing $6B IP renewals market 

Different types of IP, including patents (which could be a design, process, improvement, or physical invention such as the machine), need to be renewed every year for a maximum of 20 years in most countries. 

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, global patent application numbers started booming during COVID-19, and have continually increased in the last years, creating even a greater need for both patent owners looking for a company to trust their important assets with, and IP renewal service providers to handle them. Most inventors, SMEs, and enterprises with patents still use law firms to this day to complete this simple transactional process. 

Making patent renewals as easy as possible 

PatentRenewal.com has developed an easy-to-use digital platform where patent owners can renew their patents within a few clicks, follow their renewals process in real-time, see every different cost categories associated with their renewals, can do forecasts, and keep track of their documents in one place, all this, for a fraction of the usual market price. 

“We have seen our IP owner friends struggle with their patent renewals for years, and this made us realize that the whole IP industry is very old-fashioned, ironically lacking innovation, with no digitalization regarding the processes. We want to liberate these innovators and companies by offering them a transparent, easy, and reliable alternative for a very affordable price. Who wouldn’t want to upgrade their current renewal setup, especially if they can cut costs at the same time?” says Mads Viborg Jørgensen, CEO and co-founder of PatentRenewal.com. 

Gaining traction and taking the business to the next level 

"We are thrilled to invest in PatentRenewal.com, where the founders' entrepreneurial background and the support of a strong network of industry experts create a strong foundation for success. Their disruptive approach to revolutionizing a stagnant industry is bold and refreshing, and we are excited to be a part of this innovative journey," says Jupe Arala, General Partner at Vendep Capital. 

PatentRenewal.com doubled its company size in just a year, and in 2023 they are planning to expand their business development and sales team to enter new Western markets, adding new hires to the team in key positions with the goal of becoming the Nr. 1 renewal service provider internationally. 

Zone (formerly Appzone), Africa’s first regulated layer-1 blockchain network for payments, and ThetaRay, a leading provider of AI-powered transaction monitoring technology, today announced they will collaborate to implement ThetaRay’s cloud-based SONAR solution to monitor and screen Zone’s transactions in Nigeria for illicit activities and sanctions violations. 

Headquartered in Lagos, Zone serves large commercial banks, payment fintechs, digital banks, and OFIs with real-time, low-cost settlement of both fiat and digital currencies for domestic and cross-border payments.

Through the agreement, ThetaRay will provide Zone the SaaS-based SONAR AI solution that can detect and prevent the earliest signs of sophisticated attempts to launder money or circumvent financial sanctions and watchlists. The solution will help Zone ensure it fully complies with regulatory AML requirements and increase its growth opportunities by providing a trustworthy and secure service.

The new collaboration highlights ThetaRay’s expansion in Nigeria’s fintech payments market.

Zone is Africa’s first decentralized or peer-to-peer payment network based on blockchain technology, which allows payment transactions without dependence on intermediary switches. The decentralized architecture and the underlying technology enhance reliability, eliminate customer disputes, reduce the cost of operations, and automate back-office reconciliation. The network is a true web-scale infrastructure with a capacity for transaction processing throughput of over 50,000 transactions per second.

“We are thrilled with our partnership with ThetaRay, a collaboration that represents a significant step forward in our vision to become one global network to pay anyone, through any means, in any currency, in the most efficient and secure means possible,” said Elendu Uche, Co-Founder/Chief Operating Officer.

“By integrating with ThetaRay, we have enhanced our security measures and improved our regulatory compliance whilst providing faster transaction processing for our users within our decentralized payment network. We look forward to working even more closely with ThetaRay to continue delivering frictionless operations and reliable transactions to our customers.”

As Africa’s largest economy with a population of 200 million, Nigeria is home to Africa’s largest fintech ecosystem and more than 200 fintech companies. The country’s youthful population has driven Nigeria’s thriving fintech sector, increased smartphone penetration, and a focused regulatory drive to increase financial inclusion and cashless payments, according to the McKinsey research firm. The booming fintech market is helping improve financial inclusion in Nigeria, where more than 40 per cent of the population is unbanked. 

“Zone is leading Nigerian fintech innovation with a platform capable of revolutionizing the financial system through inclusive services that positively impact people’s lives,” said Mark Gazit, CEO of ThetaRay. “By deploying sophisticated AI technology to monitor and screen payments, Zone will embed the trust into its services, enabling it to grow volume, revenues and ecosystem partners.”

ThetaRay’s award-winning SONAR solution is based on a proprietary form of AI, artificial intelligence intuition, that replaces human bias, giving the system the power to recognize anomalies and find unknowns outside of normal behaviour, including entirely new typologies. It enables fintechs and banks to implement a risk-based approach to effectively identify suspicious activity and create a full picture of customer identities, including across complex, cross-border transaction paths. This allows the rapid discovery of both known and unknown money laundering threats.

ThetaRay and Zone will host a customer event: "AI in Preventing Financial Crime: A New Normality" in Lagos on May 4, for executives in the banking and fintech industry of Nigeria.

Insurance is evolving at record pace, and carriers are faced with the challenge of keeping up with changing times. As Mary Boyd, President & CEO of Plymouth Rock Assurance Corporation puts it, “Insurance risk doesn’t disappear, it simply changes form – and over the next decade, we all need to ready our businesses for material change”. The need for future-proofing insurance has become more critical than ever, and carriers must adapt their strategies to remain relevant in the industry.

That’s why Reuters Events has brought together some of the most prominent industry CEOs to share their insights and honest perspectives on how industry leaders can future-proof their organizations and the insurance industry as a whole. 

Click here to access the report – “Insuring Tomorrow: CEO Insights on Future-Proofing Insurance”

Featuring opinions on industry challenges and predictions for future trends from leading executives:

• Jasmine M. Jirele, President & CEO, Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America 

• Timothy NeCastro, President & CEO, Erie Insurance 

• Jack Howell, CEO Zurich Global Ventures, Zurich Insurance Group 

• Mary Boyd, President & CEO, Plymouth Rock Assurance Corporation 

• Bill Martin, President & CEO, Plymouth Rock Home Assurance 

Giving their honest answers to questions such as: 

1. In today’s challenging market, there are many competing challenges for carriers – what's the most pressing issue for you? 

2. We’re seeing the word ‘customer-centric’ more and more on the conference circuit. What does this mean to you? 

3. How do you see the future of work unfolding in the next decade?

4. How can carriers address the complexities of legacy technology within their operations whilst modernizing the customer experience?

5. What investments are you prioritizing to appeal to the next generation of talent?

6. As we look to the next 10 years, where do you see significant growth opportunities for the insurance industry? 

Click here to download the full report now – delivered straight to your inbox!

Interested in these topics? Check out our upcoming conference: Reuters Events: The Future of Insurance USA 2023 (June 27-28, Chicago) – where these CEOs and many more senior insurance executives will gather to ensure people, processes, and products are fully optimized in the face of global disruption. For more information, visit https://events.reutersevents.com/insurance/future-of-insurance-usa or email alexandra.wilson@thomsonreuters.com.

New research from American Express finds that over half of UK finance leaders (55%) expect to increase their team’s headcount in the coming years, but the skills and capabilities they are seeking are evolving, in line with a desire to improve the finance function’s efficiency and performance. 

The research, based on a survey of senior finance decision-makers at larger UK businesses, uncovered a focus on improving their finance team’s data and digital capabilities, with more than half (56%) saying that these skill sets will become more important over the next 2-5 years. One-third (33%) agreed that better digital skills are key to improving the running of the finance function. The research found three quarters (74%) of UK finance leaders feel it is getting harder to find and recruit the right talent, suggesting that resourcing challenges may lie ahead. 

When it comes to improving the finance function’s performance, the survey found that a majority (85%) of respondents believe more accurate forecasting is critical to success; almost two-fifths (38%) cited this as the activity which takes up most of their time and resource. ‘Reporting and control’ was ranked the second most time-consuming activity (36%), followed by strategic planning and financial analysis (34%). Taking these factors into consideration, over eight in 10 (83%) respondents said access to better quality data was vital to bolstering their finance function’s organisational impact. 

Despite these challenges and against the backdrop of a challenging economy, finance leaders are still upbeat about their performance and resilience, with an overwhelming majority (88%) feeling confident their team can respond well to unexpected events.

Stacey Sterbenz, General Manager, UK Commercial at American Express, said: “With calls from finance leaders for greater digital and analytical skills to interpret and act on organisational data, it’s clear that the finance function is evolving in response to new challenges. As a result, the importance of having the right business partners in place has never been greater; those who can make sense of complex data and how it relates to a changing and complex external landscape will be better positioned for ongoing success.”

A new American Express whitepaper unpacks further insights on the priorities of finance leaders and how they view the performance of their function, along with the growing influence Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is playing when it comes to spending decisions.

Apple has finally launched its buy now, pay let service in the US, enabling users to split purchases into four equal payments.