After 340% increase in revenues, SPG raises $34m Series A to capitalise on the rapid digital transformation in the legal industry, and to fuel early growth in the ecommerce and marketplace industry.

The UK based FinTech group, SPG that owns and operates Shieldpay and Paycast, has raised a $34 million dollar (£25 million pounds) Series A that includes strategic funding from Mastercard and Marqeta. Other significant Investors in SPG include Elliott Management, CreditEase and Techstars.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in London, the group was formed to answer a simple question; how can we help two people who don’t know one another to transact securely? The bigger challenge that underpins this question is that many transactions, for consumers and businesses, are neither simple nor straightforward. High-value goods, complex services and time-sensitive deals demand greater protection and security. On a mission to protect the payments that matter the most, SPG set about modernising and simplifying the traditional escrow payment process to bring trust back to transactions.

Shieldpay, SPG’s first business, gained immediate traction in the professional and financial services sectors. The company’s digital platform offers organisations a simplified approach to their complex payments. By virtue of its sophisticated transaction management platform, Shieldpay has enabled their clients to replace paper-based, time-consuming and risky payment processes and ease their regulatory reporting. The business works with a range of clients, from top 100 law firms and sole practitioners to lenders and technology companies. Their legal clients utilise the platform for a wide variety of payment use cases including class action lawsuits, M&A and real estate.

“Last year we saw particular demand from the legal sector as firms embraced new technologies and ways of working. Lawyers no longer want or have the time to take on the administrative and regulatory burden of processing payments internally and running client accounts. Our Series A funding will enable the business to capitalise on this demand and scale substantially”, says Peter Janes, founder and ceo of SPG.

The group’s latest business, Paycast, is a payment engine for marketplaces, ecommerce and platforms that specialises in facilitating and protecting high-value and time-sensitive transactions. Leveraging the group platform and working alongside acquirers and gateways, Paycast enables our customers to hold funds in escrow between buyers and sellers until the conditions of sale have been completed. Paycast’s strategic partnership with Mastercard will create a valuable ecosystem for marketplaces, buyers and sellers in pursuit of a bold ambition to facilitate a new era of trust online.

“We are thrilled to be supporting Paycast on the next step of their journey, having worked closely with them since their early days in the Mastercard Start Path programme,” said Scott Abrahams, senior vice President, business development & FinTech, Mastercard UK & Ireland. “From our technology and data assets to our global ecosystem of partners and dedicated programs, we are leveraging our tools and expertise to iterate with Paycast at every stage, transforming bold ideas together.”

To date SPG has processed over $3 billion dollars of payments for its clients and experienced a surge in business during the pandemic that saw revenues grow by over 360% in the last year. At this early stage of growth for Shieldpay and Paycast, this is a powerful validation that SPG is providing a timely and valuable solution to both businesses and consumers.

The fresh capital into SPG will scale Shieldpay to fully capitalise on the demand in the professional services market, and also fuel Paycast in its early stage of growth in bringing our payments platform to a consumer audience.