Q&As with Eight Roads and FintechOS; European FinTech deals this week include Floodflash, Insify, Banked, Rewire, Vitesse and Seyna

I am Italian, I studied in a French Business School and I live in London since 2017. I was previously working in Investment Banking at Citi covering the FinTech sector. I co-founded an HR tech startup named DailyInternship, a talent recruiting platform with over 100k students subscribed. That experience led me very close to the Venture Capital world.. so close that I ended up in VC myself! At Eight Roads I focus on investments in Southern Europe, Nordics, and more broadly speaking in FinTech investments all across Europe. I am passionate about travels, motorbike, photography and all type of animals. A funny fact about me is that by the age of 22 I had already visited all the European capitals in motorbike.

http://www.fintechforum.de/virginia-bassano-of-eight-roads/

7 Questions with Blidarus of FintechOS

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, both at work and leisure.

I am Teo Blidarus, CEO and co-founder of FintechOS. We allow banks and insurers to create customer-centric digital financial products and services using our digital on top and lean core solutions. Many financial institutions who want to innovate quickly are underserved or ill-served by current vendors. Our low-code, modular approach augments legacy systems and allows institutions to build, test and scale new digital products and services in weeks, rather than months.

http://www.fintechforum.de/teo-blidarus-of-fintechos/

FloodFlash Raises $15M in Series A Funding

FloodFlash, a London, UK-based parametric insurance technology company that pays catastrophic flood claims within 48 hours, raised $15m in Series A funding.

The round was led by Buoyant Ventures with participation from Munich Re Ventures, Sony Financial Ventures/Global Brain, MS&AD Ventures and PropTech1, Pentech, Local Globe and Insurtech Gateway.

The company intends to use the funds to accelerate international expansion with target markets including the US, Germany, Australia, and Japan.

Led by CEO Adam Rimmer, FloodFlash is an insurance technology company that combines computer models, cloud software and internet-of-things sensors into flood cover. Customers choose a depth and payout amount for their policy. When flooding reaches the depth selected, the insurance pays out, typically within 48 hours.

FloodFlash is a registered coverholder at Lloyd’s of London and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

FloodFlash Raises $15M in Series A Funding

Amsterdam-based Insify raises €15M to simplify insurance process for European entrepreneurs and SMEs

Insify, an Amsterdam-based digital insurance platform designed for Europe’s entrepreneurs and SMEs, announced on Thursday that it has raised €15M in a Series A round of funding led by global venture firm Accel.

Other investors, including Visionaries Club, Frontline Ventures, Fly Ventures, and angel investors from European fintech companies, also participated.

The funding will primarily be used to scale operations, workforce and expand into new markets in Europe, as well as enhance its underwriting and data analytics capabilities.

Koen Thijssen, CEO and founder of Insify, says, “As an entrepreneur myself, I know firsthand that running a small business can be difficult at the best of times. The last thing business owners need is to be overextending themselves with convoluted insurance policies and dealing with excessive premiums. Insurance should be something that supports entrepreneurs, not overwhelms them. We designed our digital insurance platform with the entrepreneur and SMEs at its core.”

Amsterdam-based Insify raises €15M to simplify insurance process for European entrepreneurs and SMEs

Banked adds $20 million to the bank via Bank of America, calculates US expansion plans

Bypassing the exchange of personal details and using biometric authorisations, London fintech Banked has created a Pay by Bank infrastructure that virtually eliminates fraud. Now raising $20 million in a Series A round, the company aims to take on the US.

London’s Banked has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round. The fintech provides an account-to-account payment software platform that virtually eliminates fraud as there is no need to create an account, zero financial details are shared, payment authorisations are biometric. The investment from Bank of America is the telltale sign that the startup is now eying a trans-Atlantic expansion. To date, Banked has raised approximately $30 million.

Although the idea of Banked dates back to 2017, the startup was officially unveiled in November of 2018 and since this time steadily been building a fintech infrastructure that operates within tier 1 banks, payment providers, gateways, and tech platforms allowing them to offer a highly secure Pay by Bank option to their merchants.

https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2022/02/186942-uk-fintech-vitesse-acquires-26m-via-series-b-to-drive-digitization-of-insurance-sector/

Amsterdam-based startup wires $25 million to make insurance accessible for migrants

Tel Aviv and Amsterdam-based financial services platform Rewire is attempting to make the transactions of migrant workers easier and has raised $25 million funding for doing so

Migrant workers face unique hurdles when transferring money back to their home countries, often navigating financial bureaucracies in languages and cultures they do not understand and dealing with complicated financial obligations in multiple countries. These barriers extend to insurance, as well, where migrants face limited access to coverage, unclear policies and even discrimination.

Tel Aviv and Amsterdam-based financial services platform Rewire is attempting to change this and has raised $25 million funding. The round saw participation from Israeli insurance giant Migdal, Standard Bank of South Africa, BNP Paribas, Opera Tech Ventures, Viola Fintech, Moneta Capital Partners, Renegade Partners, OurCrowd, Yehuda Zisapel, former Yahoo Co-Founder and CEO Jerry Yang and additional angel investors.

https://tech.eu/2022/02/08/amsterdam-based-startup-wires-25-million-to-make-insurance-accessible-for-migrants/

UK Fintech Vitesse Acquires $26M via Series B to Drive Digitization of Insurance Sector

Vitesse PSP, the payment, liquidity and treasury management platform, recently announced that it has secured $26 million in Series B funding led by Prime Ventures.

The Series B investment round also includes contributions from Octopus Ventures, which led the 2020 Series A round and are one of Europe’s most active VC investors as well as Hannover Digital Investments, the corporate VC fund of HDI Group, one of Europe’s largest insurance firms. Additional participants include existing angel investors and industry giants like Ron Kalifa, OBE, former Worldpay CEO and author of the Kalifa Review and Shane Happach, CEO of Mollie, the Dutch payments unicorn.

Vitesse’s tech serves as the backbone to the financial infrastructure that “runs throughout the insurance value chain, as well as for many corporates who use Vitesse for faster, more cost-effective payments.” Its liquidity and treasury management platform is “built on top of a globally distributed payments network providing control and transparency as well as improved capital efficiency and additional investment returns for its customers.”

https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2022/02/186942-uk-fintech-vitesse-acquires-26m-via-series-b-to-drive-digitization-of-insurance-sector/

Seyna Raises €33M in Series A Funding

Seyna, a Paris, France-based insurtech company, raised €33m in Series A funding.

Pending approval by the French supervisor, this round was jointly led by Elaia Partners and White Star Capital. Existing investors (Global Founders Capital, Allianz and la Financière St James) all participated in the round. This capital brings Seyna’s total funding to €47m.

The company intends to use the funds to scale its service to all brokers and merchants in Europe.

Led by Stephen Leguillon, CEO, Seyna Seyna provides an insurance creation, management and distribution platform for brokers to protect their customers. Since obtaining its licence to operate as an insurance company in December 2019, rhe company now enables over 70 insurance brokerage and retailers, and protects over 200 000 customers.

In 2022, Seyna plans to increase the software feature set offered to brokers, expand into events and health insurance, and start hosting insurance products from other carriers.

Seyna Raises €33M in Series A Funding

Specialist VC launches €50 million fund to back startups based in the Baltics and beyond

Specialist VC (formerly known as United Angels VC) has just announced the first close of a new €50 million fund at €42 million. The main focus of the fund is on pre-seed and seed stage startups and is the first of its kind in the Baltic region to implement a dual strategy of integrating secondary transactions into a traditional venture capital fund.

Founded in 2017 by Riivo Anton and Gerri Kodres, Specialist VC is an Estonian-based tech investor that focuses on B2B, SaaS, fintech and marketplace startups in the Baltic region. So far, the firm has invested in and built long-term relationships with over 45 tech companies. Specialist VC has unicorns such as Bolt and Veriff in its portfolio, alongside stand-out startups such as Starship, COMODULE, Monese, and NFTPort.