Gillian Roche-Saunders

#Fintech #VCNews: 🎉Gideon Valkin, former Monzo Bank and ClearScore leader, investor, and entrepreneur, has just launched Andrena Ventures! 🌟 📈 It is a $12 million solo GP fund, supported by tech’s top founders and #VC leaders. 💼💰 👍 The fund has already reached its first close, with plans for a final close later this year. 📆 💡 This fresh fund aims to back Europe’s most promising #fintech founders, empowering the next wave of tech giants at pre-seed and seed stages. 🌐 Also, Gideon has also announced the fund’s inaugural #investment in Nustom, an #AI-powered software-building startup. 🚀 More details on Andrena Ventures and its mission: https://lnkd.in/g-DsJvdY #venturecapital #vcfunding #news #technews #uktech #investment #fundingnews #technology #investment Sayula Kirby Taavet Hinrikus Sten Tamkivi Filip Felician Dames Christian Meermann Sophia Bendz David Haber Firat Ileri

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BIG NEWS: Upvest is now authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority! 🇬🇧💂‍♀️ This milestone opens new doors for us, enabling us to support fintech and enterprise partners in the UK market. What does this mean for you? 🔓 UK-based fintechs, banks, and wealth managers: launch or migrate your investment offering quickly and seamlessly using Upvest's investment infrastructure. 📈 Access to a diverse instrument universe: offer fractional stocks and ETFs in multiple currencies through our Investment API. You can count on a steady stream of new and more instruments to be added soon. 🛠️ Flexible operating models: whether you prefer to leverage our licences or bring your own, we've got you covered. Ready to take your investment offerings to the next level with Upvest? Connect with one of our experts today to learn how we can help you unlock the future of investments in the UK. P.S. With a new office in London and a growing team, we’re expanding our presence in the UK. Interested in joining the Upvest team? Let’s talk!

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"FinTechs are a very important piece of the UK's Growth story in the next 5-10 years. Successful FinTech businesses will generate taxation revenue for the country that is multiples of the historical tax incentives received to attract Founders to establish their business in the UK. "In a joint letter to the Chancellor sent today, we highlight the risks to the economy of compromising these well-understood tax rates and incentives and we urge the government not to upset these established structures" 💬 Janine Hirt, CEO of Innovate Finance Rt Hon Rachel Reeves HM Treasury UK Business Angels Association The Entrepreneurs Network Janine Hirt Michael Carter Jenny Tooth OBE Philip Salter The Quoted Companies Alliance James Ashton #FinTech #VoiceOfFinTech #FinTechPolicy #Tax

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Qatar Development Bank To Act As Advisor On Strategic Investment And Partnership Between Fingular And TESS Payments Read the full story here: 👇 https://lnkd.in/e_Abkzaa #investments #banking #payments #fintechboostup

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Monzo Bank's strategic masterclass in a changing economic landscape In a time when many FinTechs are tightening belts, #Monzo is taking bold steps forward. Their latest valuation increase to $5.9 billion via a secondary sale shows more than just strong investor confidence—it’s a showcase of strategic foresight. Key Highlights: 🔸 Enhancing Liquidity: By opting for a secondary sale, Monzo is bolstering its financial flexibility without diluting its valuation. This sets the stage for expansion, product innovation, and entering new markets (Europe and the US) with confidence. 🔸 IPO Preparation: These moves mirror public market transactions, allowing Monzo to both test investor appetite and educate the market about its unique growth potential ahead of any IPO ambitions. 🔸 Market Timing: Monzo’s valuation boost in favorable market conditions reflects financial prudence, setting a strong baseline for future rounds. As FinTech continues to face economic volatility, Monzo's strategic positioning proves that with the right moves, opportunities abound. Read the full blog: https://lnkd.in/dgdNHRBN #CInnovation #FintechInsights #FintechInnovation #FinanceInsights #BankingRevolution #DigitalTransformation #BankingInnovation #FinancialGrowth #Finance #Banking #NeoBanking #FinancialServices #Fintech #BankingNews #TechInFinance #FinancialNews

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Marion King, OBL Trustee, commented: "Last month, we published Open Banking Standard v4.0, the first major release for several years, which has been developed collaboratively with the entire ecosystem.   The Standard has laid the foundations for a thriving open banking ecosystem which benefits 9.79 million active users and is worth more than £4 billion to the UK economy. OBL will continue to maintain and update the Standard to ensure it is robust and able to support the future development of open banking.” Find out more > https://lnkd.in/ec_2yJTm #OpenBanking #OpenBankingStandard #TechInnovation #Fintech #Innovation #FAPI #ISO20022 #OpenBankingEcosystem

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Monzo Bank has reported its first annual profit since launching nearly a decade ago. The London-based fintech has benefited from higher interest rates and growth in transaction fees and subscriptions 👏 Monzo CEO, TS Anil, commented on the news on his LinkedIn: “I’ve never believed in the idea that a company has to choose between either being mission-oriented, or focused on business outcomes. FY2024 proved Monzo is doing both – and that our strategy of placing the customer at the heart of everything we do is working at scale..." 👇 Read more below 👇 #StartupsMagazine #Startups #Entrepreneur #Monzo

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Very cool to wake up this morning to see Scaleup Finance at number 52 on Sifted's rankings of Europe's fastest growing startups...and we're only just getting started.... https://lnkd.in/eXfpFMib #startups #startup #scaleup #cfo #aicfo #founder #ceo #financialmanagement #finances

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A flurry of UK regtechs being acquired in M&A raises questions for legal + property firms; - Service quality: better / worse? - Rate of innovation: accelerate / slow? - Product cost to value prop: ‘good value’ / ‘expensive’? - Lift and shift of platforms over coming years; focus / distract from serving you? How do the answers to these questions impact your business? Expect us to remain fiercely independent. #M&A #Independent #Build

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EXCLUSIVE: "Angels (and VCs) of the North" - FinTech North in 'The Fintech Magazine' "Held a couple of weeks before the Chancellor’s potential round-raising dampener, the FinTech North summit in York’s magnificent Merchant Hall, was (perhaps deliberately, given rumours around the government’s plans) focussed on helping the sector’s regional entrepreneurs achieve their capital-raising goals. It’s all very well pulling your business up by your own bootstraps, but they’re a lot shorter here. The North has the lowest median earnings across the whole of the country, which means there are a lot of early-stage companies with good, but cash-poor founders seeking investment, and a comparatively small pool of individuals from whom to ask it" https://lnkd.in/ertx7J5V #fintech #finance #banking #paytech #payments #fintechnews #paymentsnews

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After years of market downturn investment into UK fintech has seen an increase for the first half of 2024 from the same period the year prior. According to KPMG's ‘Pulse of Fintech’ report, total UK fintech investment stands at $7.3bn for H1′ 2024, a 192% increase from the $2.5bn total amount for the same period in 2023. https://lnkd.in/evYaxtd8

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While #fintech has perhaps fallen out of the spotlight in venture capital, it remains a significant part of the UK venture capital scene. It is one of Love Ventures' three specialist areas. In this episode of the #EISNavigator, co-founders Marcus Love and Adrian Love discuss their views with host Brian Moretta on how the sector has developed and what matters now. Although Love Ventures is a relatively new manager, both Marcus and Adrian have strong backgrounds in entrepreneurship and investing. This experience allows them to being some great insights into how the world of fintech is progressing today. Show notes and listen here: https://lnkd.in/dNHAPGm9 #eis #seis #vct #venturecapital #investing #investments #podcast

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September is gone. It came with quite a lot of interesting, yet under-the-radar news from FinTech and VC spaces. Here’s FinTech Wire 67 - our curated list of the most interesting recent developments: Outward VC has raised €60.5M to help early-stage FinTech founders. The UK VC firm will lead pre-series A funding rounds up to £5 million. Qonto, a French neobank, is expanding into four new markets - Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Qonto is also looking into M&A options. Apple is finally opening up its NFC payment access to third parties. This means banks, neobanks, and other providers will soon be able to leverage Apple’s pay technology. AKUR8, Frech InsurTech has raised €107.8 million Series C round. The company aims to accelerate the growth of its next-gen actuarial platform. Paybyrd chooses Mangopay to optimize merchant payment experiences. Mangopay’s customizable e-wallet and FX capabilities will boost Paybyrd’s payment services across Europe. Minna Technologies has been acquired by Mastercard. The company’s payment scheme services enable customers to manage subscriptions efficiently across the web. Bitlayer, Singaporean Crypto FinTech completes $9M Series A Extension. It will be spent majorly on product development, especially on the launch of Bitlayer V2. InDebted has completed a $60M Series C capital raise, valuing the digital debt collection company at $350M. Monese will be acquired by Pockit. Still pending the FCA approval, the newly-formed alliance aims to create a platform serving lower-middle-income customers in the UK and EU.  Fifth Dimension AI has raised $7M in Seed Funding. The company aims to scale the genAI solution and transform the document-heavy workflows in major real estate firms. Cariqa has raised €1 in Pre-seed funding. The startup plans to launch a consumer-facing EV charging marketplace. Full #FinTechWire 67 (September) is now out on our website: https://lnkd.in/d-uSPes6 

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Julie Palmer, Partner at Begbies Traynor, quoted in The Independent: “Despite some optimism as we entered the new year, 2024 has so far been characterised by a continuation of the same pressures that plagued companies in the UK throughout 2023. “Since the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of UK businesses depleted their financial reserves and loaded their balance sheets with increasingly unaffordable debt which for many may simply be too great to bear" The statistics unfortunately bear this out with 2023 seeing 25k CVLs's, 64k IVA's and 31k DROs (as per Insolvency Sevrice at Insolvency Practitioners Association (IPA) conference last week) as records for these activities (although tempered by the the fact that there are significantly more businesses - so the rate of insolvency is actually flat to down). Dean Beale at the Insolvency Service highlighted the need for the removal of manual work and the digitisation of processes, whilst naming Microsoft Dynamics implementation for the The Insolvency Service as well as other technologies, the point of bringing efficiencies to these processes is more pressing than ever - Armalytix... Bonus point for getting this far - where is this photo?

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Mansion House Analysis: FinTech Regulatory & Policy Agenda 🚀 Our Key Policy Wins for the UK FinTech Sector 🚀 Following Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Mansion House speech, we’re excited to see several policy wins that Innovate Finance and our community have long advocated for. ⭐ FinTech as a Strategic Priority The Government confirmed that FinTech will be a priority sector in the upcoming Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy, to be published in Spring 2024. This solidifies FinTech’s critical role in the UK’s industrial strategy. ⭐ Unlocking Investment through the Mansion House Compact The consolidation of DC pension funds and creation of British Business Bank vehicles will mobilise billions in investment for UK tech and FinTech. ⭐ Launch of PISCES: The World’s First Private Company Stock Market This provides crucial liquidity for founders, employees, and early investors in private companies. ⭐ Pro-Growth Regulatory Reforms The Chancellor’s new remit letters to regulators focus on supporting innovation and responsible risk-taking, something we have included in our FinTech Plan for Government to ensure regulators have regard for designing world leading digital regulatory environments that support economic policy. ⭐ Streamlining of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR), which Innovate Finance and members of the Unicorn Council for UK FinTech have championed to reduce the administrative burdens on smaller firms. ⭐ National Payments Vision The new National Payments Vision sets a clear agenda to advance Open Banking, aiming for seamless account-to-account payments to become ubiquitous in e-commerce. The Vision’s focus on innovation, competition, and choice aligns with our priorities, providing a North Star for the UK’s payments ecosystem. ⭐ Greater Coordination to Combat Fraud A new strategy to tackle fraud will include stronger collaboration across regulators, tech platforms, and telcos. The Financial Conduct Authority will take the lead on payments fraud, supporting data sharing to prevent fraud — a crucial step we’ve long advocated for. ⭐ Empowering AI-Enabled Financial Advice The upcoming review of the advice/guidance boundary by the FCA will help unlock AI-driven financial advice, enabling more households to access personalised support. This aligns with our call to leverage AI for better financial decision-making. These reforms are just the start, and we’re excited to see how they shape the future of the UK’s FinTech landscape. We’ll continue to advocate for progress in areas like digital assets, blockchain, and a more favourable fiscal environment for innovation. 🔗 For more details, check out our full analysis here https://hubs.ly/Q02Yw30j0 #VoiceOfFinTech #FinTechPolicy #UKPolicyWins #FinancialInnovation #RegulatoryReform #InvestmentInTech #MansionHouseSpeech HM Treasury

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With neobank Monzo's recent significant investment and multi-billion dollar valuation, and the ongoing challenges faced by BaaS provider Synapse, the fintech sector remains a dynamic and intriguing space as we approach the summer months. Here's a clo https://lnkd.in/eHndnm4M

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🇬🇧💷 TRIVER, a UK-based #fintech company focused on providing instant access to working capital for small and medium-sized enterprises (#SMEs), has secured an additional £2.5 million in #funding. 📈 This convertible bridge loan comes from existing #investors and builds upon previous funding rounds, bringing Triver’s total capital to over £9.5 million. 📈 A recent partnership with Elcom exemplifies Triver’s embedded finance #strategy, as it enables SMEs supplying the public sector to receive immediate payment upon invoice approval, potentially transforming cash flow management for these businesses. 🤖 Read more here: https://shorturl.at/12xO3  Jerome Le Luel William Lock #UKtech #innovation #news #startup #UKstartup

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