Banking-as-a-service startup Synctera has raised an additional $15 million as it expands into Canada.
Ventures, the corporate venture arm of National Bank of Canada, led the financing, which brings Syncterra’s total raised as of June 2020 to $60 million. Private equity firm The Banc Funds and sponsor bank partners Veritex Community Bank, Midland State Bank and Emigrant Bank participated in the round.
In June 2021, Synthera was lifted. 33 million dollars Series one round of funding In Fin V.C.
As part of its latest funding announcement, Syntera is also announcing a partnership with National Bank of Canada to help companies launch fintech applications and embedded banking products in the country.
In short, Synctera has built a platform designed to bring fintech companies together and sponsor banks.
“Our goal is to make this simple, fast, and flexible with features and engagement through fintech, as well as being very intentional, automated where it makes sense, and most importantly, dialing in compliance and risk. This will give banks the confidence to work with us and trust fintechs of all sizes.” It allows.
Until now, the company only works in the US, but after a “number” of US and Canadian fintechs reached out to ask how to use the service in other markets, Cintera decided to expand its offering.
“A lot of our Canadian team members would see the solutions we’ve helped launch in the US and ask about similar offerings in Canada — which didn’t exist,” he said. Co-founder and CTO Kris Hansen. “A few big brands have also reached out to us asking for a solution in Canada and there are a few customers looking at being able to address two markets with one API platform – all of these factors helped us in our decision to expand to Canada.”
Executives declined to comment on Synctera’s valuation or provide firm revenue figures, but Hazelhurst told TechCrunch that the company’s revenue was up 20x year-over-year in the fourth quarter and that all usage metrics and revenue “continue to grow 30% month over month in areas such as billing volume.”
Synctera is currently working with 14 fintechs, including Wayapay and Float. It has another 20+ implementations scheduled to launch in March and April, Hazelhurst said.
Examples of companies that have incorporated banking into their products are fintech Players Health, TipHaus and Solvent, which are building affordable financial services to empower formerly incarcerated individuals.
Synctera earns money by structuring the fintech it operates and charging access fees, as well as transaction fees, interest earned and swaps with the bank’s marketplace.
In the year By 2023, Syntera plans to add support for new loans, mortgages and other banking use cases – and to new geographies and customer segments. The remote-first company currently has 110 employees — 50 in Canada — and is looking to hire more people to help it grow in Canada, Hassan said.
“We’re focused on putting this capital to work by setting up operations and working out all the regulatory and compliance frameworks, such as our playbook in the US,” Hazelhurst said.
Joshuah Lebacq, Principal of Venture Capital at NAventures, National Bank of Canada; The growing appetite for bank-fintech collaboration has created a strong demand for technology solutions that facilitate partnerships between banks and distributors, he said.
“Synctera’s Banking-as-a-Service platform achieves this by allowing each party to focus on what they do best,” he said. “We believe the multi-bank structure will emerge as the winner in the banking-as-a-service category.
It’s also noteworthy that Synctera doesn’t require major bank integration, Leback added, adding that “full transparency allows its platform to enable real-time visibility and compliance monitoring.”
“Also, Syntera’s multi-country expansion is critical,” he told TechCrunch. “I can envision a time when global brands will use the Syntera platform to launch banking products with multiple partner banks simultaneously through a single API – such success will completely reshape digital financial services.
