Capital One joins Series D funding round for Snowflake Computing
Snowflake Computing, the only data warehouse built for the cloud, announced that Capital One Growth Ventures, the venture investing arm of Capital One Financial, has joined its latest round of growth funding, bringing Snowflake’s Series D round to a total of $105 million.
The Series D round was announced in April of 2017, led by ICONIQ Capital and accompanied by Madrona Venture Group, and includes all of Snowflake’s existing investors: Altimeter Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Wing Ventures. Since its founding in 2012, Snowflake has raised a total of $210 million in funding.
Capital One is a data-driven enterprise and has been working with Snowflake to deliver the most secure and powerful version of Snowflake’s built-for-the-cloud data warehouse – Virtual Private Snowflake (VPS). Capital One became Snowflake’s first VPS customer in July, and today’s investment of $5 million by Capital One Growth Ventures will help advance Snowflake’s commitment to deliver innovative technology to financial services enterprises. Today, Snowflake also launched VPS to the financial services industry.
KB Kookmin applies Trustonic tech to protect new messaging app
Korea’s largest bank, KB Kookmin Bank, has worked with Trustonic and ATsolutions to secure its new peer-to-peer (P2P) payment and messaging app, Liiv TalkTalk.
The state-of-the-art Trustonic Application Protection (TAP) solution encrypts and secures both the bank’s and end users’ data across the full range of Android and iOS devices.
KB Kookmin Bank launched Liiv TalkTalk to its 30 million customers in July 2017 and it offers encrypted messaging for both consumers and businesses. It is the first app in Korea to provide financial services – such as P2P payment and pension, credit card and savings account enquiries – via interactive messaging. In order to enhance its existing security infrastructure, KB Kookmin has used the TAP solution to protect personal and financial data by securing the private keys used to decode chat messages. It is the world’s first P2P payments and messaging app to be protected by TAP. The bank has also added TAP to the Liiv app to provide a safe and easy authentication service, in particular through the secure storage of authentication data.
ICE and Go West to cut latency between Chicago and Tokyo
Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE), a leading operator of global exchanges and clearing houses and provider of data and listings services, and Go West, a consortium of leading global trading firms collaborating to create efficient access to global financial markets, will offer ultra-low latency wireless connectivity between markets in Chicago and Tokyo.
When the Go West service is launched in the fourth quarter of 2017, ICE’s Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure (SFTI) wireless networks will offer the most extensive ultra-low latency network connectivity solutions among the New York, Chicago, Toronto and Tokyo metro areas.
“We’re excited to add Go West’s key Chicago to Tokyo route to our growing range of connectivity options,” said Jonathan Reeve, Global Head of Connectivity and Consolidated Feeds at ICE Data Services. “As the demand for data capacity, speed and security increases, Go West extends our network’s geographical reach and offers a new alternative for customers that require ultra-low latency connectivity between North American and Asian markets.”
Italian m-payments startup Satispay raises EUR18.3 million
Satispay is a young company from Italy that is contributing to the e-payment revolution with a mobile payment system that is independent and alternative to traditional networks.
With an initial target of €12 million, Satispay has officially closed its third round of funding having reached €18.3 million, a record high for the Italian market. To date, Satispay has thus raised a total of €26.8 million, and the company’s post money valuation currently lies at approximately €66 million.
Satispay’s potential was evident from the start as a number of prominent managers and entrepreneurs invested in past rounds. These include Jonathan Weiner and Ray Iglesias (former executives from Google Wallet and co-founders of Money20/20), Nicola Carbonari (Founder of Autoscout24), Giuseppe Donagemma (former Vice President Networks of Samsung Electronics and Nokia), as well an important investor and industrial partner, Iccrea Banca. While investors such as Iccrea Banca have reconfirmed their confidence by subscribing to the new capital increase, this operation also marks the entry of new key institutional partners:
Banca Etica. Having already signed a distribution agreement in mid-2016, Banca Etica is among the first banks to recognize value in Satispay’s service. By participating in this investment round, Banca Etica confirms its strong orientation towards innovation, which in the last two years has seen it constantly engaging in an important digitalization of services in order to offer private clients and businesses an experience that combines efficiency in financial services and commitment to human rights and the environment.
