Fintech, Finance, Technology, Banking Highlights – 6 April 2018
AI-based personal investing platform Arkera raises £4m
Arkera, the leading artificial intelligence platform that’s transforming personal investing, has raised £4,000,000 in a new round of funding.
The round was led by XTX Markets and Alan Howard with participation from DOCOMO Digital, Henry Ritchotte and additional investors. The funds will be used to further develop Arkera’s market-leading machine learning platform and to expand its footprint globally.
Founded in 2015 by two experienced financiers, Arkera helps financial institutions increase revenues by equipping their clients with the knowledge and confidence to make and drive investment decisions. Using extensive financial expertise and Artificial Intelligence, the Arkera app connects real word events and news directly to investment products. Initially Arkera is rolling out its proposition to the brokerage industry, effectively creating a virtual sales function for them.
Commenting on the funding round, Vinit Sahni, co-CEO Arkera, said: “Arkera brings together an expert financial content team with AI to offer relevant and contextualised content matched with investment products. There is a niche in the market for artificial intelligence and machine learning to empower clients to make exciting investment decisions. This funding round will allow us to scale the technology behind the Arkera platform and expand into new geographies and customer segments.”
Conotoxia launches money transfer service
Conotoxia, introduced by Cinkciarz, hosts fast and efficient money transfers in 24 currencies. Transfers can either be sent using the recipient’s bank account details or simply with their phone number or email address.
The service is designed for people who make domestic and international currency transfers. From April 4th, 2018, the service will be free-of-charge for 30 days.
Senders may transfer money using a bank account number, or if the recipient’s account number is unknown, an email address or phone number is sufficient. A notification with instructions on how to collect the money is then sent to the recipient. Receivers can choose whether to deposit their funds into their bank account or currency wallet.
The money transfer provider is Conotoxia Sp. z o.o., which is licensed and regulated as a payment institution, one of the companies in the Conotoxia Holding Group.
DriveWealth closes $21m Series B funding round
DriveWealth Holdings announced the closing of a $21 million Series B investment.
The fundraising round was led by Raptor Group Holdings, SBI Holdings, Inc, and Point72 Ventures, LLC. DriveWealth’s existing investors, including Route 66 Ventures, LLC, also participated in the round.
DriveWealth’s suite of APIs provides technology designed to modernize financial services for the digital age. The Company’s cloud-based infrastructure offers powerful scaling and pricing efficiencies enabling its global partners – including online brokers, digital advisors and mobile online financial services companies – to seamlessly access the U.S. securities market. Additionally, DriveWealth’s technology stack allows its partners to deliver native investment experiences – including DriveWealth’s real time dollar-based investing capabilities – directly on their own mobile applications.
“We are thrilled to partner with SBI Group, Japan’s leading provider of internet financial services and two leading venture investing firms, with significant financial technology experience and expertise,” said Robert Cortright, CEO of DriveWealth. “At DriveWealth, our mission is to provide global partners low cost, frictionless access to wealth building products through our modern infrastructure. Our solutions provide our partners native integration into their customer facing, mobile applications and reimagine investing for the clients they serve. We are pleased that our Series B investors share this vision and look forward to a long-term, collaborative partnership.”