Press Release
Anthos Capital, Global Brain, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Moneta VC, Mitsui Fudosan and Firestartr are also participating.
The new investment will enable Railsbank to continue its lead in embedded finance through the launch of Credit Cards as a Service in the USA, continued expansion in APAC and strengthening its business in the UK and Europe.
London, Santa Monica and Singapore, 12 November 2020 – Railsbank, the leading global Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform, has raised USD37 million as part of continued equity funding to support its global growth and product expansion. MiddleGame Ventures and Ventura Capital, both existing investors in Railsbank, co-led the round, with Anthos Capital, Global Brain, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Moneta VC, Mitsui Fudosan and Firestartr also participating.
The new investment will enable Railsbank to continue to expand its global footprint, further strengthen its core product proposition, launch Credit Cards as a Service and help increase its lead in embedded finance as the world’s pre-eminent BaaS platform, enabling start-ups and established brands to prototype, launch and scale financial products within their own customer experience.
Nigel Verdon, co-founder and CEO of Railsbank, said: “We are thrilled to have the support of world-class investors who bring a highly strategic network to help us continue with the vision, with zero pivots, that Clive, my co-founder, and I started with in 2016.
“Over the past four years, we have built a global winning team and expanded our product into credit and data-driven insights, enabling any fungible product, such as money, digital assets, kilowatt hours, gas units, carbon credits, reward points, telco minutes, to be spent as money.”
It is also the latest milestone in what has been a landmark year for Railsbank that has seen the signing of two partnerships with Visa and an investment from the payments giant, as well as the acquisition of Wirecard in the UK.
Mo El Husseiny, Ventura Capital, said: “Ventura Capital is delighted to be the largest investor in this investment round, a commitment made on the strength of Railsbank’s clear technology leadership in the space, and Nigel and the executive team’s deep experience of the traditional global financial system. We expect Railsbank to be the category winner in Banking as a Service due to their beautifully scalable global business model and the winning client interviews we have initiated. We are absolutely excited to embark on the next phase of Railsbank’s growth and will remain a supportive shareholder for future capitalisation opportunities.”
Michael Meyer, co-managing Partner of MiddleGame Ventures, said: “We are proud to be supporting the best team in Open Finance. Nigel, Clive and team are building a unique high-growth company that embodies the essence of what my partner Pascal Bouvier first identified in 2016 with his blog post on “Banking as a Service/Platform”. We connected with Nigel then as a two-person start-up with explosive potential, hosted Nigel and Clive in our accelerator, and have supported Railsbank from the beginning. We look forward to exponential growth, particularly with our advice on US and European strategies.”
Emily White, President of Anthos Capital who also sits on the board of Lululemon and is a former Snapchat COO and Instagram COO, said: “Railsbank is revolutionising access to financial products by enabling non-bank companies to deliver innovative solutions to their customers. We’re thrilled to partner with an exceptional team and support their global expansion.”
The latest round adds to the previous Series A funding round of USD10 million in September 2019 from Moneta Capital, which led the round alongside CreditEase, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Singapore Life and a number of existing investors such as Firestartr.
Railsbank has also recently announced it will offer its complete platform, including BaaS, Cards as a Service, Compliance as a Service and the first-of-its-kind Credit as a Service to fintechs, enterprise companies and consumer brands in the USA.
These innovative products will be the backbone of Railsbank’s launch of Credit Cards as a Service in the USA to encourage increased competition and innovation within the country’s USD4 trillion credit card market.
Railsbank is headquartered in London and has offices in Santa Monica, Singapore, Vilnius, Munich, Newcastle, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.
Dov Marmor, COO for North America, Railsbank, said: “BaaS platforms have remained stubbornly local in a world that has become increasingly global. Railsbank set out on a mission to be a truly global platform for prototyping, building, and scaling any financial product across multiple continents. The US launch is an exciting step toward that vision and the investors and talent we’re attracting speaks volumes that we’re onto something big.”
Justin Xiao, COO for SE Asia, Railsbank, said: “South East Asia is home to some of the most vibrant and forward-looking economies. The growth in fintechs is powered by local and regional micro and macro trends, such as regulators changing the rules on banking, and increasing the adoption of super apps and e-wallets. This has inspired our partners and customers to rethink the fintech possibilities of their business and consider where they are aligning with Railsbank’s vision of embedded finance: enabling any business to embed financial services directly into their own customer experience. It is in SE Asia where fintech will be fully embraced and where it will lead to a more financially inclusive society.”
Louisa Murray, COO for UK & Europe, Railsbank, said: “Railsbank started its journey in Europe and has now become the biggest BaaS provider in the region. We are part of an enormously vibrant fintech sector and I'm proud that Railsbank offers the fastest go-to market route for any type of business to embed and launch financial products. The Railsbank team has grown exponentially over the past year and I am enthused and energised by the opportunities ahead of us, we have a great number of innovative customers onboard already and we look forward to welcoming many more.”
About Railsbank
Railsbank is the pioneer and innovator in the global Banking as a Platform (BaaP) and Financial Services as a Platform (FSaaP) sectors, enabling banks, businesses and brands to define the future of consumer and SME finance.
Railsbank is live and enabling customers in the UK, Europe, SE Asia and the US. It is the only global BaaP player.
The Railsbank platform enables marketers, product managers, developers, CEOs and founders to take their financial product vision and rapidly prototype, launch and scale using its open finance platform, operations, regulatory licensing and rich set of APIs.
Railsbank’s super simple APIs are the building blocks that customers can use to build pretty much any financial use case they can imagine, freeing up Railsbank customers to focus on delivering delightful finance experiences to consumers and businesses.
It was founded by serial entrepreneurs and fintech veterans Nigel Verdon and Clive Mitchell in 2016.
About Ventura Capital
Ventura Capital identifies and invests in game-changing, industry-creating technology start-ups. Ventura has invested circa $1 billion across 28 portfolio companies, with a realised IRR of 56% and average exit of 4.4x on behalf of our institutional clients.
About MiddleGame Ventures
MiddleGame Ventures (MGV) is a FinTech venture capital firm focused on backing world class teams creating transformative companies that will re-architect financial services for decades to come. MGV is headquartered in Luxembourg with offices in Dublin and Washington DC.
About Anthos Capital
Anthos Capital, a multi-stage investment firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California, invests in leading global growth companies.