Synctera – a leader in embedded banking and finance – announced that it has raised an $18.6 million extension to its 2021 Series A round, with Lightspeed and Fin Capital co-leading alongside participation from other previous investors NAventures and Diagram. And new investors include Banco Popular and Mana Ventures.
In March 2023, Synctera announced a $15 million strategic investment led by NAventures (the corporate venture arm of National Bank of Canada) to expand its offerings into Canada, which was followed by its first Canadian customer launch in December 2023. Following a successful partnership with the National Bank of Canada in 2023, NAventures has joined Synctera’s Series A extension.
Synctera’s end-to-end BaaS platform allows companies of all sizes to build and launch FinTech apps and embedded banking products much faster, with the highest level of compliance, and at a lower cost compared to building in-house or with multiple vendors and partners.
Last year, Synctera experienced major growth, including scaling ARR 4.5x, growing live customers more than 2x, and a 20x increase of spend on the platform. And the company continued its trend of serving larger and more established programs, and serving an ever wider range of unique use cases.
To support Synctera’s 2024 surge, the company has added Leigh Gross as its Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). And with over a decade of experience in Fintech, Gross most recently led all sales and go to market at financial innovation platform Array. Before that, Gross held leadership posts at end-to-end student loan solution Summer, student lending company CommonBond, and CAN Capital, a capital provider to small and medium-sized businesses, and over a decade of experience as a commercial attorney and in media.
One emerging use case for Synctera this year has been international wealth management, a specialty that attracted BTG Pactual, the largest investment bank in Latin America. Synctera has partnered with BTG to offer accounts in the US for its LatAm clients. And such an undertaking would have required multiple partnerships or acquisitions and would have involved immense internal build-out were it not for the partnership.
This year, Synctera plans to launch payment product SyncteraPay, an offering that allows companies with existing third-party payment provider relationships to utilize the Synctera Platform accounts offering and ledger to process and settle payments. The company will also support FedNow and expand into new geographies and client segments.
KEY QUOTES:
“We’ve been very fortunate to be able to meticulously, and opportunistically, raise money on the back of super strong growth to double down on what’s working and accelerate our momentum with enterprise customers.”
- Peter Hazlehurst, co-founder and CEO of Synctera
“We are pleased by the progress we’ve made with Synctera in a relatively short time. We effectively unlocked new core banking and payment capabilities in months rather than years, which now serve as building blocks for long-term success. We knew that it was important to do things the right way, no matter how long it took, but the speed to market we’ve experienced exceeded expectations.”
- Joshuah Lebacq of NAventures, who previously led Synctera’s strategic raise to accelerate expansion into Canada
“We’re really thrilled to be partnering with Synctera to broaden our offerings in the US. We did a lot of homework and felt that their focused and deep approach to compliance in partnership with their sponsor banks, combined with a flexible platform was the best fit for our needs.”
- Flutterwave CEO GB Olugbenga
“Since first investing in June 2021, we’ve been impressed with Synctera’s ability to execute and scale by supporting a broad set of use cases that have pushed the envelope on what embedded banking and finance could become, while remaining grounded in the first principles of compliant banking. Synctera’s early focus on technology, team building, regulatory alignment, and long-term bank relationships has set a solid foundation for continued growth. Fin Capital looks forward to continuing on this journey with Synctera.”
- Co-lead on the investment, Fin Capital’s Managing Partner & Founder Logan Allin
