New Edinburgh Office for Autorek
Scottish fintech AutoRek recently announced the opening of their new office in Edinburgh at Apex One in Haymarket.
Following a very important recruitment push in 2019, a new office was deemed a priority for the 25 year old successful company which provides financial controls, regulatory reporting and data management software solutions.
The new office is just over 5,000 square foot and equipped with the latest technology. It’s ideally built to accommodate for training courses, helping their customers make the most of of their solution.
This follows another move to a new office in Glasgow and 2020 should see their London team being relocated to a bigger office to prepare for growth as the demands from the industry is also rapidly growing.
“After years of sustained growth we are excited to be able to move into a much-needed bigger office space. Apex one in Haymarket is a great location with amazing views. The space is best in class, and we look forward to welcoming our clients to the along for meetings and training days”.
Gordon McHarg, Managing Director
Scottish fintech GiftRound is Fundraising
The Scottish Fintech startup GiftRound is seeking to raise £75,000 (SEIS Pre approved) investment through Crowdcube.
www.crowdcube.com/giftround
Organising a group gift by passing the traditional card and brown envelope around the office is not efficient or effective in an increasingly cashless society. What’s more teams are frequently spread over different locations, home working or overseas.
GiftRound is a new online service that is changing the way people collect money for gifts. GiftRound provides a quick, hassle-free and secure way to collect money for gifts in the workplace and with friends & family. GiftRound customers can easily create a collection, invite people to contribute
and purchase a gift.
Since its launch GiftRound has received nearly 4000 contribution into 350 successful group collections.
“I found using GiftRound so much easier than collecting money for gifts before, particularly as my colleagues are based across the country. I love the transparency and it not going through my own bank account. I’ll be using it again and recommending it to others.”
RBS Office Manager
“GiftRound made the collection for Xmas gifts for our class teachers super smooth this year. Thank you! Have recommended the service to other classes at the school and I’ll be looking into using this at work too.”
Parent collecting for Primary School Teacher’s Christmas gift.
The initial focus for GiftRound was workplace teams in the UK that wanted to celebrate together and show that they care. However, GiftRound has also proven very popular with parents buying a gift for primary school teachers and friends getting together to buy a special wedding gift.
GiftRound is 100% free to use and generates its revenue when customers purchase gifts, gift vouchers or experiences from quality retailers that GiftRound has a relationship with via the GiftRound Store.
GiftRound is seeking to raise £75,000 through Crowdcube to improve the user experience of the platform and integrate a GiftRound Store to provide customers a seamless experience.
www.crowdcube.com/giftround
Edinburgh based fintech crowdfunding for new app
Financial education Scottish fintech MoneyMatiX is launching a fundraising campaign to raise £12,000.
This campaign will support the launch of its KUZAKASH APP using the RBS Back Her Business scheme which pledges to match fund up to 50% of their crowdfunding target. MoneyMatiX was launch by two highly motivated and driven mums passionate about making money management accessible to all.
Financial habits are becoming ever more complex with young people turning to adults for financial guidance but finding them ill-equipped at money management. This led MoneyMatix to develop KUZAKASH, a family finance management APP promoting meaningful financial interactions between children, parents & teachers.
Kuzakash uses visualisation tools to make financial goal setting fun and achievable. Both adults and children can set, track and contribute towards their goals which are used as the educational touch-points to illustrate healthy money habits.
This raise will be used to carry out beta testing of the KUZAKASH APP and a consumer education campaign.
“Financial management skills are one of the most important factors that determine our lifestyle choices. Money is a continuous touchpoint throughout our lives and technology can help make this touchpoint meaningful by enabling people to create healthy interactions with money.”
Tynah Matembe, CEO of MoneyMatiX
“There is an African proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child, but I want to add to it that it takes a family and community to foster good financial habits. In this day and age of influencers, young people should not only be influenced by fashion or talent, but they should also be influenced by skills that will last for a lifetime like financial education. We are building a generation of financially savvy youngsters who will not only impact their communities but the economy at large. We can’t do this on our own! We need your help to build financially capable communities.”
Helene Rodger Co-Founder and COO of MoneyMatiX
To get the matched funding from RBS they need to get at least 100 unique backers for their APP. The campaign will run for 30 days and you can get involved to back KuzaKash here.
New fintech set to transform consumer investment experience
Scottish fintech company Visible Capital announced today it had secured £500,000 seed funding from TechStart Ventures and a group of eight private investors.
They also announced the appointment of Preston Rabl (WPP founder) on their board.
The 3 founders, Richard Braidwood, Ross Laurie and Christian Burgin will launch Visible Capital in early 2020. The solution will use Open Banking to assist clients of intermediaries provide their advisors with controlled access to their financial data in order to receive quicker, more informed advice on financial matters.
“Financial advisers and wealth managers still take information from their clients in paper form ”“ which means the advice they give and the strategies they suggest can only be as good as the immediate information they receive. Visible Capital’s technology allows the intermediary agreed and controlled access to real data about spending needs, wants, savings and borrowing, giving an instantly accurate picture of their clients’ ongoing finances ”“ making the onboarding process quicker and easier, and a lot more precise.”
Richard Braidwood, Co-Founder of Visible Capital
Earlier this year Visible Capital received approval from the Financial Conduct Authority.
Eika Makes Major Investment in EedenBull
Norwegian banking group Eika announced a large investment into Scotland based fintech EedenBull. Eika’s member banks will have access to EedenBull’s existing and future solutions and thereby increased competitiveness in the payments market..
EedenBull was founded in 2018 by a team of payments experts from around the world and expanded into Scotland with. the opening of their new office on September 2019. EedenBull already has a large number of customers in Europe and is now launching its new and innovative payments and spend management programme through more than 65 banks in the Nordic region for more than 9,000 businesses. The company is said to onboard a new customer every 4 minutes.
EedenBull’s solution gives companies simplicity and control for managing employees’ purchases made on their behalf. The solution includes payment cards, a web-based and mobile app management module.
“To us, it is important to create partnerships with players who possess specialist expertise in their areas, as the collaboration with EedenBull is an example of. This investment is strategically important to the Eika Group and our member banks for us to strengthen and secure our ability to compete effectively in the complex world of payments going forward.”
CEO Terje Gromholt of Eika Kredittbank
“The investment made by Eika and the partnership that follows is a testament to our ability to provide significant value to banks and their customers through combining our expertise and experience with payments with access to and utilization of new technologies. We are excited about the opportunity we have to not only embrace change in the way consumers and businesses think about payments, but continue to take a leading role in setting the agenda and driving change”
EedenBull CEO Nicki Bisgaard
Soar and Acquired enter partnership
Another great example of partnership between fintech firms has been announced today. This is partnership with a purpose as the main objective is to enable ethical finance companies to compete more effectively with mainstream providers.
Scottish fintech Soar and London Payments Technology Platform Acquired.com collaborating to help credit unions and other ethical organisations provide better and transparent services.
Award winning fintech, Soar, has developed a cutting edge banking technology platform which is already being used by 10 credit unions around the UK. With the partnership with Acquired they will be able to provide more services including automated reconciliation and for the first time – complete transparency over the entire payment life cycle.
“This is an important partnership for us and a statement about how we intend to improve business processes for our ethical clients. It will also allow their customers to view, manage and pay for a variety of services through one mobile and desktop application.
Our clients will not be playing catch up with mainstream players as they are now enjoying the latest cutting edge tech, which is a match for any organisation in the financial services sector.”
Soar’s founder and CEO, Andrew Duncan
“Acquired.com was born in the highly regulated Consumer Finance sector and has always been committed to helping businesses serve their customer better. We believe that credit unions play a key role in offering fair and transparent banking and credit products to communities all around the country, which we are delighted to play a part in.
Using our award-winning payment technology, Soar’s clients will be able to gain a much better insight into their customers using our rich payment data.”
Rob Clark, Managing Director of Acquired.com
In the last quarter Soar has been awarded over half a million pounds of research and development grants and this new partnership is seen as a further boost as the company looks to expand throughout the UK and into overseas markets.
Master students to undertake Financial Services projects
University of Strathclyde students on the MScs Actuarial Sciences and Quantitative Finance undertake a summer project as part of their MSc. Some projects are co-supervised by industry partners and are based on their business interests.
We are currently seeking ideas from industry for projects taking place in summer 2020.
Companies participating in the scheme in previous years benefited not only from the direct project outputs but also from accessing talented students. This can be a route to recruitment and developing a closer relationship with the university.
The Students benefit from the exposure to business. They see the problems that industry are interested in and get experience working with business. This improves their employability upon completing their MSc.
Project subject matter is flexible. It needs to be quantitative in nature and relevant to the financial sector. Projects last 12 weeks from late May to late August and the actual work can take place at the company or at the University, or a mixture of both. Industry supervision can be light touch or more intense, to suit the project and supervisor; it can also be at a distance using phone and internet communication if, for example, the industry supervisor is based overseas. No fees to students or to the University are involved.
Companies submit project ideas to the University and students select and apply for them. Industry Supervisors interview students and select the best match. Students are also assigned an academic supervisor. The student’s project plan, final report and oral presentation are judged by both the academic and industrial supervisors.
For summer 2020 projects, ideas from industry are invited by 14 February 2020 using a short pro-forma.
For further information, or if you have any questions, please contact Ian Dwyer by email at ian.dwyer@strath.ac.uk
KPMG is searching for Scotland’s top tech pioneers
Scotland’s start-up community is flourishing. Amid a climate of political and economic uncertainty, it’s sometimes a challenge to find glimmers of light and optimism, but our country’s tech-focused entrepreneurs are exactly that.
Last year, research from KPMG revealed that more than £100m of Venture Capital (VC) had been injected into start-ups. As we head towards December, we’re on-course to smash that figure. As of Q3, the figure was over £95m. For some time now, the world’s investors have been paying attention to Scotland’s tech hub cities, and there’s no sign of that enthusiasm draining anytime soon.
But, despite the outstanding achievements of the innovations and disruptors, speak to many start-up founders and they’ll tell you getting in front of the right people at the right time can be their biggest obstacle to growth.
That’s part of the motivation behind KPMG’s Best British Tech Pioneer competition. Now in its sixth year, it was set up to spot talent and facilitate those golden opportunities. This year, our search is even bigger. Throughout January, we’ll be inviting entrepreneurs to pitch to a panel of experts at informal events in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The lucky ones will then be invited to our semi-final pitches in London in February where they’ll have the chance to pitch for a place at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona later that month.
Previous competition finalists have included Babylon Health, What3Words Echo and SafeToNet, and more than £100 million has been raised to date.
The application process is open now and companies can apply via our website. To qualify, you’ll need to own a registered UK company that’s been operating for less than five years, with revenue generated of between £1m and £10m, or you should have raised at least £500k in equity.
Does that sound like you? If so, apply now. The deadline is December 1st. Our Best British Tech Pioneer competition is about finding talent and providing the opportunity to immediately access a global audience. Get involved and let us help you unlock your international growth potential.
Scottish Young Edge winners HubSolv ranked 33rd in UK’s top tech list
Technology directors gathered from across the UK last week on November 7th for the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 awards ceremony in London; one of the UK’s foremost technology awards programmes. The directors from Glasgow-based firm HubSolv Limited, Fraser Hamilton and Lewis Black, were among the guests, following Deloitte’s recognition of HubSolv as one of the top 50 fastest-growing technology companies in the UK.
HubSolv was one of the three Scottish firms to have made it to the influential list and ranked 33rd in the prestigious Technology Fast 50. The rankings are based on percentage revenue growth over the last four years, and HubSolv has experienced 1,058% growth.
The team at HubSolv have come a long way since its foundation only five years ago, when they designed their specialised software for the niche industry of personal insolvency. In 2015, the firm won a Scottish Young EDGE award ”“ a grant prize that recognises the most promising firms and businesses with directors under the age of 30. The following years saw the Glasgow team further developing tech solutions and extending their product portfolio, growing their client base and tripling their workforce.
“We’re thrilled to have ranked 33rd in the UK Technology Fast 50. Since we embarked on this journey back in 2014, we have strived to innovate and evolve our product offer, which aims to digitise processes for the industry. Deloitte’s ranking is a recognition of our achievements and denotes HubSolv’s accelerated growth as we concurrently progress with our software solutions.”
Fraser Hamilton, co-founder at Hubsolv
The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 awards came back in its twenty-second year. This year, the competition saw fintech businesses comprising 30% of the winners and fintech companies dominating the top three places. Revolut ranked first on the list; while Credit providers OakNorth and Dividebuy achieved second and third place.
“As part of the growing fintech community, it’s been very encouraging for us at HubSolv to see the pace of growth across the sector and a strong performance from fintech businesses, who have managed to thrive in spite of the recent waves of economic uncertainty in the country. These are exciting times for our team; we have promising plans in the pipeline and a talented, high-skilled team in place to support our growth and innovative development. We’re looking forward to seeing what 2020 holds for HubSolv.”
Fraser Hamilton, co-founder at Hubsolv
Digital Asset and Blockchain Technology Partners launch Sextant for DAML
Digital Asset and Blockchain Technology Partners announced the availability of Sextant for DAML with early adopters Quantum Materials Corp
Counterfeit goods are a $1.8 trillion criminal industry with vast economic and human consequences. Using the latest in nanotechnology, smart contracts and blockchain, Quantum Material Corp (QMC) partnered with Digital Asset and BTP to deliver a platform that will allow manufacturers and buyers to determine absolute product identity.
QMC has released Quantum Dots, nanoscale particles so tiny you could line ten thousand of them across the diameter of a human hair. By varying properties such as wavelength QMC are able to produce billions of unique optical signatures. Impossible to copy, these can be incorporated in the production of almost anything, from aircraft components to luxury handbags.
These unique optical signatures are only useful, however, when paired with the technology that enables them to be read and identified securely. This is where Digital Asset and BTP have stepped in.
To verify an optical signature, an immutable and cryptographically secure digital twin is required – the perfect use case for blockchain. Combining their expertise in getting blockchain projects into production and generating real business value, Digital Asset and BTP partnered with QMC to provide a platform that will enable customers to verify the authenticity of their optical light signatures as simply as using a hand-held scanner or smartphone application.
By combining DAML, the leading smart contract language created and open sourced by Digital Asset, and Sextant for DAML, BTP’s blockchain management platform especially designed to deploy DAML onto distributed ledgers and databases, QMC has been able to get to market fastest and produce real value.
For more detail, check out the latest DAML blog