BankiFi raises $4.8m to bring embedded banking platform to North America

BankiFi has raised $4.8 million in a funding round led by Praetura Ventures in order to fuel its global expansion into North America. All investors in the round are existing shareholders.

The startup believes this strategic growth investment will provide enough capital to bring its embedded banking platform to more than two million SMBs across four continents by 2024.

BankiFi’s platform enables financial institutions to provide a set of integrated services – accounting, invoicing and payments – designed around the processes SMB and trade customers use to run their business.

BankiFi plans to reach over 2 million SMBs by 2024

The embedded platform provides an open cash management platform and architecture for financial institutions to address the specific issues of their SMB portfolio. BankiFi equips financial institutions to become customer centric, rather than product centric, with increased revenues (direct and through actionable insights) and reduced costs, the firm claims. BankiFi has offices in Ohio, Manchester, Sydney, and Antwerp.

Keith Riddle, CEO of BankiFi Americas, said: “Technology investments have been slowing down this year, and to see our investors show such a strong commitment is a huge vote of confidence in BankiFi’s direction and growth. Our mission is to make all aspects of cash management and payments easier for SMBs everywhere, and this investment is another huge step to making that a reality.”

David Foreman, managing director of Praetura Ventures, commented: “BankiFi has proven to be an industry-leading open cash management provider in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. Now that they have launched in North America, BankiFi has an opportunity for dramatic growth. We’re looking forward to continuing our partnership and seeing their solutions continue to transform bank channels, in order to support SMBs around the world.”

It was last month that BankiFi announced its expansion into the U.S. market as the firm believes community financial institutions in the United States are facing existential threat from fintech platforms, national banks, and accounting package vendors that are offering a competitive suite of payment solutions to SMBs.

BankiFi’s open cash management platform and architecture, financial institutions can embed a flexible solution that can be tailored to address the unique segments of their small business portfolio, the firm states, adding that the platform addresses critical SMB requirements through digital workflows that collect payments faster, automate data integration with accounting platforms, and provide comprehensive insights to optimise working capital.