Variety rules in this news report as Pismo, Satellite Vu and Codat have all picked up some tech funding.
Pismo, a Brazilian cloud-native core banking and payments platform, got $108 million (£78.4 million) in a Series B round – and its plans include an office in Bristol.
British satellite scaleup Satellite Vu raised £15 million as it looks to ramp up its plans to launch seven thermal and infrared imaging satellites into space that will be able to provide real-time data on how green buildings are.
Codat, which offers an API for small business data, has been awarded £5 million by BCR (Banking Competition Remedies).
Pismo Looks Promising
The round for São Paulo-based Pismo was led by SoftBank, Amazon and Accel with participation from B3, Falabella Ventures and PruVen and existing investors and Headline and Redpoint eventures.
The funding will fuel the company’s global expansion ambitions and be used for development of its technologies for banking, payments and financial markets infrastructure.
Along with Bristol, it will open offices in Austin (Texas) and in Singapore.
Pismo was founded in 2016 by Juliana Motta, CPO; Ricardo Josua, CEO; Daniela Binatti, CTO; and Marcelo Parise, VP of Engineering.
The fintech firm’s platform allows Pismo customers to launch products for cards and payments, digital banking, digital wallets and marketplaces.
Clients include banks, fintechs and retailers in Latin America, such as Banco Itaú, BTG, Cora, N26 and Falabella. The platform handles more than four billion API calls monthly, and hosts more than 25 million accounts which together transact more than $3 billion (£2.17 billion) a month.
Josua says the company is hiring over 200 engineers and product, commercial and management personnel around the world.
Satellite Vu Keen on Green
Satellite Vu’s latest funding round, which was oversubscribed, was led by the Seraphim Space Investment Trust. Also investing in the round is Draper Esprit, A/O PropTech, Ridgeline Ventures, Earth Science Foundation, E2MC Ventures and Stellar Solutions/Ford Family Trust.
The company previously raised its seed round funding of £3.6 million six months ago.
Satellite Vu’s first satellite – being manufactured in Guildford, Surrey – will collect real-time temperature data about the Earth’s built environment several times a day, allowing for insights around energy efficiency and how individual buildings are being used and occupied. The first satellite is due to be launched into orbit in October 2022.
The firm says this data can be updated every one to two hours, and the use of infrared means coverage is guaranteed even at night.
This data can be used by “anyone involved in building, funding and insuring real estate and infrastructure”.
Anthony Baker, CEO of Satellite Vu, explains: “With COP 26 just around the corner and Europe and parts of the US having suffered the hottest summer on record, there is growing acceptance that we need to act now to try to mitigate the impacts of climate change on our everyday lives and economy. But while many think of industries such as aviation as some of the least sustainable, the built environment is actually one of the primary polluters across our globe.”
Satellite Vu has also been backed by the UK Space Agency through its National Space Innovation Programme (NSIP) to support the build of the infrared sensor for its first satellite.
The UK government recently launched a National Space Strategy aimed at advancing British space technology, which included measures to back businesses that help tackle global challenges such as climate change.
Cool for Codat
London-based Codat will use the funding to open up small business sales data to lenders and payment providers, and offer automated payment reconciliation into small businesses’ accounting platforms.
Codat’s API connects tools and services, like accounting software and bank accounts.
Since receiving its first BCR award in 2019, Codat’s connectivity has been embedded in POS, e-commerce, business management tools, banking, lending, insurance, credit insurance, and other small business software products for SMEs.
The company used earlier BCR funding to develop a no-code portal to enable providers to launch integrated products and new accounting software integrations.
With this award, Codat plans to build, test and release a new Insights product for UK lenders, by opening up access to SME sales data.
The funding will also support the launch of a new Sync API. This will provide automatic synchronisation and reconciliation of transaction data from the payment service providers used by SMEs into their accounting platforms.
The grant follows the previous rounds of £5 million and £2.5 million Codat received from BCR in 2019 and 2020.
Codat clients include Experian, MarketFinance and Zettle by PayPal. It was founded in 2017 and has offices in London, New York, San Francisco and Sydney.
The fintech company has raised over $60 million (£43.5 million) to date from investors including Tiger Global, PayPal Ventures, Index Ventures and American Express Ventures.
