Bromsgrove-based Rimilia, which works with the likes of Disney and HSBC, has raised millions for its technology that automates payments
A British fintech firm which uses artificial intelligence to automate payments has raised $15m (£11.5m) from investors as it looks to fuel the growth of its business.
Rimilia, a fintech firm founded in Bromsgrove in 2008, has raised money in a growth round involving a string of existing investors, including Eight Road Ventures, a London-headquartered venture capital firm that was an early backer in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, Silicon Valley Bank and Kennet Partners.
The company uses artificial intelligence to help clients speed up the usually laborious and manual work required to process payments from customers. In 2019, its technology help automate the collection of £110bn.
According to Kevin Kimber, chief executive of Rimilia, whose fintech start-up works with the likes of Disney, HSBC and Royal Mail, many companies spend months collecting cash from customers, leaving them millions of pounds out of pocket for longer than necessary.
“We're helping these businesses automate their accounts receivable function so fundamentally how they get paid,” he said.
“Typically these large global corporates are still largely managing this process manually with spreadsheets and so there's very little predictability or control.”
Mr Kimber has previously worked to scale technology businesses having taken ServiceNow, a US cloud computing firm, to the public markets at a $4bn valuation in June 2012.
The float in New York was the first major initial public offering by a technology company after Facebook’s listing in May 2012. The company now has a $60bn market capitalisation.
The fintech chief executive, who joined the firm in 2018, said companies are searching for ways to free up staff from “fairly mundane and manual tasks that we as humans don't want to deal with”.
The company currently has offices in the UK, US and Canada and hires around more than 140 people.
Full Article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/02/03/british-fintech-firm-rimilia-raises-15m-boost-ai-payments-business/
Codility, a platform that helps tech recruiters and hiring managers asses candidates through online coding tests, today announced that it has raised a $22 million Series A round led by Oxx and Kennet Partners.
This marks the first time Codility has raised any funding, after 10 years as a bootstrapped company. Clearly, though, despite having achieved double-digit annual recurring revenue in those 10 years, the team now believes that it has an opportunity to grow its market share in what is becoming a more competitive market for tech hiring platforms — and to do so, it needs outside funding.
So far, the company has brought on an impressive list of customers, including Microsoft, Tesla, Slack, Okta, Rakuten, American Express and UnitedHealth Group. In total, the company says it had 1,500 customers in 2019 and helped them evaluate more than 450,000 candidates, a number the company says has grown over 50% year-over-year.
What sets Codility apart from similar platforms is that it aims to provide coding tests that are closer to what engineers typically face in their day-to-day jobs instead of highly abstract whiteboarding sessions that evaluate their theory of algorithms knowledge.
“The biggest bottleneck to achieving this lies in sourcing, screening and interviewing,” said Codility CEO Natalia Panowicz. “This is where Codility comes in. We allow businesses to deliver great experiences to candidates and deep insights to the hiring team — improving decision-making and ultimately increasing their overall engineering capacity.”
The company says its system allows it to provide recruiters with a “360-degree evaluation of technical ability” that helps managers ensure that a candidate is a good fit for a given position. Ideally, this also reduces the effect of unconscious bias in the recruiting and placement process.
As part of its platform, Codility offers its technical skills and evaluation services for recruiters, including a shared editor for live technical interviews. In addition, the company also helps companies run their own coding competitions, which they can then use to identify potential candidates, including those who aren’t actively looking for a new job.“Codility is a great solution for hiring teams based on the needs of quality high-volume hiring; such as consistency, standardization and scalability,” said Vicky Xiong, senior director of Engineering at Okta . “Codility also enables Okta to create a great candidate experience, which is core to our values as a company.”
Full press release: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/30/codility-raises-22m-for-its-tech-recruiting-platform/
Leading field force data intelligence software platform provider to leverage funds to advance product development, sales and marketing, and market penetration; Jim Grady appointed CEO to lead global growth and expansion
St. Petersburg, FL -- January 6, 2020– Spatial Networks, the creator of Fulcrum, the leading geospatial data collection and analysis platform for field operations, today announced that is has closed an investment of $42.5 million led by Kayne Partners, the growth equity group of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P., and Kennet Partners, Ltd. The funding will primarily be used to scale the Company’s sales and marketing capabilities, accelerate its product development roadmap, and further expand the Fulcrum data collection platform into international markets. The company has appointed Jim Grady CEO to oversee all aspects of the company’s strategy and execution globally.
Spatial Networks drives digital transformation of field workforces via Fulcrum, an AI-powered data collection platform for commercial field workers. A market leading platform built on multiple decades of expertise in mobile field data collection and geospatial analytics with adoption by more than 30,000 users and 2100 customers in field-intensive industries such as utilities, construction, environmental services, engineering, Fulcrum optimizes field operations by enabling rapid deployment of mobile applications using a low-code development environment. Using Fulcrum, field workers can rapidly gather a vast range of data types, including audio and video, using user-built forms with geotagging capabilities. Key decision-makers gain real time insights into field operations efficiency and performance through visualization, quality assurance and data management tools, and flexible reporting.
With the completion of the deal, Jim Grady will assume the role of CEO, effective immediately. Grady brings more than twenty-five years of general management and leadership experience in high growth technology companies to Spatial Networks. As CEO of Cellebrite, Inc., a leading provider of cyber/digital intelligence software solutions–including mobile phone forensic extraction and AI-driven analytics product lines–for law enforcement, enterprise, & intelligence sectors, Grady scaled revenue from $5M to $100M while consistently expanding profit margins.
“Spatial Networks is uniquely positioned to transform the way organizations deploy and manage field workforces to better deliver superior customer experiences while increasing efficiency and profitability,” said Jim Grady, CEO, Spatial Networks “I look forward to building on the company’s impressive product and market position as we deliver even greater insight and workflow automation through next generation innovations that harness AI, low code-no code deployment, geospatial data collection and analytics, and an advanced reporting engine to establish Fulcrum as the industry’s dominant field force data intelligence platform.”
Nate Locke of Kayne Partners commented, “We are thoroughly impressed by Spatial Networks’ rapid growth and user adoption. The Company provides incredible value both for users in the field who now have a streamlined, robust data collection process, and for decision-makers who now have access to contextually relevant information and geospatial insights.”
“We are excited about the potential of Spatial Networks to build on its core capabilities in workflow automation, no code development and geospatial data to optimize field work forces using AI in a broad range of markets”, said Javier Rojas, Managing Partner, Kennet Partners. “We believe the combination of Spatial’s founding team, executives from Jim’s prior successes and Jim’s leadership will enable the company to scale rapidly and build a category leader.”
London, UK 3 January 2020.
Receipt Bank, the world’s leading digital bookkeeping platform, has raised $73.1 million (£55 million) in a successful Series C funding round. The round was led by Insight Partners, joined by Augmentum Fintech with participation from existing investors Kennet Partners and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), and advised by Harris Williams.
The funds will be used to continue expansion in Europe, Australia and North America, and build on Receipt Bank’s award-winning product suite.
The company doubled customers in 2019, taking the total number of businesses using the platform to above 360,000.
Receipt Bank’s proprietary machine learning technology fetches financial information from multiple sources, digitises and categorises it, making it ready for accountants and bookkeepers, more than 50,000 of whom use the platform. The platform processes and stores 45 new fields of small business financial data every second from receipt photos, bank accounts, invoices and bills.
Receipt Bank CEO, Adrian Blair, commented: “This investment is an endorsement of our mission at Receipt Bank - to help millions of small businesses grow by getting control of their finances. Our machine learning technology enables accountants to do far more for their small business clients, and expands the market for professional advice by making accountants far more productive.
“The addition of Augmentum alongside our current investors, Insight, Kennet and CIBC, strengthens our board and will help us meet our ambitious growth goals, following a stellar 2019.”
Jason Ewell, Operating Partner at Insight Partners and Receipt Bank Board member, commented: “Receipt Bank continues to make giant leaps forward in machine learning technology. We are excited to see the company’s continued progress in the coming years.”
Tim Levene, CEO of Augmentum Fintech, said: “Digital bookkeeping allows all businesses to save time and expense and Receipt Bank's technology and growth make the company a clear leader in this sector.”
One of the fastest growing British technology companies, Receipt Bank automates bookkeeping to save businesses time and money on their taxes. The platform saves accountants one hour per client weekly and frees small business from 120 hours of annual financial admin.
Kennet Partners, the technology growth equity investor, has announced that it has appointed Jonathan Hewitson as Finance Director and Huan Jing Gan as a Director in the investment team.
Jonathan joins Kennet from Manzanita Capital, where he was Finance Director. Previously, he worked within the structuring & tax team at J Rothschild Capital Management, and at PWC where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant and worked within the Private Equity M&A tax team. Jonathan holds a BA (Hons) in Business Management from Newcastle University.
Huan Jing Gan ("Jing") joins Kennet from Kinnevik, where she was an Investment Professional in the Venture & Growth Investments team. Previously, she worked in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs within the London Telecom, Media & Technology team. Jing holds a BSc (Hons) degree in Business Management from Kings College London.
Michael Elias, Managing Director at Kennet, said: "We are thrilled to have Jonathan and Jing join our London-based investment group. With significant new capital for investment in Europe and the US, we will benefit from the experience that they both bring to our team."
Full Press Release on PR Newswire
Led by Insight Partners, the investment caps a record year of growth and will drive further development of CrossBorder's AI-based transfer pricing solutions
TARRYTOWN, N.Y., Sept. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CrossBorder Solutions, a global leader in technology-driven tax solutions, today announced a $40 million Series B investment led by Insight Partners to accelerate development of Fiona, the world's most advanced AI-based tax expert.
CrossBorder's cloud-based tax solutions automate the process of transfer pricing compliance and empower tax professionals to navigate the increasingly complex, localized regulatory landscape. From its groundbreaking cloud-based software platform, CrossBorder has created Fiona – the world's most advanced AI tax expert. Traditional, human-based approaches to tax are stuck in the past – inefficient, expensive, and susceptible to costly human error. Fiona is built to complement human tax professionals and simplify tax compliance and planning.
"The investment from Insight Partners will accelerate our product roadmap as we continue to scale our flagship transfer pricing solution," said Donald Scherer, co-founder and CEO of CrossBorder. "We are excited to partner with Insight, who share our vision of using artificial intelligence to reimagine the costly and time-intensive approaches to tax compliance of the past."
The investment comes as billions in transfer pricing adjustments are forecast to be imposed on global enterprises in 2019. By offering hyper-localized transfer pricing studies that meet the requirements of every jurisdiction in which customers operate, CrossBorder's solutions prevent audits, adjustments, and penalties with a modern, software-based approach.
The Series B financing builds on an exceptional year for CrossBorder. Since its inception the Company has experienced over 200% year-over-year growth with multinational corporations worldwide taking advantage of CrossBorder's modern approach to transfer pricing. The investment will be used to accelerate growth in all areas, including customer support and engineering. Jeff Horing, Co-founder and Managing Director at Insight Partners, will join CrossBorder's Board of Directors.
"We are excited to partner with CrossBorder to modernize legacy approaches to tax and accounting workflows," said Horing. "Transfer pricing is becoming more complex across different jurisdictions and fines continue to increase each year – every multinational corporation faces this problem. We look forward to working closely with CrossBorder's leadership team as they continue to bring the benefits of software to this exciting market."
CrossBorder was advised by Sparring Partners. Kennet Partners, a leading venture capital fund, led the Series A investment of $8 Million in 2017.
About CrossBorder Solutions
Founded in 2016, CrossBorder Solutions is the leader in AI-driven solutions for transfer pricing compliance. The Company's cloud-based solutions produce the required documentation that protects global enterprises from costly penalties. For more information please go to: www.xbs.ai
About Insight Partners
Insight Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight currently has over $20 billion of assets under management and has cumulatively invested in more than 300 companies worldwide. Insight's mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on growth expertise to foster long-term success. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit www.insightpartners.com or follow @insightpartners on Twitter.