Weavr, a London-based startup that enables businesses to embed fintech tools into their own platforms via API building blocks, announced closing a £7 million seed round led by Headline, according to a press release.
The company says the funding will be used to accelerate internalization and product development and further its goals of integrating financial services into businesses’ digital services.
“As the world begins to look beyond the COVID-19 crisis and the possibilities stemming from lasting changes in consumer and business behavior, embedded banking offers extraordinary potential for the future of work, the move away from cash and the integration of financial services into all manners of digital businesses,” co-founder and CEO Alex Mifsud said in the release.
The funding round is an extension of a £3 million seed fundraise from 2020, included participation from previous investors Anthemis, Seedcamp and QED Investors, and brings Weavr’s total funding raised to £8.5 million, according to Crowdfund Insider.
Weavr was founded by Mifsud and CTO Adrian Mizzi, after the two worked together at Ixaris, a payments optimization platform, which was also founded by Mifsud in 2014. These aren’t the only financial service organizations Mifsud has led, with the University of Edinburgh graduate previously co-founding Entropay in 2002, the first virtual prepaid card in Europe and serving as Director of the London Blockchain Foundation from 2018 to 2020.
As you can see, Mifsud knows his way around multiple arms of the financial technology sector, which lends itself to the operations of Weavr. The platform takes separate fintech services, including account creation, virtual and physical cards, wearable contactless payment, spending controls and real-time account management, into smaller API building blocks that businesses can separately embed into existing technology stacks.
Weavr says it has exceeded its Q1 growth targets by 250%, on the back of adding clients in a wide-range of non-financial industries which includes education, real estate, health and wellness. The company allows businesses to offer financial services in addition to core products, with customers including Finway, Thanks Ben and MySkillCamp.
A number of other embedded fintech companies have begun sprouting up and growing around the world. These include Railsbank, who recently partnered with Plaid to make embedded financial tools easier, and portable open-source platform Moov, which raised $27 million in a late Series A round led by Andreesen Horowitz.