Simmons & Simmons FinTech Fund Supports Future Stars 

International law firm Simmons & Simmons has today released more details about the organisations it has chosen to support through the Simmons & Simmons FinTech Fund in 2016/17.

The Simmons & Simmons FinTech Fund was launched in May 2016 and is the first fund of its kind designed to help early stage FinTech businesses solve some of the difficult legal problems they often encounter at the infancy of their businesses.  The firm announced the first four FinTech start-ups designated to benefit from the Fund last month.

The successful recipients responded to the news that they were to receive support from Simmons & Simmons as follows:

• Alterest – Alterest provide a wide range of investors with efficient and scalable access to the non-bank SME and consumer credit markets. Jeevan Param, Co-Founder and CEO of Alterest commented “Launching a FinTech business is unlike starting up in most other industries. There are aspects where we cannot stay lean. One of these aspects is the initial and ongoing legal support required. The S&S FinTech Fund, I thought, would give founders an opportunity to stay lean and focus on product execution early on. The support is meaningful as legal work is a critical part of our product development process and also support from an international brand like Simmons & Simmons brings added credibility critical to FinTech companies.”
• Cuvva – Cuvva is the UK’s first and only mobile insurer. Their mission is to create flexible car insurance that fits around your life. Freddy Macnamara, Founder and CEO of Cuvva, commented “So far we have used the Fund for a multitude of issues. The team has been invaluable with our latest round of funding and have helped to complete the deal in a timely manner. We are also going through an underwriter negotiation at the moment and we have been able to use the Fund to assist us with this.”
• Railsbank – Railsbank is a Banking As a Service and compliance platform that enables FinTech companies to access global banking with 5 lines of code, and enables banks to bank FinTech through modern technology and manage the compliance risks. Nigel Verdon, Co-Founder and CEO of Railsbank, commented “Access to free legal services is available via most the accelerator platforms, but access to a global financial services specialist legal firm is unique.”
• Tallysticks – Tallysticks is a revolutionary invoicing software. It leverages the functionality of blockchain to share a common record of immutable invoice-related data for all parties to transparently edit and update. Kush Patel, Co-Founder of Tallysticks commented “Given that we know of no other law firm with a similar Fund, we were very keen to take advantage of an opportunity that could help us more quickly deliver our product to market. Overcoming regulatory obstacles has often prevented innovation in finance. As a result of being awarded the Simmons & Simmons FinTech Fund, we are now able to defray some of our regulatory costs so that we can devote more of our capital towards product development.”

Partner and leader of the firm’s International FinTech Team, Angus McLean, commented: “We are delighted to be working with these four promising and exciting FinTech start-ups.  Through the Simmons & Simmons FinTech Fund we think we can make a very meaningful contribution to helping each business become a leading player in its particular field.”

The firm will host a FinTech industry evening on 10 November 2016 at which each of the recipients will present.  Tickets for the event are available here.