This Week in Fintech: Job Moves and Funding Roundup

Job Moves

Bahrain-based SINNAD Company appoints Rana Almaeeli as CEO as part of its efforts to drive its digital strategic vision and scale business offerings across the GCC and the African market. Meanwhile, Singapore-based digital asset platform MetaComp has named John Kang as CFO, and Standard Chartered Bank has appointed Muhannad Mukahall as CEO at Standard Chartered Bank Qatar.

Global Processing Services (GPS) has appointed three non-executive directors to its global board, including Paulette Rowe, Shane Happach, and Lynn McCreary. The appointments follow the appointment of Jim McCarth, Kevin Fox, and Jeff Burns to GPS’s senior leadership team last month.

Investcorp has entered the Japanese market with the opening of its Tokyo office, which will allow the firm to provide global alternative investment solutions in Japan, in addition to setting the grounds for Investcorp direct private equity and real estate investing. Furthermore, Investcorp has appointed Professor Heizo Takenaka as chairman.

General Atlantic has hired Samir Assaf for the newly created role of chairman of MENA. Assaf will work with the General Atlantic team to identify investment opportunities and build relationships in the MENA region as the firm seeks to expand its global footprint.

Finally, Cellulant has appointed Ibrahim Gbolahan Aminu as general manager for Nigeria. He will manage and oversee the day-to-day operations and provide leadership as Cellulant expands coverage for Tingg, Cellulant’s digital payments platform, across the country.

Funding

UK fintech startup ZIPZERO has successfully raised over £1 million in seed funding, which will be used to grow its platform further and secure new partnerships with retailers and brands.

Pagos, a bird-themed SaaS platform that turns complex payment data into real-time actionable insights, has raised $34 million to expand its engineering team and advance its platform’s enterprise product suite.

UK car finance fintech Carmoola has raised an £8.5 million Series A round and a £95 million debt facility to prime the company for rapid growth in the UK’s £120 billion market. Finally, cash flow management tool Finmap has closed a new funding round of €1 million, with the lead investor being US-Polish venture capital fund SMOK Ventures.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Spanish merchant acquirer Sabadell has agreed to sell its payments arm to Nexi for up to $370 million, with Nexi financing the transaction entirely through available cash resources.

MAPFRE AM, the asset management arm of Spain’s largest insurance group, has acquired a further 26% equity stake in French ESG specialist mutual fund boutique La Financière Responsable (LFR) to boost its international footprint into the French fund market.

Partnerships

Multinational pipe and drilling manufacturer Vallourec has selected Balance to power the payments solution for its new online platform Behub-e, which enables energy and industrial market players to interact and transact online.

iDenfy, the end-to-end identity verification, compliance, and fraud prevention startup, has teamed up with AMLYZE, the SaaS anti-financial crime solutions provider, in a referral agreement that will enable mutual growth.

Finally, social investing network eToro has partnered with Sentifi to launch a social sentiment portfolio, SocialSentiment, which offers exposure to US companies with solid ESG performance as well as high levels of positive social chatter.