Pngme, A Fintech Startup, Has Raised $15 Million In Series A Funding To Expand Its Customer Base And Team
Pngme, a fintech startup, has raised $15 million in Series A funding to expand its customer base and team
In a $15 million Series A round, Pngme, a platform that provides financial institutions and fintech startups with users' data through its API and machine learning infrastructure, has raised additional capital.
Octopus Ventures, a European venture capital firm, led the funding round. Raptor Group, Lateral Capital, EchoVC, Future Africa, Two Small Fish Ventures, and Unshackled Ventures, a US-based early-stage venture capital firm focused on immigrant-founded startups, were among the other participants.
Finally, several angel investors, including Hayden Simmons, Dan Kahn, Richard Talbot, and Kyle Ellicott of Intersect VC, are listed at the bottom of the list.
This investment comes on the heels of a $3 million seed investment announced in February 2021 and a $500k pre-seed investment announced in 2019. Since its inception in 2018, the company has raised a total of $18.5 million in funding.
Expansion and Increasing of Customer base
A portion of the funds raised will be used to expand the startup's team and increase its customer base. In order to accomplish this, they have hired new executives and are currently recruiting for positions in their engineering, data science, and sales teams, among other positions.
Incorporated by Brendan Playford (CEO) and Cate Rung (COO), Pngme is dedicated to providing actionable financial data that aids in the development of new products, the improvement of customer service, and the understanding of financial behavior for digital banks and credit platforms.
The startup, which is currently active in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, has formed partnerships with traditional financial institutions such as the Amalgamated Banks of South Africa (ABSA), the United Bank for Africa (UBA), and First Bank. In addition, digital financial platforms such as Kuda, Umba, Renmoney, TransUnion Africa, and CredPal are being developed.
Regarding short-term objectives, Rung states that the company intends to expand its network of third-party data connections to other markets and improve the quality of its Insight Library products in the near future.
A central channel of customer data is becoming increasingly important as financial services become more digitalized, in order to develop products that are customized for each user's specific requirements. African startups such as Mono and Okra, as well as Pngme, are already active in this space.
According to TechCrunch, Playford believes that Pngme is unique because of its machine learning model, which allows it to combine data from traditional banks with data from other API infrastructure and other sources.
The difference between us and the competition is that we are not only collecting data that we can see, but we are also connecting with Mono data, Okra data, and bank data,” explains the founder.
For the clients' benefit, we essentially combine all of the data and then layer machine learning models on top. Predictive credit models, segmentation models, and positioning ourselves as a data processing infrastructure for banks and fintechs are examples of such applications.”
They provide a framework that enables financial institutions and fintechs to collect and aggregate financial data on a large scale through the use of a mobile Software Development Kit (SDK) and data processing pipeline, among other things.
