The company will use the new funding to grow its AI lab in Tel Aviv and to expand its global go-to-market teams, according to a Thursday (Sept. 5) press release.

“For financial institutions, compliance and growth can be seen as two competing priorities,” Nir Laznik, co-founder and CEO of Sedric, said in the release. “With our compliance LLM [large language model], we turn risk into a growth opportunity. Enterprises now have an opportunity to implement a proven, bank-ready solution that is successfully operational and already widely adopted across the financial services industry.”

Sedric’s platform helps financial institutions meet the expectations of regulators at a time when there is growing attention being paid to generative AI, the opportunity it presents for financial institutions to expand their product offerings, and the potential compliance risk that comes with this and other new tech, according to the release.

The platform helps compliance officers gain a holistic view of their customer touchpoints across multiple channels, flag deviations from their compliance policies and guidelines, and quickly take corrective actions, the release said.

Sedric has a growing base of customers in the United States and Europe and has increased its revenue fivefold over the last 12 months, per the release.

The company’s latest funding round was led by Foundation Capital.

Charles Moldow, general partner at Foundation Capital, said in the release that Laznik, Sedric Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Eyal Peleg and the Sedric team have developed “a forward-looking solution that is 100 times more effective, faster and efficient compared to traditional methods.”

In another recent development in the compliance space, Norm Ai said in June that it raised $27 million in a Series A funding round to expand its AI-powered regulatory compliance platform for businesses.

“We are now at an inflection point in AI capabilities that, when properly harnessed, unlock massive improvements in regulatory compliance workflows across the economy,” Norm Ai Founder and CEO John Nay said at the time in a press release.

The post Sedric Raises $18.5 Million for AI-Powered Compliance Platform for Financial Institutions appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The company has quadrupled its revenue and doubled its customer base over the past two years, despite rising interest rates that challenged the global trade sector during that time, Drip Capital Co-founder and CEO Pushkar Mukewar said in a Thursday (Sept. 5) press release.

“Despite these challenges, Drip has emerged as the preferred trade finance platform for SMBs [small- t0 medium-sized businesses] in the U.S. and India,” Mukewar said. “We’ve achieved cash profitability and expanded our business during this period.”

With new investors joining the company’s existing investors and debt partners, Drip Capital is “ready to drive our next phase of growth,” Mukewar added.

Drip Capital currently collaborates with more than 9,000 sellers and buyers in more than 100 countries, helping SMBs manage their cash flows and working capital, according to the release. In the past eight years, the company has financed over $6 billion in trade transactions.

The company uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help assess credit risk, streamline operations and enhance customer experiences, the release said. It will continue to invest in that technology.

Drip has also expanded the range of services it offers SMBs by integrating foreign exchange and risk analytics solutions with its core trade financing products, per the release.

The company’s investors include GMO Payment Gateway and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC), according to the release.

“Drip’s innovative and comprehensive solutions in digital trade finance are transforming how SMBs engage in trade,” GMO Payment Gateway Executive Vice President Ryu Muramatsu said in the release.

Keiji Matsunaga, general manager of digital strategy department at SMBC, said in the release: “We are excited to contribute to the growth of society and market, by encouraging Japan-India corridor activities via this collaboration.”

Drip seized upon the increased digitization of trade-related data records by using technology and data to calibrate and price the risk involved in brokering cross-border transactions, Mukewar told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in an interview posted in 2021.

“Another very important aspect of our product is looking not just at traditional financial metrics, but also leveraging electronic trade data to be able to really assess the risk of every transaction which we finance,” Mukewar said.

The post Drip Secures $113 Million to Grow Digital Trade Finance Platform appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Bravo said this about three years after his private equity investment firm helped lead a $900 million investment in cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which later went bankrupt and whose founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is now in prison, CNBC reported Thursday.

“Personally, I’m a believer in blockchain. I think it’s a powerful way of doing many things and for many use cases, and I’ve always believed that,” Bravo told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Thursday. “From an investment standpoint, after you make a mistake, you kind of move on.”

Other than that failed investment, Thoma Bravo has become a giant investor in the tech industry, according to the report.

The company has orchestrated acquisitions of Proofpoint, RealPage, Anaplan and Coupa; made exits with the sales of Imperva and Barracuda Networks; and returned about $13 billion to its investors in 2023, per the report.

Thoma Bravo sold Imperva, a cybersecurity firm, to French multinational Thales in July 2023 for $3.6 billion after acquiring the firm in 2018 in a deal valued at $2.1 billion.

Thales Chairman and CEO Patrice Caine said at the time in a press release: “With this acquisition, we are seizing a unique opportunity to accelerate our cybersecurity capabilities and are taking an important step towards our ambition to build a world-class global cybersecurity integrated player, providing a comprehensive portfolio of products and services. We have tremendous respect for Imperva’s innovative application and data security offerings.”

Thoma Bravo bought Coupa, a business spend management firm, in December 2022 for $8 billion, making Coupa a privately held company.

Holden Spaht, a managing partner at Thoma Bravo, said at the time in a press release: “Coupa has created and led the large and growing business spend management category. We’ve followed the company’s success for many years and have been impressed by its consistent track record of delivering high levels of value for its global customer base.”

The terms of the Coupa deal reflected underlying demand for this niche corner of cost savings, PYMNTS reported in December 2022.

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The firm raised $160 million in a financing round that included backers like AI chip giant Nvidia, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday (Sept. 5).

Applied Digital builds and leases out space in its data center to other companies, according to the report. It also launched an AI cloud-computing operation powered by Nvidia’s chips.

“We have been doing a lot with Nvidia, and I think we’re unique in that we have both the cloud aspect and the data center build-out,” CEO Wes Cummins said, per the report. “I think both are important to them.”

The company will use the new funding to fuel its growth and help shore up debt-financing deals for a data center effort in North Dakota, the report said. It also plans to expand its cloud-computing business.

Other companies in the space — such as AI cloud-computing firm CoreWeave — have also seen their valuations rise after investments from Nvidia, per the report.

Earlier this week, Tokyo-based AI company Sakana AI raised over $100 million and partnered with Nvidia, an investor in the funding round.

In other AI news, PYMNTS examined how generative AI has emerged as a major driver of innovation in automobile development and design.

“The technology allows engineers to quickly explore numerous design variations, optimizing everything from vehicle aesthetics to performance attributes,” the report said. “This shift is supported by compelling industry data.”

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “How Generative AI Is Boosting Innovation for Carmakers and Drivers” found that 93% of auto industry stakeholders said generative AI will have a significant impact on their field, while 75% plan to integrate it into their operations this year.

The generative AI market in the auto sector is expected to balloon from $335 million in 2023 to $2.6 billion by 2033, representing a compound annual growth rate of 23%.

“This anticipated growth underscores a commitment to the technology among research and development departments, with nearly 70% of decision-makers prioritizing its adoption,” PYMNTS wrote.

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The post Nvidia Contributes to $160 Million Applied Digital Funding Round appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The new financing will help the company with its mission of offering direct-to-consumer health and wellness brands an easier way to accept health savings account (HSA) and flexible spending account (FSA) payments online, according to a Wednesday (Sept. 4) press release.

“Flex will use the funding to accelerate product development and sales and marketing, and to capitalize on strong interest from brands in capturing more of the $150 billion in potential annual HSA/FSA spending,” the release said.

Online acceptance of HSA and FSA payments has been difficult because of the need to substantiate each item’s eligibility “on the fly,” meaning that only companies the size of Amazon and Walmart have the resources to create their own systems to process HSA and FSA payments online, per the release.

“Smaller merchants have been unable to leverage consumers’ desire to spend their HSA/FSA dollars online,” the release said. “Consumers instead must pay out of pocket and submit itemized receipts to their FSA provider seeking reimbursement. The difficulty of that process means consumers often purchase their products elsewhere, from merchants who make the process easier.”

Flex differentiates itself by offering product verification during checkout and “the ability to confirm the eligibility of dual-use items, issuing Letters of Medical Necessity, and handling split tenders — orders that include both eligible and non-eligible items,” Flex co-founder Sam O’Keefe said in the release.

In other healthcare news, PYMNTS spoke last week with PatientPay CEO Tom Furr and ClearGage CEO Ryan Zemmin about the way digital innovations are improving the patient experience in healthcare billing and payments.

“We are trying to digitize a pretty paper-based system, which is how most healthcare bills are sent out,” said Furr, whose company had just merged with ClearGage. “Forty-five percent of bills in healthcare are sent through paper statements, and outside of healthcare that’s not the norm.”

Furr attributed the persistence of paper billing to the complexity of healthcare payments and the difficulty of leaving behind long-held practices.

Although the pandemic accelerated the shift toward digital solutions as healthcare providers faced pressure to maintain efficiency, the macro backdrop has left healthcare systems struggling as costs rise and government support fades, the report said.

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The company plans to use the funds to boost its computing power and hire talent, management told Reuters in an interview published Wednesday (Sept. 4). Safe Superintelligence (SSI) declined to share its valuation, though sources told Reuters the firm is valued at $5 billion.

Investors in the round included high-profile venture capital outfits like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia, along with NFDG, an investment partnership run in part by SSI CEO Daniel Gross.

“It’s important for us to be surrounded by investors who understand, respect and support our mission, which is to make a straight shot to safe superintelligence and in particular to spend a couple of years doing R&D on our product before bringing it to market,” Gross told Reuters.

Meanwhile, Sutskever — an OpenAI co-founder who had been the company’s chief scientist — said the new project made sense because he “identified a mountain that’s a bit different from what I was working on.”

Last year, Sutskever was part of the board at OpenAI that voted to unseat CEO Sam Altman over a “breakdown of communications,” though he quickly changed his mind and joined in an employee-led campaign for Altman’s reinstatement.

However, as Reuters notes, the incident “diminished” Sutskever’s role at OpenAI. He was removed from the board and stepped down in May. After he left, the company dissolved his AI-safety-focused “superalignment” team.

Sutskever announced the launch of SSI in June, saying the company would focus solely on developing — as the name suggests — safe superintelligence without the pressure that comes with commercial interests.

As PYMNTS wrote at the time, this has once again sparked a debate about whether such a feat is possible. Some experts question the feasibility of creating a superintelligent AI, given the limitations of AI systems and the obstacles to ensuring its safety.

“Critics of the superintelligence goal point to the current limitations of AI systems, which, despite their impressive capabilities, still struggle with tasks that require common sense reasoning and contextual understanding,” that report said. “They argue that the leap from narrow AI, which excels at specific tasks, to a general intelligence that surpasses human capabilities across all domains is not merely a matter of increasing computational power or data.”

The post OpenAI Vet Sutskever’s Startup Reportedly Raises $1 Billion appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The round was led by PayPal Ventures, the companies said in a Friday (Aug. 30) press release. Ume has also raised a $20 million FIDC debt facility, according to the release.

The company will use the new resources to expand into new regions and enhance its Pix capabilities, per the release.

“Our vision is to build a next-generation payment network and merchant services platform on Pix rails that provides Brazilians with more accessible and flexible payment methods and enables thousands of Brazilian SMBs to grow their businesses,” Berthier Ribeiro, co-founder and CEO of Ume, said in the release.

Ume currently offers its buy now, pay later (BNPL) product through a network of 6,000 merchants in Brazil and reaches more than 220,000 consumers, according to the release. Eighty-five percent of the purchases made using its consumer financing product are from repeat customers.

Now, the company is building a Pix-first payment network and merchant services platform that enables SMBs to offer additional payment options to their customers, the release said.

Since incorporating the Pix rail into its network in early 2023, Ume has grown its merchant base five times faster, seen consumer repeat rates grow three times higher and had default rates decline by 33%, per the release.

“By building its infrastructure on the public Pix rails, Ume is able to quickly scale up by instantly onboarding new merchants and consumers, as well as through expanded product offerings such as enabling certain consumers to purchase from merchants outside the Ume network, allowing them to buy both online and offline,” Ian Cox, investment partner at PayPal Ventures, said in the release.

Eighty-two percent of Brazilian consumers said Pix — which is Brazil’s instant-payment system — makes a positive or very positive impact on their lives, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence and Galileo collaboration, “Promising Payments: Digital Payments Gain Ground in Latin America.”

The report also found that 43% of Brazilian consumers use Pix daily, compared to the 29% who use credit cards and the 21% who use cash.

The post PayPal-Backed Ume Raises $15 Million to Expand Payment Network appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

In an interview with TechCrunch Tuesday (Sept. 3), Co-founder and CEO Faisal Toukan said there were a few factors that made the company attractive to investors, including the rapidly-growing small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) segment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the company’s newly-acquired central bank license.

Ziina originated as a peer-to-peer (P2P) payment app for splitting bills, such as for group trips or rent and still offers P2P services.

But the TechCrunch report notes that, while the company still offers P2P services, most of its product focus has shifted to SMEs, targeting an “underserved market” of 560,000 such businesses, which account for nearly 95% of all companies in the UAE.

“We’re an all-in-one platform for businesses to get paid in the UAE, having evolved from being purely a consumer app to an ecosystem that connects consumers and businesses for payments under one platform,” Toukan said.

“We look at the general experience as consumers can pay businesses, businesses can pay consumers, and then build that network effect across the two customer segments. And that is one of the key differentiators we have in our product strategy and business. So basically, everything should be under one ecosystem where people have a financially trusted partner.”

The funding comes weeks after another Dubai-based company, financial services firm Mamo, announced it had raised $4.3 million in new funding.

“Mamo’s mission is to empower people to manage and grow their money through simpler, faster and friendlier finance,” the company wrote on LinkedIn. “This newly raised capital will help expand the depth of Mamo’s SME-facing product offering within the UAE and support regional expansion.”

PYMNTS spoke with Mamo CEO Imad Gharazeddine in 2022 about the rise of P2P payments in the UAE and other countries in the Middle East/North Africa region.

“SMEs are tired of cash-on-delivery because of the operational hassles associated with it,” Gharazeddine told PYMNTS. “For example, if you deliver products or services and your customer comes to make a payment and they don’t have the right change, you have to send your driver back and forth a few times.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote earlier this year about the prevalence of “Click-and-Mortar shoppers,” in the UAE, a term for people who leverage both digital tools and physical locations to maximize their shopping experience.

“And, when surveyed about the quality of their digital shopping features, respondents shared what turned out to be the second highest level of customer satisfaction among the six countries we studied,” PYMNTS wrote. “This likely explains why 71% of UAE consumers used digital features to enhance their most recent shopping experience.”

The post Dubai’s Ziina Raises $22 Million as UAE’s Small Business Sector Grows appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The funding brings the total amount the company has raised to $58 million, CoinDesk reported Friday (Aug. 30), citing a paywalled article by Fortune.

The startup has raised venture funding from Sequoia, Ribbit, Index, Haun Ventures and others, Ledger Insights reported Friday.

Bridge was founded by Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, according to the company’s website. They previously founded Evenly, a peer-to-peer (P2P) payments company that was acquired by Square in 2013.

The company aims to create infrastructure that builders can use to take advantage of the ability of stablecoins to transform and improve global money movement, per the website.

“Since launching 18 months ago, we’ve provided millions with faster and cheaper access to cross-border payments, enabled governments and aid agencies to more efficiently distribute funds to thousands, and given millions more true economic choice, enabling them to easily save and spend in USD or EUR,” Bridge said on its website. “And we’re just getting started.”

Sequoia said in a Thursday (Aug. 29) blog post that it led Bridge’s Series A funding round, partnering with the company because it will “usher in the next wave of payment innovation.”

“Zach, Sean and their team are making it possible for developers to seamlessly and instantly convert between any two dollar formats, with a single API,” Sequoia said in the post. “A company in Brazil can use Bridge to send USDC payments to their supplier in China, a consumer in Nigeria can pay for YouTube or ChatGPT, and a small business in the U.S. can take payments in PYUSD from customers around the world. Because Bridge is built on blockchains, it works 24/7, in virtually every country — and for as little as 10% of the cost of traditional foreign exchange rails.”

Observers are wondering whether stablecoins might serve as the best onramp for users to enter the digital asset space, PYMNTS reported Monday (Aug. 26). Stablecoins can be integrated into existing digital wallets, making them easy to use for those already familiar with mobile payments.

For all PYMNTS B2B and digital transformation coverage, subscribe to the daily B2B and Digital Transformation Newsletters.

The post Bridge Raises $40 Million for Global Stablecoin-Based Payments Platform appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The company announced the approval Wednesday (Aug. 28) in a disclosure posted to its website. Paytm has faced scrutiny this year after being ordered to close its payments bank in January.

Paytm said it will now apply with the finance ministry to get back its payment services license.

“We remain committed to a compliance-first approach and upholding the highest regulatory standards,” the company said in its letter. “As a homegrown Indian company, Paytm is focused on contributing to and advancing the Indian financial ecosystem.”

Paytm has been struggling since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) — the country’s banking regulator and central bank — suspended business at Paytm Payments Bank, which had processed much of Paytm’s payments.

The RBI made the move after an audit uncovered “persistent noncompliances and continued material supervisory concerns,” although the regulator had been warning for years about the questionable relationship between Paytm and its banking arm.

Last month, Paytm reported that its operating revenue slipped again in the quarter ending in June as it continued to wrestle with regulatory issues.

Operating revenue fell from 19.8 billion rupees (about $236 million) in the last quarter to 15 billion rupees (about $179 million). That was down from 23.4 billion rupees (about $279 million) in the same period a year ago.

“The full financial impact of the recent disruptions was seen during this quarter,” Paytm said in an article on its website. “With green shoots visible across — growth in merchant payment operating metrics, gross merchandise value (GMV), accelerated merchant reactivation and an expanding merchant base, coupled with our continued focus on cost optimization — we remain optimistic about our revenue and profitability improvement.”

This year saw Paytm lose ground on India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to the likes of Google Pay and the Walmart-backed PhonePe.

These companies are competing for consumer attention in a country that has been on a digital payments journey for the past 15 years, PYMNTS wrote in late 2023. PYMNTS Intelligence research showed that digital wallets are now the preferred payment method for more than half of all retail purchases in India, with 8 in 10 digital wallet users opting for UPI.

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