The competition in the banking industry is intensifying, driven by the arrival of challenger banks and neo banks.
These new players utilise next-gen digital core banking platforms to deliver optimised and value-added digital banking services to their customers. It enables digital transformation and allows any business to rapidly roll out new financial products and services.
For legacy banks, it’s now or never to modernise their tech stack meanwhile, non-traditional players like retailers are increasingly taking the opportunity to deliver financial services themselves.
Meet Tuum
Based out of Tallinn, Tuum (previously ModularBank) is set out to capitalise on the opportunity as the next-generation core banking platform is gaining momentum. The Estonian firm is a next-generation core banking technology provider.
Recently, the company has announced a €15M funding in a Series A round led by Portage Ventures, with participation from existing investors Blackfin Capital Partners and Karma Ventures.
Commenting on the funding round, Tuum CEO Vilve Vene said, “In three years, Tuum has become the core banking technology provider of choice for various financial institutions and non-financial companies, enabling them to innovate at pace and launch future-facing value propositions. We are excited to have onboarded Portage Ventures as the lead investor of this round, who we see as a valuable partner in supporting our further growth and expansion plans. Additionally, we feel privileged to have Blackfin Capital Partners and Karma Ventures, the lead investors from our previous funding round, choosing to reinvest in us, as this is a testament to the confidence they have in our team.”
How will the funding be used?
The funding round will enable the company to accelerate product innovation and support global growth, focusing initially on strengthening its EU and UK presence.
Tuum says the funding will initially be used to expand operations in the UK, offering on-the-ground support to customers in its biggest market.
It will also fund essential R&D efforts to continue enhancing and expanding the Tuum product portfolio.
In addition, Tuum will deploy the new funding towards further investment in its team, projecting to double the team to 140 employees by the end of 2022.
The latest funding follows a robust year of growth after Tuum has seen rapid growth YoY, tripled its contracted annual revenues last year, and is expected to be Estonia’s next unicorn.
Offers a modular platform
Founded in 2019, Tuum has developed a flexible, lean, and modular platform that caters to a broad range of clients.
Meaning, the platform follows the microservice architecture and is composed of flexible and independent modules that cover end-to-end everyday banking processes.
The company’s cloud-agnostic core banking platform enables banks, fintechs, and traditionally non-financial companies to quickly and easily roll out new financial products and services.
The platform is API-based can be quickly integrated into the existing ecosystem and can run on all main cloud providers as well as on private clouds.
In the past year, in addition to having signed new clients, Tuum has significantly expanded its partners’ list which now features players such as Nets Estonia, German money-laundering detection company, HAWK:AI, and digital identity provider, Veriff, among others.
Investors
Portage Ventures is a global investor dedicated to supporting fintech companies. The company has a presence in Canada, the US, Europe, and Asia.
Hélène Falchier, Partner at Portage Ventures, comments, “Digitalization of the banking sector has been accelerating since 2019. Tuum has built a compelling core banking solution – cloud-based, modular, and easy to integrate – that allows its customers to launch and offer a full suite of banking services quickly and reliably. At Portage Ventures, we are excited to be part of the Tuum journey as they set out to modernize banking services by delivering what we believe to be a true new infrastructure solution. This is an exciting time as Tuum’s momentum continues to accelerate and we’re thrilled to work with this first-class management team.”
BlackFin Capital Partners is a fully independent private equity and venture capital firm focused on financial services in Europe. The company has so far invested in 17 of the fastest-growing European fintechs and insurtechs.
Michele Foradori, Investment Director at BlackFin Capital Partners, says, “Banks are reaching a tipping point with regards to their core banking systems: The need for these institutions to modernise their tech stack is now business-critical, as features such as real-time processing and APIs move from being ‘nice-to-have’ to ‘must-have’. By combining cutting-edge technology with extensive banking expertise, Tuum is ideally positioned to support banks in modernising their systems, but also to respond to the increasing demand for ‘embedded finance’ use cases by new entrants to the market. Tuum have achieved impressive results over the past year, and we at Blackfin are proud to continue supporting them in 2022.”
