Thought Machine, a London-based fintech company that builds cloud-native banking technology, announced on Thursday that it has secured $160M in a Series D funding round at a $2.7B valuation.
The round was led by Singapore-based Temasek, along with Intesa Sanpaolo, Morgan Stanley, and existing investors, including Eurazeo, ING, JPMorgan Chase, Lloyds Banking Group, and SEB.
The funding comes six months after raising $200M in a Series C fund in November last year.
Fund utilisation
The funds will enable Thought Machine to accelerate its expansion plans – building on its performance in New York, Singapore, and Australia.
Thought Machine has set out plans for further expansion in the Asia Pacific, growing in markets such as Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
The company has recently opened a new office in Sydney to expand its operations in Australia and is opening a new office in Miami to service Latin America.
The UK company will also use proceeds to continue investing in its technology – expanding the capabilities of its core banking platform and innovating in new product lines.
Paul Taylor, founder, and CEO of Thought Machine says. “This new round of funding bringing Temasek, Morgan Stanley, and Intesa Sanpaolo into the business is our statement of intent: we intend to become the leader in core banking technology, and are being deployed by the biggest, most successful banks around the world. We will use this new capital to accelerate our expansion plans, serve more clients around the world, and continuously refine the capabilities of our core banking platform and other products.”
Besides funding, the company has also appointed former Bank of America and Finastra finance leader Arnaud Attamian as Chief Financial Officer and former SAP and Box sales leader Dana Barisano as Chief Revenue Officer.
Cloud-native core banking engine
Founded by Paul Taylor, Thought Machine has developed a cloud-native core banking engine, which is used by leading banks and financial institutions globally, including Intesa Sanpaolo, Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Chartered, ING, Atom bank, Curve, and more.
As per the company, Vault Core has been written from scratch as an entire cloud-native platform and gives banks full control to build any product required to flourish in a rapidly changing world.
Thought Machine employs a team of more than 500 people spread across offices in London, New York, Singapore, Sydney, and Melbourne.
Carlo Messina, managing director and CEO, Intesa Sanpaolo, says, “We are investing c.£40m into Thought Machine, a fintech innovator and partner we consider strategic to the industrial upgrade of Intesa Sanpaolo. Their cloud-based technology is fundamental to our transformation from incumbent to digital challenger, improving our core banking technology and providing the foundation for our new digital bank, Isybank.”
