London-based FinTech services firm Codat has raised ($10m) in venture funding.
The firm’s technology connects the internal systems of small businesses to banks, fintechs and other financial institutions, allowing business data to flow back and forth in real time.
The capital comes from international venture firm Index Ventures, the backer of Adyen, Plaid and Robinhood. The firm’s partner Jan Hammer and venture partner Stephane Kurgan join the board.
The new funds will be used to expand to the US and grow to 100 people by the end of the year.
Among Codat’s clients are leading fintechs, insurance companies and banks, including iZettle, Experian, and two of the top four UK banks.
Codat uses a single API to directly ‘plug in’ to the software used by small businesses, and is pitched as an alaternative to sharing Excel sheets and PDFs.
It allows financial organisations to access a company’s accounting software and payment terminals recording real-time transactions.
This allows banks and FinTechs to better understand a company’s circumstances before providing access to loans, insurance and other financial products.
Codat was founded in 2017 by CEO Peter Lord, COO Alex Cardona and CTO David Hoare, who had worked together at what is now MarketFinance, a peer-to-peer invoice finance platform.
Lord said: “At Codat, we’re trying to shift the model for business communication from being like exchanging letters in the post, to instead having an intelligent real-time platform that automates communication and builds trust between the parties.’
“It’s simply luddite for so much business data to travel over email,” added Jan Hammer, a partner at investor Index Ventures.
“Codat represents a huge opportunity to increase the bandwidth and speed of business interactions. It makes data exchanges between businesses smoother and more responsive, as it allows systems to communicate electronically and seamlessly with each other in real time.
“We believe Codat represents a step-change that will dramatically expand businesses’ access to capital, customers and new commercial possibilities.”