Synctera, a startup that helps connect community banks and Fintech firms, has secured $33 million through a Series A round that was led by Fin VC and included contributions from Mastercard.
The Synctera team notes:
“We’re bringing community banks and FinTechs together. One part marketplace. One part Fintech-as-a-Service platform. Synctera gives you everything you need to stand up a successful partnership, freeing up time to focus on what you do best. By streamlining day-to-day reconciliation, regulatory compliance and operational processes, we unlock growth opportunities, increase efficiency, minimize compliance risk and accelerate speed to market.”
Gaingels, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Diagram Ventures, SciFi Ventures, and Scribble Ventures also took part in Synctera’s investment round. Angels investors Omri Dahan (CRO, Marqeta), Nuno Sebastiao (CEO, Feedzai), and Tim Sheehan (CEO, Greenlight) joined the round as well.
Synctera has been founded by company CEO Peter Hazlehurst, who is the former Head of Uber Money, Head of Google Wallet and CPO at Yodlee, and the other co-founders are CTO Kris Hansen and Head of Product, Dominik Weisserth.
Synctera’s management noted that smaller banking institutions and credit unions have been hesitant or just not able to establish strategic partnerships because of a lack of technical or operational resources. Working cooperatively with Fintech firms raises certain regulatory compliance questions and also introduces operational overheads and added complexity.
Synctera says it’s worthwhile to make the whole process a lot simpler, offering a partnership banking marketplace that can connect community banks with Fintechs, while lowering overall risk, and ensuring compliance and speeding up launches to market.
Synctera has also announced its commitment to the Cap Table Coalition along with other high-potential firms by allocating 10% of all investment rounds to traditionally marginalized investors.
Hazlehurst stated:
“Since launch, Synctera has formed one of the best teams in the industry. Bringing on a group of investors with deep industry expertise will help us meet rapidly increasing demand in our next stage of growth. For this next chapter—and to put action behind Synctera’s values—we pledge to reserve 10% of this round and all future rounds to diverse investors, allowing for more representation and collaboration to further innovate the industry.”