Thought Machine, the Cloud native banking tech firm, recently announced it has closed its series D funding round, led by Temasek, the global investment company headquartered in Singapore, “with participation from Intesa Sanpaolo and Morgan Stanley.”
Existing investors following-on in this investment round reportedly include: Eurazeo, ING, JPMorgan Chase, Lloyds Banking Group, and SEB.
Thought Machine is now “valued at $2.7bn – a 100% increase from the company’s valuation at the close of its series C round.”
This funding round closely “follows Thought Machine’s series C round, which completed at the end of 2021, demonstrating the company’s accelerated growth trajectory and continued interest from global investors.”
Funds from this investment round will “continue the company’s global expansion plans – building on the success of Thought Machine’s strong performance in New York, Singapore and Australia.”
Thought Machine has “set out plans for further expansion in Asia Pacific, growing in markets such as Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines.”
Thought Machine 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 company will also “use proceeds from the funding to continue investing in its technology – expanding the capabilities of its core banking platform and innovating in new product lines.”
Lloyds Banking Group, an early investor in Thought Machine and a participant in this round, has “extended its license agreement with the business until 2029.”
This extension “is part of Lloyds Banking Group’s continuing technology modernisation program.”
Thought Machine continues “to strengthen its executive team with the appointments of 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.”
Thought Machine’s core banking platform Vault Core “is developed natively for the cloud – uniquely positioned to support large-scale banks undertaking core transformation, as well as smaller banks and fintechs launching new propositions to the market.”
The company claims that “no other core banking vendor has signed as many Tier 1 banks as clients such as Intesa Sanpaolo, Lloyds Banking Group, ING, SEB, and Standard Chartered, among others around the world.”
Carlo Messina, managing director and CEO, Intesa Sanpaolo, said:
“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.”
Paul Taylor, founder and CEO of Thought Machine, said:
“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.”
Thought Machine has “developed the foundational layer of modern banking.”
Its cloud native core banking engine, Vault Core, “is trusted and used by leading banks and financial institutions around the world – including Intesa Sanpaolo, Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Chartered, ING, Atom bank, Curve and more.”
Vault Core has been “written from scratch as an entirely cloud native platform and gives banks full control to build any product required to flourish in a rapidly changing world.”
Thought Machine is currently ‘a team of more than 500 people spread across offices in London, New York, Singapore, Sydney, and Melbourne, and has raised more than $500m in funding.”
Temasek is a global investment company “with a net portfolio value of S$381 billion (US$283b) as at 31 March 2021.”
Headquartered in Singapore, it “has 13 offices in 9 countries around the world.”
The Temasek Charter defines Temasek’s three roles “as an Investor, Institution and Steward, which shape its ethos to do well, do right, and do good.”
As a provider of catalytic capital, it seeks “to enable solutions to key global challenges.”
With sustainability at the core of all Temasek does, it actively “seeks sustainable solutions to address present and future challenges, as it captures investible opportunities to bring about a sustainable future for all.”