UK-headquartered banking technology developer Thought Machine completed a $200m series C round yesterday backed by financial services firms ING, JPMorgan Chase, SEB, Standard Chartered and Lloyds Banking Group.
Venture capital firm Nyca Partners led the round, which included British Patient Capital, Eurazeo, Molten Ventures, Backed and IQ Capital, while ING and Standard Chartered took part through ING Ventures and SC Ventures respectively.
Thought Machine provides a cloud banking software platform called Vault which enables users to manage their retail and small business activities. It is in the process of developing commercial and private wealth management capabilities, and Lloyds, Standard Chartered and SEB are among its customers.
The round valued Thought Machine above $1bn and the company said it has now raised over $340m since it was founded in 2014, $23.5m coming in a 2018 series A round led by Lloyds and backed by existing investors IQ Capital, Backed and Playfair Capital.
SEB and Lloyds then participated in a series B round that closed at $125m in July 2020, investing alongside Eurazeo Growth, British Patient Capital, Molten Ventures (then Draper Esprit), Backed, Playfair Capital and IQ Capital.
Alex Manson, head of SC Ventures, said: “The deployment of Thought Machine is tied to our digital banking strategy, as we have adopted Thought Machine as the core banking software for our digital banks in Singapore and Hong Kong.
“Thought Machine’s cloud-native and agnostic technology stack offers agile and easily replicable deployment across markets, boosting our ability to roll out efficient digital banks with great customer experience in other markets.
“Digital Banking is one of our high-conviction themes, as we strongly believe finance should be a seamless experience embedded in our customers’ lifestyles. This will continue to be a focus area for SC Ventures.”
