Participated · Equity · Mar 2023

Synctera operates a banking-and-payments platform that enables companies to build and scale embedded financial products and equips sponsor banks to manage compliant partnerships. The company serves both enterprise and consumer-facing customers, and recently signed Bolt as its largest customer to date and launched an Alliant Insurance Services program with Unified Signal. Synctera has integrated Hawk’s AI-driven AML and CFT technology into its core platform to strengthen risk management and compliance. The firm says the new funding will support acceleration of growth and the ability to meet more complex needs and increased scale of its latest customers. Synctera was launched in 2020 and is presented in the article from San Francisco. The company has raised a total of $94M to date. Synctera provides a banking-as-a-service platform that brings together fintech companies and sponsor banks through a single API, enabling fintechs to launch embedded banking products quickly. The platform emphasizes automation, compliance, and risk controls so banks can work confidently with fintechs of all sizes and does not require a core banking integration. Synctera monetizes by charging setup and access fees and taking a share of transaction fees, interest earned and interchange with its marketplace of banks. The company reports revenue was up 20x year-over-year in the fourth quarter and that usage metrics and revenue are growing roughly 30% month-on-month in areas like payment volume. Synctera is working with 50 fintechs (14 live, including Wayapay and Float) and has another 20+ in implementation slated for launch in March and April. The remote-first company has about 110 employees (50 in Canada) and plans in 2023 to add support for credit, lending and other banking use cases while expanding into new geographies and client segments. Synctera provides a Banking-as-a-Service platform that connects community banks and fintechs, managing back-end operations, regulatory compliance, reconciliation and billing to simplify partnership banking. The company evaluates banks’ needs and matches them with fintechs in a marketplace designed for personalized fits on geography, brand ethos and business goals. It has signed three banks so far and plans to sign three more this month, and has paired partners including Coastal Community Bank with One and Ellevest. Synctera employs about 50 people, including roughly two dozen engineers (most located in Canada), and plans to grow headcount to about 160 by year-end with hires focused on engineering, sales, marketing and customer success. Looking ahead the company plans to onboard many more fintechs, support small-business fintechs in the near term, and pursue offerings such as a neobank for gig workers and lending-as-a-service. CEO Peter Hazlehurst previously led Uber Money and worked on Google Wallet and payments products, informing the company’s focus on bridging legacy banks and modern fintechs. Synctera has built a two-sided partnership banking marketplace that fits between banks and FinTech partners to facilitate integrations and product launches. The platform aims to reduce risk and speed time-to-market by addressing regulatory requirements such as AML and KYC and by decoupling bilateral bank–partner integrations into a marketplace model. The company launched out of stealth and is initially offering its platform in the United States, going live with Coastal Community Bank and One as launch partners. Synctera is incorporated in the U.S., has a Canadian subsidiary, and its engineering team is based in Toronto; the company describes its product as portable and regulation agnostic with plans to be a global play. The startup raised a CAD$15.8M (US$12.4M) all-equity seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Diagram Ventures and several angel investors. Post-investment, its board includes CEO Peter Hazlehurst, Ansaf Kareem (Lightspeed), and Frederic Latreille (Diagram).