NCFA Fintech Confidential October 2021 (Issue 4)

e an emergence of alternative lending
options, pushing lenders to compete
on price, demographics and ancillary
product offerings. Additionally new
offerings such as revenue base financing,
and buy-now-pay-later, are received
with greater comfort by investors and
customers alike. As such, while looking
into alternative financing options and
recognizing the lack of options for first
time buyers in a surging real-estate
market, we invested in a new financing
product of:
a) FirstStep Financial firststepfinancial.
ca: Opening the Door to Home
Ownership. Digital Lending
3. The I EARN Webinar explored the
opportunities and trends within Digital
Assets, Investment & WealthTech
industries. For instance, A survey
conducted by the Alternative Investment
Management Association and SS&C
found that out of 100 global hedge
fund managers, 69% of the market
leaders use alternative data to boost
performance. Also considering property
earning assets, the real estate market
showed no sign of slowing, and real
estate sector funding appeared to be
making a comeback early in the year,
with VC funding to proptech companies
growing 29% to $2.4B for Q1’21. Given
the need for better solutions in trading
and real-estate, we invested in:
a) CityFalcon cityfalcon.com: Using Big
Data, AI, and NLP, we democratize
access to financial content, personalize
it, add analytics, and deliver it in realtime
in 50+ languages. Capital Markets
b) Reitium reitium.com: REITIUM is a
blockchain real estate marketplace
where everyone can be an investor
starting with $100. PropTech
over $6 billion in funding. The number
of deals (114) increased by 50%, with 18
mega-rounds accounting for over 75%
of the total funding. From a banking
side, according to Accenture, over
50% of banking tasks are still manually
performed. By using technology, banks
in North America can save more than
70 billion USD through 2025. Not only
can technology improve the bottom line
for banks, but we are witnessing better
customer centric designs to better tailor
and serve niche demographics and
communities. As such, we invested in the
following payment and niche banking
companies:
a) Payzel payzel.com: Forged out of
frustration we are building the GE
Capital for Innovative Industries like
cannabis. Digital Payments
b) Phaze phaze.io: A prepaid payouts
API for fintechs. Digital Payments
c) PeopleHedge peoplehedge.
com(MAYBE)
The Holt Xchange has just invested in 8 of
the best fintechs that build solutions for our
society’s greatest challenges. They kickedoff
their Growth Acceleration Program and
are already in the process of working closely
with the portfolio companies and leveraging
their global advisory network to help drive
their business growth.
I am very excited to work
with this year’s portfolio
investments, complemented
with 500+ Advisors, and to have
the backing of key partners
like Fairstone, RBC, MNP, BDC
and Montreal International.
stated founding managing
partner Jan Arp.
IN FOCUS
4. While not a webinar in itself, the theme
of I TRANSFER emerged throughout
the series, focusing on payments and
banking. Payments remains the largest
attraction for VC investment, whereby
funding for payments companies tripled
compared to the previous quarter, with
If you are interested to learn more about us,
or meet our portfolio companies or Advisors
highly suggest you attend our Fintech Show
2021 either remotely or in-person: Fintech
Show 2021.
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