Synctera, which aims to serve as a matchmaker for community banks and fintechs, has raised $33 million in a Series A round led by Fin VC.
The round included participation from Mastercard and Gaingels, and follow-on investments from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Diagram Ventures, SciFi Ventures and Scribble Ventures.
It also featured angel investors including former Marqeta CRO Omri Dahan and Greenlight CEO Tim Sheehan among others.
The latest funding round comes on the heels of explosive growth for the fintech company. In March we wrote about how the company stacked its C-Suite with some impressive executive appointments. And in December the company raised $12.4 million in seed funding.
Synctera has developed a platform designed to help facilitate partnership banking. It was founded on the premise that some community banks and credit unions are actually turning down deals with young fintechs because the relationships can be too complicated or time-consuming to manage. Synctera’s goal is to connect community banks and fintechs to streamline the process.
Peter Hazlehurst, CEO and co-founder of Synctera told FinLedger that this capital injection will help the company build out its product roadmap beyond consumer debit card banking to small business banking and start into lending in the first or second quarter of next year. Next year Synctera also wants to expand into Canada, Brazil and Mexico.
“I think the next two to three quarters is all about revenue growth, and really getting our first couple of banks up and running with the first two or three fintechs each,” Hazlehurst said.
The company will also use the funding to grow its team. Recently, it tapped Julie Solomon, Ph.D., as Chief Revenue Officer. Currently, Synctera has about 50 employees but plans to ramp up its headcount to about 150 before the year’s end. Hazlehurst said the business is hiring about 3 to 4 people a week.
“As soon as we met Peter, Kris, and Dominik and learned about their solution for the market, we were immediately sold,” Logan Allin, Managing General Partner and Founder at Fin VC, said in a statement. “The specific focus on community banks and the world-class tech behind the platform really convinced us that they’re building something that will stand the test of time and prove invaluable to financial services of the future.”
Synctera has on boarded customers such as Ellevest, run by notable CEO Sallie Krawcheck, and new community bank Lineage Bank.
“I think the opportunity for us is to shrink the launch time frame from nine months down to three months. Then, from three months down to one day, meaning that if you’re a fintech and you have a great idea, we can match you to a bank almost on the same day you show up,” Hazlehurst said.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Omri Dahan is the former Marqeta CRO.