26th January 2022 – Tuum, the next-generation core banking platform, has announced a €15 million Series A round of funding. Portage Ventures is leading the round, joined by existing investors Blackfin Capital Partners and Karma Ventures. The round will enable Tuum – formerly known as Modularbank – to continue investing in product innovation and to support global growth, focusing initially on its EU and UK presence. The new funding announcement follows news that Tuum’s contracted annual recurring revenue increased more than 3 times in 2021 compared to the previous year.
Founded in 2019 by experts in financial technology, Tuum has created a flexible, lean, and modular banking platform that caters to a broad range of clients. Tuum’s cloud-agnostic core banking platform enables banks, fintechs, and traditionally non-financial companies to quickly roll-out new financial products and services. Empowered by Tuum’s technology, these businesses can better address the needs of their customers, increase sales, and foster loyalty.
In the three years that Tuum has been operating, demand for its banking platform has seen rapid growth. Tuum is now trusted by an ever-growing list of regulated banks, fintechs and embedded finance players from various industries. This trust is further exemplified by the fact that several customers – such as SweepBank – are migrating their critical, most sensitive workloads to Tuum’s platform. In the past year, in addition to having signed new clients, Tuum has significantly expanded its partners list which now features players such as Nets Estonia, HAWK:AI, and Veriff, among others.
Tuum is keen to invest more in both its existing markets and, using the prominence and industry expertise of its new lead investor Portage Ventures, beyond Europe. The funding will initially be used to expand operations in the UK, offering on-the-ground support to customers in its biggest market. It will also fund essential R&D efforts to continue enhancing and expanding the Tuum product portfolio. In addition, Tuum will deploy the new funding towards further investment in its team, projecting to double the team to 140 employees by the end of 2022.
Comments on the funding round
Vilve Vene, co-founder & CEO of Tuum:
“Banks and non-banks alike are realising the value that comes from taking a new, more modular approach to core banking, one that enables personalisation at scale.
In three years, Tuum has become the core banking platform of choice for various financial services providers, enabling them to innovate at pace.
We are excited to have onboarded Portage Ventures as the lead investor of this round, who we see as a valuable partner in supporting our further growth and expansion plans. Portage Ventures have extensive industry experience and an exceptional in-house team of financial technology experts. As they specialise in investing in fintech companies across the globe and are keenly aware of the nuances of the market, their trust in us clearly demonstrates the strength of our technology.
Additionally, we feel privileged to have Blackfin Capital Partners and Karma Ventures, the lead investors from our previous funding round, choosing to reinvest in us. This is a testament to the confidence they have in our team.”
Hélène Falchier, Partner at Portage Ventures:
“Digitalisation of the banking sector has been accelerating since 2019. Tuum has built a compelling core banking solution – cloud based, modular and easy to integrate – that allows their customers to launch and offer a full suite of banking services quickly and reliably. At Portage Ventures, we are excited to be part of the Tuum journey as they set out to modernise banking services by delivering what we believe to be a true new infrastructure solution. This is an exciting time as Tuum’s momentum continues to accelerate and we’re thrilled to work with this first class management team.”
Michele Foradori, Investment Director at BlackFin Capital Partners:
“Banks are reaching a tipping point with regards to their core banking systems: The need for these institutions to modernise their tech stack is now business critical, as features such as real-time processing and APIs move from being ‘nice-to-have’ to ‘must-have’. By combining cutting-edge technology with extensive banking expertise, Tuum are ideally positioned to support banks in modernising their systems, but also to respond to the increasing demand for ‘embedded finance’ use cases by new entrants to the market. Tuum have achieved impressive results over the past year, and we at Blackfin are proud to continue supporting them in 2022.”