Nova Founders Capital

Last updated
Nova Founders Capital
Company type Private
Industry Venture capital
Founded2012
FounderMads Faurholt-Jorgensen, Raphael Strauch, Stefan Bruun
HeadquartersLondon
Number of employees
5-10
Website www.novafounders.com

Nova Founders Capital is a London-based venture capital firm and business incubator specialising in financial technology and other internet technologies related to financial services. It was founded in 2012. [1] It has since founded some twenty ventures globally, including financial comparison platforms CompareAsiaGroup, CompareEuropeGroup, and Coru; POS financing platform Vendigo; and formerly digital marketing agency Lion & Lion. [2]

Contents

History

Nova Founders Capital was founded by Mads Faurholt-Jorgensen, Raphael Strauch, and Stefan Bruun. [3] The founding team met each other in Asia-Pacific, initially to launch operations of Groupon, later becoming global partners at Rocket Internet. [4] While at Rocket, they oversaw the launch of Internet companies like online retailers Zalora and Lazada, and online meal delivery service foodpanda. At the same time, they saw the potential in taking active ownership of startup companies, particularly those involved in financial technology. [5]

On September 18, 2014, Nova Founders Capital secured major funding through the Pacific Century Group, headed by Richard Li, the son of Hong Kong businessman Li Ka-shing. [1] The Pacific Century Group invested $50 million in Nova to help it launch online financial services companies, on the belief that this industry was the last big Internet frontier. [5] Following this funding round, more core team members were relocated to Hong Kong, where the company has one of its two head offices, the second of which is based in Mayfair, London, UK. [5] In addition, Nova has led fundraising rounds for other companies, including a seed investment round for German/Swiss/Austrian e-invoicing platform Crossinx and Series A and B rounds for financial comparison platform CompareAsiaGroup—which gained significant traction prior to funding. [6] At CompareAsiaGroup's Series B funding round a total of $50,000,000 was raised.

As of August 2018, Nova Founders Capital currently has 20 companies in its portfolio.[ citation needed ]

Prior to an investment, the Nova Founders team decides where the potential funds should be allocated, usually falling into three categories: building, investing in or acquiring companies. [7] Although Nova Founders Capital officially is considered a venture capital firm, [8] most of the investments are channeled into building new business from scratch. [9] When investing, Nova Founders limits the number of investments it makes in a given year, to ensure that the team can continue to add significant value operationally. [10]

Partners and portfolio

The companies generally included in Nova Founders Capital's portfolio operate in a number of fields, though since 2014 they have been oriented towards banking, insurance and consumer finance products. [5]

CompareAsiaGroup

CompareAsiaGroup is a localized financial comparison platform. In 2017, CompareAsiaGroup, received a total of US$50 million in new funding from investors. [11] [12] The new funding was led by International Finance Corp (IFC), [13] a unit of World Bank while the other investors were Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, SBI Group and H&Q Utrust, as well as existing investors Goldman Sachs Investment Partners VC and Growth Equity, Nova Founders Capital, ACE & Company and Route 66 Ventures. [14]

CompareEuropeGroup

CompareEuropeGroup is a financial comparison platform. [15]

ComparaJá.pt

ComparaJá.pt is an online platform for aggregating, comparing and analyzing financial products and services. The Portuguese fintech was founded in 2015 in partnership with Nova Founders Capital and belongs to the CompareEuropeGroup. [16] [17]

Lion & Lion

Lion & Lion is a digital advertising agency specialising in online marketing campaigns and digital advertising solutions. By late 2016 Lion & Lion acquired by the Japanese Septeni Holdings for an undisclosed USD double-digit million amount and the company is therefore no longer a part of Nova Founders Capital's portfolio. [2]

Pricefox

Pricefox is a price comparison online platform for financial services in Greece. Pricefox is backed by Antenna Group and CompareEuropeGroup, part of Nova Founders Capital. [18] [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SoftBank Group</span> Japanese investment holding company

SoftBank Group Corp. is a Japanese multinational investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services to customers in a multitude of markets and industries ranging from the internet to automation. With over $100 billion in capital at its onset, SoftBank's Vision Fund is the world's largest technology-focused venture capital fund. Fund investors included sovereign wealth funds from countries in the Middle East.

Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term seed suggests that this is a very early investment, meant to support the business until it can generate cash of its own, or until it is ready for further investments. Seed money options include friends and family funding, seed venture capital funds, angel funding, and crowdfunding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alibaba Group</span> Chinese multinational technology company

Alibaba Group Holding Limited, branded as Alibaba, is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in e-commerce, retail, Internet, and technology. Founded on 28 June 1999 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, the company provides consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-business (B2B) sales services via Chinese and global marketplaces, as well as local consumer, digital media and entertainment, logistics, and cloud computing services. It owns and operates a diverse portfolio of companies around the world in numerous business sectors.

stc Group Saudi Arabian telecommunications company

The Saudi Telecom Company, trading as STC Group provides ICT services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, across the Middle East and Europe. The group offers landline and fixed infrastructure, mobile and data services, and broadband & cloud computing services. It also offers online payments, telecommunications, IOT, 5G, e-gaming, cybersecurity, digital entertainment, and fintech.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Klippgen</span>

William Klippgen is a Singapore-based Norwegian entrepreneur and technology venture capitalist who co-founded the price comparison portal Zoomit.com. He served as one of the judges on the television series Angel's Gate, which was broadcast on Channel NewsAsia in 2012. Klippgen is a co-founder and serves as the Managing Partner at Cocoon Capital. He holds an MBA from INSEAD where he is an Entrepreneur in Residence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wise (company)</span> Financial services company

Wise, previously known as TransferWise, is a financial technology company focused on global money transfers. Headquartered in London, it was founded by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus in January 2011. As of 2023, it offers three main products: Wise Account, Wise Business, and Wise Platform.

Fundrise is a Washington, D.C.–based financial technology company founded in 2010 that operates an online investment platform. Fundrise has been labeled as the first company to successfully crowdfund investment into the real estate market.

iMoney is a personal finance company running a comparison platform.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paytm</span> Indian financial technology company

Paytm is an Indian multinational financial technology company, that specializes in digital payments and financial services, based in Noida, India. Paytm was founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma under One97 Communications. The company offers mobile payment services to consumers and enables merchants to receive payments through QR code payment, Soundbox, Android-based-payment terminal, and online payment gateway. In partnership with financial institutions, Paytm also offers financial services such as microcredit and buy now, pay later to its consumers and merchants.

PT Tokopedia is an Indonesian e-commerce company. Tokopedia is a subsidiary of a new holding company called GoTo, following a merger with Gojek on 17 May 2021. It is one of the most visited e-commerce platforms in Indonesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ant Group</span> Chinese financial services company

Ant Group, formerly known as Ant Financial, is an affiliate company of the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba Group. The group owns the world's largest mobile (digital) payment platform Alipay, which serves over 1.3 billion users and 80 million merchants, with total payment volume (TPV) reaching CN¥118 trillion in June 2020. It is the second largest financial services corporation in the world, behind Visa. In March 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that Ant's flagship Tianhong Yu'e Bao money-market fund was the largest in the world, with over 588 million users, or more than a third of China's population, contributing cash to it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WeLab</span> Hong Kong financial technology company

WeLab Limited is a Hong Kong financial technology company offering a range of services, such as online consumer credit platforms and virtual banking. It was founded in January 2013 by Simon Loong, Kelly Wong and Frances Kang and is best known for being the parent company of WeLab Bank, one of the first virtual banks to be granted a license to operate in Hong Kong.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Funding Societies</span>

Funding Societies is a Southeast Asian digital financing platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), headquartered in Singapore. It was the first such platform in Singapore to engage an escrow agency to independently and safely manage investors’ funds. In Indonesia it is known as Modalku. Since its launch, it has disbursed more than US$2.6 billion in business financing to MSMEs through more than 5.1 million loan transactions.

Jirnexu Sdn Bhd is a Southeast Asian financial technology startup headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The company provides technology to help financial institutions manage different stages of the customer journey: marketing, acquisition, fulfilment and retention. It has business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) operations in Malaysia and Indonesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PayU</span> Fintech company that provides payment solutions to online merchants.

PayU is a Netherlands-based payment service provider to online merchants. The company was founded in 2002, and is headquartered in Hoofddorp. It allows online businesses to accept and process payments through payment methods that can be integrated with web and mobile applications. As of 2018, the service is available in 17 countries. The firm is owned by the Naspers Group, which also owns a stake in one of its sister companies, Tencent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Saidler</span> Vienna-born Swiss businessman and entrepreneur

Martin Saidler is a Vienna-born Swiss businessman and investor in internet and financial technology companies. He has done most of his investing in central Europe, working mostly through a holding company called Centralway, and subsequently through a family office called Saidler & Co.

Policybazaar is an Indian insurance aggregator and multinational financial technology company based in Gurgaon. The corporation was established in June 2008 by Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirjar. It provides a digital platform—website and an app—where users can compare insurance policies and other financial services from major insurance companies. The company is India's largest insurance aggregator, and has expanded its operations to the United Arab Emirates. The companie's tagline is Har Family Hogi Insured.

Acton Capital is a German venture capital fund, founded in Munich and investing in tech-enabled startup companies in Europe and North America.

Dymon Asia is an Asia-focused investment management firm based in Singapore. It is considered one of the largest hedge funds in Singapore and Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rewire (company)</span> Israeli banking and financial services company

Rewire by Remitly is a digital financial platform operated by the fintech company Remitly in Israel that provides online financial services tailored to migrant workers. The platform provides remittance services for workers to transfer funds back home. The Rewire by Remitly platform was originally built by the Israeli startup Rewire which was founded by Guy Kashtan, Saar Yahalom, Adi Ben Dayan, and Or Benoz.

References

  1. 1 2 Horwitz, Paul (September 18, 2014). "Nova Founders Capital receives $50M from Hong Kong's Pacific Century Group to boost fintech in Asia". Tech in Asia. Retrieved April 29, 2015.
  2. 1 2 Manjur, Rezwana (2016-09-30). "Malaysian digital agency Lion & Lion gets acquired". Marketing Interactive. Retrieved 2019-01-21.
  3. "Team". Nova Founders Capital. Retrieved July 13, 2015.
  4. Hofmann, Alex (November 19, 2012). "Is Nova Founders "Rocket Internet 2.0"? Ex Samwer managers confirm four "extremely exciting new businesses"". Venture Village. Vertical Media GmbH. Retrieved May 6, 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Chew, Amy (December 16, 2014). "Richard Li chips in $50 million: Nova Founders bets on online financial services". Nikkei Asian Review . Nikkei Inc. Retrieved April 29, 2015.
  6. "CompareAsiaGroup receives US$3mil funding". Digital News Asia. February 17, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2015.
  7. "KL-born Nova Founders gets US$50mil from HK's Pacific Century Group". Digital News Asia. September 19, 2014. Retrieved May 26, 2015.
  8. "Nova Founders Capital Grabs USD50m". StrategyEye. September 18, 2014. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
  9. "Nova Founders Capital secures USD50m investment from Pacific Century Group". Private Equity Wire. GFM Ltd. September 18, 2014. Retrieved September 2, 2015.
  10. De Waal-Montgomery, Michael (January 12, 2015). "Fintech investments top priority for Nova Founders Capital in 2015". e27. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
  11. Shu, Catherine (11 July 2017). "CompareAsiaGroup scores $50M from investors including IFC, Alibaba and Goldman Sachs". Techcrunch. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  12. Freischlad, Nadine (11 July 2017). "Brief: CompareAsia sees $50m new funding from Alibaba and other investors". Tech In Asia. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  13. "FinTech startup CompareAsiaGroup gets $50m injection". Disruptive Asia. 12 July 2017. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  14. "CompareAsiaGroup gets RM215m from World Bank, Alibaba". The Star Online. 11 July 2017. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  15. "Portfolio – CompareEuropeGroup". CompareEuropeGroup. 4 February 2021. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  16. "O maior grupo internacional de comparação financeira online entra em Portugal através do ComparaJá". Startup Lisboa. Retrieved 2021-11-03.
  17. "Simulador líder de Crédito, Energia e Telecomunicações". ComparaJá.pt (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 2021-11-03.
  18. "Our brands – CompareEuropeGroup". CompareEuropeGroup. 4 February 2021. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  19. "Pricefox" . Retrieved 7 October 2021.