AML startup Comply Advantage is among the first seven companies selected for Addleshaw Goddard’s FinTech startup programme AG Elevate. Comply Advantage, which as reported by Legal IT Insider in October 2016 raised $8.2m in Series A funding, is joined by Delio, Mobillity, Money Fellows, Pace Invoice, Penta and Valoot (see below for a full description of each company.)
AG Elevate launched in November 2016 with an initial investment of £500,000 – considerably more than other known law firm startup programmes – and offers those selected a 12-month, tailored programme of legal advice alongside a range of training, insight and mentoring from AG lawyers. Benefits include up to 40 hours of free legal advice for the year, as well as access to briefings, seminars and regulatory developments and networking opportunities.
It will support early-stage start-ups with no more than £1million of investment and FinTechs with funding of more than £1million.
Addleshaw Goddard partnered with FinTech Connect, a global platform and community for the FinTech industry, and PayExpo, the UK’s largest payments event, and teamed up with a number of FinTech accelerator programmes to identify FinTechs to join the programme.
The first cohort includes a range of specialisms from payment services, SME banking, and money manager services.
AG Elevate is one of a growing number of startup programmes launched by City firms. Slaughter and May’s £300,000 FinTech startup fund was announced on 31 October 2016 and will see the elite City firm give free advice and support to up to ten UK-based new and emerging businesses. Simmons & Simmons, meanwhile, in mid-October announced the names of the first startups to receive free support from its new FinTech Fund, which include blockchain invoicing provider Tallysticks. The £100,000 fund was launched in May 2016.
The seven successful AG Elevate businesses are:
Comply Advantage: a London-based provider of AML data and compliance technology solutions founded by Charles Delingpole (pictured on the home page). They help compliance professionals access real time, high quality and relevant AML risk data to make the right risk decisions quickly.
Delio: a complete white label platform solution for private assets, helping financial institutions and their advisors enhance their offering through connecting private deal flow with (ultra) high net worth capital.
Mobillity: is the intelligent money manager for people like you & me. Mobillity identifies savings opportunities in your finances and offers you better alternatives directly through their chat-based platform. Once you give Mobillity the go-ahead, they then do the legwork of realizing these savings for you too. In today’s world, both time & money are rare, that’s why Mobillity wants to save you both.
Money Fellows: allow customers to leverage their social network to make loans cost nothing and savings a lot more rewardable.
Pace Invoice: Pay and get paid internationally through the all in one cash management platform for SME’s. The platform allows you to see and manage multiple currency accounts in a single dashboard and also gives you the tools to invoice and collect funds in multiple countries and currencies.
Penta: a bank for small businesses. It redefines SME banking by empowering businesses to do more through powerful third party services and a great user experience.
Valoot: gives consumers the opportunity to select the currency of purchase prior to handing over their card when shopping abroad. Valoot sources the rates for the conversion straight from the FX market – no more hidden mark-ups and commissions and charges a very small fee for providing the service – they pass the vast majority of savings to the consumer and the merchant.