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Highnote clinches $90m in Series B to revolutionise U.S. merchant acquiring
Highnote has recently announced the closure of a $90m Series B coupled with the launch of its new merchant acquiring solution.
The financing was spearheaded by Adams Street Partners and saw contributions from existing backers such as Oak HC/FT, Costanoa, WestCap, and Pinegrove Venture Partners.
The company, known for its innovative financial technology solutions, operates a modern platform that offers both card issuing and acquiring capabilities. This dual-functionality allows Highnote to offer comprehensive pay-in and pay-out features, all managed through a single, unified core general ledger, delivering unparalleled efficiency and cost reductions.
With the introduction of its acquiring solution, Highnote is expanding its capabilities to include accepting card payments online, either through plug-in checkout systems or bespoke solutions tailored to specific needs. This advancement builds on the company’s already robust embedded finance platform, known for its seamless integration with major payment networks, ensuring transparency and improved economics for users.
The new funds will be utilized to expand Highnote’s footprint in the embedded finance market, particularly by enhancing its acquiring services. This move is aimed at accelerating growth and expanding its market presence in the United States, offering a holistic approach to embedded payments that cater to both small businesses and large enterprises.
Additional insights into the strategic development were highlighted by John MacIlwaine, CEO of Highnote, who emphasized the transformative potential of integrating acquiring services on their platform. He noted that this expansion into acquiring is a strategic move to enhance their already comprehensive embedded finance and issuing platform.
“Highnote’s transformational platform and impressive growth trajectory motivated us to lead this funding round,” Robin Murray, Partner at Adams Street Partners said. “We are excited to support the company’s vision to lead innovation in embedded finance.”
Spikerz raises $7m to enhance AI-powered social media security solutions
Spikerz, a cybersecurity company focused on protecting businesses and individuals from social media threats, has raised $7m in funding.
The investment round was led by Disruptive AI, with contributions from Horizon Capital, Wix Ventures, Storytime Capital, and BDMI, according to a report from New York Tech.
The company provides an AI-driven security platform designed to tackle the growing threats associated with social media usage. Spikerz’s technology offers protection against phishing attacks, impersonation attempts, bot infiltration, and shadowbanning, helping users safeguard their accounts and maintain their digital presence.
With the newly secured funds, Spikerz plans to advance its technological capabilities and expand its market presence in the rapidly evolving social media security sector. The investment will support further product development and strategic partnerships to address the increasing demand for robust cybersecurity solutions.
Eitan Israeli, head of Wix Ventures, said, “We’re excited about the innovative solution this team has developed to address a pressing need in the market. The solution is positioned to benefit both large enterprises like Wix and the SMBs that make up a significant portion of our users. Backed by a very talented and driven team, we’re confident this investment will drive meaningful value across the industry.”
VeriPark Partners with Leading Canadian Financial Institutions Coalition to Redefine Digital Banking
VeriPark, a global leader in omnichannel customer experience solutions for financial services, has partnered with a coalition of leading Canadian credit unions and financial institutions, including First West Credit Union, Prospera Credit Union, DUCA Credit Union, and Coastal Community Credit Union, Together, the coalition aims to drive innovation, enhance member experiences, and empower institutions in an evolving financial landscape.
This collaboration will deliver a Canadian-focused digital banking product tailored to the distinct needs of Canadians. Combining global and Canadian codebases, the solution allows institutions to maintain their identities while developing additional features to differentiate themselves.
“The partnership with VeriPark represents a uniquely Canadian solution that combines local expertise with global best practices,” said Darrell Jaggers, CIO & CTO, First West Credit Union. “Our goal is to build on our successes and provide members with even more innovative, personalized digital banking services that align with their evolving lifestyles.”
The coalition selected VeriPark for its Canadian-centric product development, enhanced security and compliance, support for open banking frameworks and commitment to ongoing managed services. Powered by Microsoft Azure, the solution ensures adaptability, efficiency and long-term support.
The solution integrates with Central 1’s payment and fraud management systems while supporting compatibility with other payment platforms, providing flexibility for institutions.
Coalition members gain:
A Canadian-focused solution enhanced by global best practices.
The ability to compete with larger banks while maintaining independence.
A solution validated by a year-long assessment, ensuring innovation and long-term support through Microsoft’s technology stack.
Institutions can contact Darrell Jaggers or coalition CIOs for details on joining the coalition.
“The financial services sector is constantly evolving, and this partnership offers a unique opportunity to shape the future of digital banking in Canada,” said Barry Frame, Chief Sales Officer, VeriPark. “By combining VeriPark’s expertise with the coalition’s forward-thinking vision, we are confident in delivering a transformative banking experience for Canadians.”
Selim Hasan, Sales Director, VeriPark, added, “This partnership also underscores our growth strategy for North America, as we continue to expand our footprint and deliver innovative solutions tailored to the needs of financial institutions in this region.”
Validis secures investment from Citi and Barclays to transform business lending
Validis, a leader in financial data collection and standardisation, has received strategic investments from Citi and Barclays.
The funding aims to enhance Validis’ platform, which focuses on automating and standardising data processes across business lending, including corporate, commercial, and working capital finance.
Validis provides technology that automates financial monitoring and delivers underwriting-ready data quickly. This process significantly reduces the time required for credit applications and reviews, enabling lenders to make faster and more informed decisions. The platform also supports risk management by ensuring data reliability and consistency.
With the new funding, Validis plans to accelerate its growth through product innovation and expanded sales and marketing efforts.
In addition to its lending applications, Validis’ technology has been transformative in the audit sector, where it works with over 100 lending and accounting firms to deliver granular, transaction-level data. This audit-grade information provides unprecedented insights, enabling robust financial decisions.
Michael Turner, CEO of Validis, added, “We’re eliminating historically time-consuming and high-cost data processes, particularly for complex commercial clients, enabling lenders to make faster, smarter decisions based on clean, reliable data.”
James Binns, managing director and global head of trade and working capital at Barclays, emphasised the impact on customer service, saying, “By automating data collection and standardization, we can not only deliver faster decisions and better service, but also offer client focused working capital funding products at scale. This enables us to meet our customers’ unique needs while still meeting our credit assessment standards.”
AIsa launches revolutionary payment network for the AI economy
AIsa, a cutting-edge FinTech company specialising in AI-focused payment infrastructure, has announced the launch of its revolutionary payment network tailored to meet the specific needs of the AI economy.
The launch addresses the growing demand for payment systems capable of handling the unique requirements of AI agents, according to FF News.
Traditional payment systems, originally designed for human transactions, fall short in processing the microscopic, high-frequency payments essential for AI operations.
Founded to bridge the gap between AI and payments, AIsa focuses on delivering innovative solutions to enable frictionless transactions within the AI economy.
The company’s expertise lies in integrating advanced blockchain technology with stablecoin-based payment mechanisms to provide secure, efficient, and scalable solutions for global industries.
The new AIsa payment network combines the speed of the Lightning Network with the stability of multi-asset stablecoins.
It is designed to support transactions as small as $0.0001, ensuring instant settlements with minimal fees.
Its key features include millisecond-level settlement speeds, programmable payments through smart contracts, multi-chain compatibility for cross-border functionality, and a stable value system through multi-asset stablecoins.
This groundbreaking network facilitates diverse applications, including payments for digital services like computational power, storage, and API calls. It also supports AI-to-AI task delegation, high-frequency trading strategies, and intelligent DeFi activities, such as cross-DEX arbitrage.
By focusing on real-world utility rather than speculative trading, AIsa distinguishes itself from other blockchain projects.
Its support for multiple stablecoins offers businesses the stability required for everyday operations while leveraging blockchain’s efficiency.
The vision for AIsa is driven by its co-founder Jordan, a recognised leader in payments and co-founder of UXUY, a multi-chain wallet with over 5m users. The team includes seasoned experts from Meta, MasterCard, and Bloomberg, combining years of experience in payments and AI. Backed by over $10m in funding from prominent investors like Binance Labs, AIsa is well-positioned to lead this transformation.
Drawing inspiration from Visa’s “chaordic” organisational model, AIsa has incorporated blockchain technology and token economics to create a decentralised, self-governing network designed to evolve with the AI economy.
PXP Launches the Next-Generation Technology Platform PXP Unity
PXP, a leading omnichannel global payment platform and innovative industry disruptor, is announcing the launch of its industry-redefining technology platform, PXP Unity. Marking a shift in payments, PXP offers a single integration into a commerce ecosystem that makes business simpler, better and more connected. It promises to transform and empower merchants with next generation POS and online services, providing more control over their transaction data, smart routing options, and a catalogue of easily-integrated services that they can deploy as and when they need them through just one integration with PXP.
The announcement comes at a transformative moment for the industry, with a comprehensive PXP survey conducted by leading polling firm Censuswide revealing strong merchant demand for digital transformation and unified commerce solutions. The research findings demonstrate how fundamentally merchants’ needs are evolving:
64% of merchants now view payment technology as a strategic growth driver, rather than just an operational necessity, signaling a major shift in how businesses view their payments infrastructure.
Enterprises in particular recognize the transformative power of payments technology, with 74% of large businesses prioritizing capabilities like real-time business intelligence, intelligent payment routing, and AI-enhanced platform features as vital to their operations.
When evaluating payment platforms, merchants prioritize robust security and fraud prevention (35%), followed by guaranteed reliability during peak periods (28%), and the ability to unify all payment channels and providers in a single platform (21%).
Looking ahead, merchants see payments innovation as key to their future success, with 59% focused on creating unique payment experiences and 56% planning to pioneer new commerce models through smart payment tech.
PXP Unity is a cloud-native, scalable and integrated platform that’s built on AI-powered engineering practices, representing the next generation of unified global technology platforms. One of the most advanced platforms in the world and built entirely in-house from the ground up, PXP Unity integrates cutting-edge engineering, flexible service catalogue, advanced real-time data reporting, and streamlined payment processing to accelerate merchants’ time to value.
Amongst its stand-out features is the platform’s ability to transform raw real-time transaction data into actionable insights, empowering merchants with intuitive dashboards that turn complex data into clear strategic direction, including important metrics such as transaction success rates, refusal patterns, payment methods, and scheme performance. Merchants can also drill down to specific parameters and granular insights, including direct connection to a data warehouse for deep and predictive analysis to inform future growth strategies.
PXP Unity also offers a level of self-service unrivalled by other platforms, enabling merchants to adapt the platform’s features to their own business blueprint, and control how and where each transaction flows. This granular control transforms complexity into strategic advantage, letting merchants design the perfect payment experience.
Backed by years of industry expertise, PXP’s platform sets new standards in commerce technology, with every feature and integration being precision-crafted and designed to streamline processes and unlock new growth opportunities.
PXP Unity reflects PXP’s significant investment in both technology and business innovation and offers:
A unified cloud-native global payments platform, processing payments across multiple channels, including online and in-store across a multitude of sectors including gaming, retail, hospitality and cruise, enabling merchants to meet customers at every touchpoint.
Sleek, intuitive and mobile-responsive UI and UX across all merchant channels and devices, including real-time transaction data reporting and advanced analytics dashboard.
Customisable reports and saved queries to meet specific business needs, providing actionable insights, scheduled reports, and direct access to real-time data points.
AI-powered engineering practices to optimise development quality and speed
Merchant control over transaction routing for cost, performance, or redundancy, ensuring every transaction takes the perfect path.
Comprehensive service catalogue, enabling rapid innovation, instant scaling, and continuous evolution of features.
Self-service options, enabling merchants to independently plug and play, configure and manage their payment services and processes, with intuitive interfaces that reduce reliance on manual support.
Customisable webhook notifications to receive real-time updates about any event at any level, for any service.
Freedom to select a single service and adopt it in isolation or combine several services together to build a holistic payments experience.
Next-generation in-store (stand-alone and integrated POS as well as SoftPOS) and online technology.
Scalable and robust infrastructure designed to handle high transaction volumes without compromising performance.
Not only does PXP Unity offer next-generation payment services and greater operational resilience, it simplifies commerce for merchants and businesses by removing friction to speed up integration, improve payment experience and give merchants more control over how their transactions flow.
Kamran Hedjri, Group CEO for PXP, comments: “In today’s fast-changing payment landscape, we know that merchants need even more dynamic and feature-rich payment platforms. PXP is breaking the boundaries of traditional commerce and technology, with architecture that transforms merchants’ payment processing and acceptance capabilities. The PXP Unity platform is where commerce is unified and amplified, and payments are reimagined to deliver the future of payments today. It is future-ready by design, empowering merchants with continuous service evolution and emerging technology innovation.”
Salvatore Cicero, Group CTO for PXP, added: “PXP Unity is more than just a platform; it is the culmination of relentless dedication, innovative engineering, and a vision to redefine global commerce. By bringing together cutting-edge technology, merchant-centric design, and a scalable infrastructure, PXP Unity empowers businesses to take full control of their payment processes. PXP Unity represents the intersection of advanced technology and practical solutions, delivering unmatched flexibility, actionable insights, and the agility to adapt to an ever-evolving payments landscape. It is a game-changer for merchants and a proud milestone for the entire PXP team.”
“With a single link, PXP Unity empowers merchants to customize their payment configurations without the friction and complexities of managing multiple integrations. Tested with selected merchants across various sectors, the feedback has been outstanding. Featuring speed, agility, and future-proof technology, the PXP Unity platform supports the entire business ecosystem beyond payments, ensuring seamless performance and more connected commerce.”
“The launch of our new platform marks a pivotal moment for PXP, establishing a fresh business direction that sets a new standard in the payments landscape. PXP Unity embodies our vision to be the fintech partner of choice, revolutionizing global commerce with a steadfast commitment to continuous growth, innovation, and trusted expertise. As new innovations emerge, PXP Unity will stand alongside our merchants, creating value beyond every transaction. One partner, one link. We handle the rest.”
Checkbook Acquires sureti to Deliver End-to-End Payment Solution for the Property Insurance Ecosystem
Checkbook, a trailblazer in digital payments, is thrilled to announce its acquisition of sureti, a cutting-edge digital payment solution dedicated to transforming the distribution of insurance claim proceeds. This strategic acquisition positions Checkbook at the forefront of the insurtech revolution, delivering faster, smarter, and more secure payment solutions for insurance companies and their customers.
By integrating sureti’s robust vendor network and innovative fund control mechanisms, Checkbook is set to redefine claims payment workflows. The synergy between the two companies promises to solve one of the insurance industry’s most persistent challenges: slow and cumbersome payment processes that delay restoration work and inflate costs.
sureti has been on a mission to revolutionize claim payments, with a firm belief that restoration contractors are often building slowly because they are being paid slowly – a cycle that costs carriers billions in increased loss-of-use expenses. Traditional paper claim checks, with mortgage lenders as payees, have created bottlenecks that negatively impact all stakeholders: carriers, contractors, policyholders, and lenders alike.
“The legacy model was overdue for disruption, and we take pride in leading the charge to solve these claims-related payment challenges,” said Whatley, founder of sureti.
sureti’s groundbreaking approach allows vetted restoration contractors to be paid ahead of work completion a bold departure from industry norms that addresses widespread contractor cash flow issues. This innovative payment process also reduces the risk of omitting lenders from large-loss claim payments while maintaining integrity and control through sureti’s underwriting mechanisms.
Since its inception, sureti has exclusively relied on Checkbook’s digital endorsement technology to streamline multi-party payments. With the integration of their tech stacks, customers can expect enhanced security, performance, and an unrivaled user experience.
“By joining forces with sureti, Checkbook has tackled the ‘last mile’ problem in claims payment distribution, allowing large claim proceeds to reach the right hands quickly and efficiently – without requiring lien holders to slow the process,” said PJ Gupta, Founder of Checkbook. “This is more than an acquisition; it’s a transformation for the insurance industry. We’re cutting large-loss cycle times, reducing administrative costs, and delivering peace of mind to all stakeholders.”
Gupta added, “If there ever was a perfect marriage between an insurtech pioneer and a fintech innovator, this is it. Our partnership is a testament to a shared vision of modernizing claims payments, and we’re excited to continue reshaping the future of insurance payments together.”
Together, Checkbook and sureti are poised to lead the charge in modernizing the property insurance ecosystem, delivering faster payments, better outcomes, and billions in savings for carriers and policyholders alike.
Ethos and Protective Life partner to simplify term life insurance with cutting-edge technology
Ethos, a leading provider of cutting-edge InsurTech solutions, has announced a strategic partnership with Protective Life Corporation and its subsidiary Protective Life Insurance Company, collectively referred to as Protective.
The partnership will enable Protective to offer its proprietary term life insurance directly to consumers via Ethos’ advanced digital platform, according to FF News.
The collaboration aims to simplify access to life insurance by leveraging Ethos’ seamless technology platform and Protective’s trusted insurance products.
Together, the companies aim to expand life insurance access, delivering exceptional value and ease to millions of families.
Ethos is renowned for its innovative technology platform that simplifies the insurance purchase process for both consumers and agents.
The platform integrates advanced tools to provide a streamlined, user-friendly experience, making it one of the most robust solutions in the industry.
Protective Life Corporation, a subsidiary of Dai-ichi Life Holdings, Inc., is a prominent provider of financial and insurance solutions, known for its commitment to making life insurance accessible to a broad demographic.
As part of this partnership, Protective will offer term life insurance for consumers aged 20–65 with term periods ranging from 10 to 40 years.
Coverage amounts of up to $2m will be available, featuring guaranteed level premiums and a terminal illness rider for accelerated death benefits. Customers will also gain access to Ethos’ proprietary Estate Planning tools.
This initiative reflects Protective’s commitment to innovation and accessibility. “We are excited to team up with Ethos to help more people achieve financial protection,” said Aaron Seurkamp, SVP and President of Protective’s Protection & Retirement Division. “Their cutting-edge technology allows us to reach a wider audience and delivers an exceptional experience. This is the latest example of Protective’s commitment to making term insurance easy to obtain and accessible for families everywhere.”
Peter Colis, Co-Founder and CEO of Ethos, expressed similar enthusiasm.
“Joining forces with Protective is a fantastic opportunity for us to expand life insurance access to millions more families while delivering the best policyholder experience,” he said. “And, we couldn’t be more proud to do it with one of the most reputable organisations in the life insurance industry.”