In recent years, the small city of Cardiff has transformed itself into a booming and shiny digital tech hub from being an economy reliant on industrial production. The Welsh capital is considered to be one of the fastest-growing tech hubs in the UK. The city offers an impressive quality of life for people, and the cost of living is affordable than many other cities in the UK. Also, Cardiff offers a skilled workforce and funding for tech companies looking for like-minded innovators.
According to various findings, Cardiff is more into fintech and is growing as a world-class fintech cluster. The fintech region in this city is one of the UK’s most valuable and is touted to contribute up to £2 billion of GVA (Gross Value Added) to the Cardiff Capital Region’s economy.
In 2020, as the entire world was told to work from home, fintech was vital, and in 2021 it will become even more essential. Like fintech across the globe, even the industry in Wales is flourishing with investments to advance them and help them embrace progressive and modern technology.
Apart from fintech, other clusters in the city include biotechnology, enterprise software, and a few more. Talking about investments, Cardiff is said to be a real tech hotspot with a thriving business community attracting the attention of high-growth and innovative companies. At UKTN today, we came up with the list of the best and thriving Cardiff-based tech startups putting the city on the global map.
Sonovate
Founder/s: Damon Chapple, Richard Prime
Founded year: 2013
Funding: £110M
Sonovate provides finance and tech solutions to recruitment agencies and other businesses that engage contractors and freelancers. The fintech has lended a total of £1.9 billion in funding, enabling more than 3,000 businesses in 40 countries to grow and ensuring 25,000 independent workers around the world get paid in full and on time. The British fintech removes uncertainty around the payment of contract workers, meeting payment deadlines efficiently.
The firm also helped the contract labour market moving during the pandemic, which was a period when one in four UK workers turned to freelance.
AMPLYFI
Founder/s: Chris Ganje, Ian Jones
Founded year: 2015
Funding: £8.4M
AI-powered Insights Automation platform AMPLYFI has built the world’s first Insights Automation Platform (IAP), which leverages machine learning and data science to analyse unstructured deep-web data sources. It helps organisations to make better decisions with its solutions.
The Welsh startup works with banks, companies and government agencies across the world and its product DeepInsight is used by banks to monitor areas of interest for emerging scenarios, with thousands of new documents added every day. It connects structured and unstructured data at scale to uncover previously hidden links, trends and opportunities, which can help users to make better-informed credit decisions.
Delio
Founder/s: David Newman, Gareth Lewis
Founded year: 2014
Funding: £3M
Delio is a white label private market wealthtech from Wales which holds expertise and network to power the private market strategies of the world’s most respected financial institutions.
In 2019, Delio raised £2 million from Maven, one of the UK’s most active private equity houses to scale its international sales team in key locations such as Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.
Coincover
Founder/s: David Janczewski, Adam Smith
Founded year: 2018
Funding: £9M
Coincover eliminates the risk involved in cryptocurrency ownership by creating the easiest way to protect and manage digital currency anywhere in the world. It is the first and only service guaranteeing that digital funds will not be lost or stolen. Coincover combines insurance with the latest security features, thereby reducing risk and making digital currency investments simple, safe, and secure for retail and business customers.
Recently, the Welsh startup also raised $9.2 million Series A to build what is claims to be the world’s best safety standard for cryptocurrency.
Yoello
Founder/s: Sina Yamani
Founded year: 2017
Funding: NA
Yoello is a money ordering solution, which aims to disrupt the existing payment system by utilising the open banking legislation (PSD2) to cut out the middlemen and in turn bring merchants and customers closer together. The British company offers online ordering solutions to support businesses with improving efficiency and customer experience. With its mobile technology operators, it offers contactless table service, click & collect and delivery services via a single easy to use platform.
In April this year, Yoello picked up an undisclosed investment from Welsh Bank Hodge to continue its growth in the markets.
MYPINPAD
Founder/s: Justin Pike
Founded year: 2012
Funding: £15.4M
Mobile payment processor MYPINPAD claims to have developed a secure, fraud-free authentication platform, free of legacy constraints for everyone. The Welsh fintech platform turns everyday mobile devices like smartphones and tablets into secure payment terminals and enables a consistent ‘card present’ payment experience across all channels, both in-store and digital.
ANNA Money
Founder/s: Boris Diakonov, Eduard Panteleev, Slava Akulov
Founded year: 2017
Funding: £34.2M
ANNA Money provides businesses access to fast and secure bank accounts and it also facilitates as a tax app for SMEs. It lets users open an account in just three minutes with an ID and track their transactions and payments on the go. Users get a free app, an ANA Mastercard and, assistance with invoicing and 24/7 chat support.
In 2020 the firm picked up $21 million (nearly £15.3 million) investment from ABH Holdings SA (ABHH) to grow its customer experience team and expand its product offerings.
Wealthify
Founder/s: Michelle Pearce, Richard Avery-Wright
Founded year: 2016
Funding: £1M
Wealthify is an investment app, basically a rival to Trading 212, that provides easy to understand and clear interface for even first-time users to invest their money. Recently, the fintech platform partnered with the Swedish open banking platform Tink for payment initiation services to transform the way investors transfer money into their investment accounts.
Customers simply choose how much they want to invest and their preferred investment style, including ethical investment options. Wealthify then builds and manages an investment plan on their behalf.
Jellagen
Founder/s: Andrew Mearns Spragg
Founded year: 2015
Funding: £7.3M
Jellagen is a marine medical device and biotechnology development company manufacturing high value Collagen derived from jellyfish.
It is a medtech company offering high-grade native collagen sourced from jellyfish. The medtech’s strategic mission is to utilise sustainable marine species and natural resources to develop technical and scientific high value research and medical device products.
In 2020, Jellagen closed £1.9 million in a seed funding round from undisclosed investors to continue the development of products for therapeutic and medical applications.
Antiverse
Founder/s: Ben Holland, Murat Tunaboylu
Founded year: 2017
Funding: £1.8M
This Cardiff-based biotech firm has developed a champion computational antibody drug discovery platform that combines machine learning and phage display techniques to model antibody-antigen interactions. The current version of the program uses next-generation sequencing and AI to provide diverse antibody candidates for any given target. The technology will allow the evolution of drugs for “difficult” targets associated with cancer, heart, and lung disorders.
This year, the biotech secured £1.4 million seed funding from the UKI2S Innovate Accelerator and other investors including Development Bank of Wales, Angel Co-Investment Fund, Tensor Ventures, Wren Capital, Ed Parkinson, Cambridge Angels, and SyndicateRoom for further development.
Credas
Founder/s: Rhys David
Founded year: 2017
Funding: NA
Credas is a digital ID verification platform that provides a combination of biometric facial recognition, document authentication, client engagement, data capture, and eSign technologies to a range of markets and sectors. The company helps businesses carry out digital transformation. It has chosen ID R&D’s IDLive Face passive facial liveness detection to power its frictionless anti-spoofing capability during onboarding and background checks.
TrakCel
Founder/s: Ravi Nalliah, Fiona Withey, Matthew Lakelin, Akshay Peer
Founded year: 2012
Funding: NA
TrakCel is a leading supplier of cellular orchestration solutions supporting the cell and gene therapy industry. The company has developed the broadest portfolio of live deployments in the industry across a range of therapies, from autologous and allogeneic therapies, personalised cancer vaccines and CRISPR, to tumor and marrow infiltrating lymphocyte therapies.
In March this year, TrakCel closed its latest funding round led by AmerisourceBergen and Labcorp. The funds will enable the further transformation of TrakCel’s cellular therapy orchestration solution, growth of its existing partner ecosystem, and continued global expansion.
The post Wales tech: The most revolutionary startups of Cardiff in 2021 appeared first on UKTN (UK Tech News).
