Israel’s most promising early-stage fintech startups
Funding for fintech startups fell during 2022, suffering from rising interest rates and an impending recession like so many other sectors. The decline was perhaps to be expected after financial services was the leading sector for venture capital in 2021, with at least $131 billion globally, according to Crunchbase.
Many Israeli startups also benefited from the 2021 boom, and while macroeconomic conditions have undoubtedly worsened over the past year, they continue to build fintech solutions to meet the ever-growing need. Mass adoption of the technology has clearly come with, for example, nearly nine out of ten Americans now using some form of digital payments,
Calcalist approached a number of prominent investors in the Israeli market to name what they believe to be the five most innovative early-stage fintech companies, with business potential and management depth. Here they are:
Founders: Elad Schaffer and Daniel Green
Financing: $8 million from F2, Viola Ventures, Global Founders Capital and others
The company’s platform handles travelers’ insurance claims in areas such as health, baggage and even pets using an application that sends proactive real-time alerts, provides access to service personnel and enables claims to be submitted and reimbursements received quickly digitally. These can then be used for unplanned expenses incurred as a result of an insurance event.
Founders: Isaac Heller and Amir Boldo
Financing: $18.5 million from Aleph, Third Point Ventures, Greycroft and others
Trullion’s solution enables the rapid introduction of PDF and Excel documents into the financial systems and the extraction of insights from the data to prevent errors and increase transparency. The software scans business contracts, knows how to extract and translate relevant accounting data and actually interprets it for customers.
Founders: Nir Laznik and Eyal Peleg
Financing: $3.5 million from Homeward Ventures, StageOne and angels
Sedric develops a compliance platform for fintech companies that makes it easier for them to identify and meet regulatory requirements worldwide. Using artificial intelligence-based real-time monitoring, identification and analysis of all interactions with customers, the company’s system makes it possible to protect customers, minimize risk and accelerate business growth. Sedric enables corporate compliance teams to quickly implement new laws and regulations into their business operations and allows teams to focus on events with the highest financial value.
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Sedric founders Nir Laznik and Eyal Peleg
(Photo: Ilan Ben Odiz)
Founders: Omri Yacubovich and Ran Magen
Financing: $9 million from Hetz, Viola, Foundation Capital and angels
Founded this year, Lama AI is developing an API-based loan exchange for small and medium-sized businesses that gives financial organizations, SaaS companies and other partners the ability to create, service and distribute capital within the company’s system. Lama leverages the verified information it has collected to match borrowers and lenders in the network.
Founders: Daniel Kalish and Daniela Shaul
Financing: $8.6 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Better Tomorrow Ventures, Symbol and others
Nilus is developing a payment system. The company has created a modular and flexible platform that supports the flow of customer payments and provides seamless automation.
It allows customers to automatically create payment options, open digital wallets, share payments and attribute transactions, and is able to communicate with other platforms such as PayPal and Fiverr, as well as with banking systems, accounting software and crypto providers.
The following companies participated in the ranking:
Bessemer Venture Partners
