As the name suggests, upSWOT is a fintech startup that offers solutions to analyse strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the benefit of both the banks and their business clients including SMEs (Small and medium-sized enterprises).
Recently, the company has secured $4.3 million (approx £3.1 million) funding in a seed round. The round was led by Common Ocean Ventures, with participation from CFV Ventures, ICBA, First Southern National Bank, SpeedUp Venture Group, and previous investors. As a part of the round Common Ocean General Partner, Igor Ulis joined upSWOT’s Board of Directors.
The angel investors include Knut Frangsmyr, COO of Klarna; Kaustav Das, Chief Risk and Analytics Officer of Quadpay; David Rabkin, former EVP & GM at American Express; Hannes Liebe, COO of Finastra; Aiaz Kazi, Former Chief Platform Officer at Banco Santander; Levi King, Chairman, NAV; Kerry Agiasotis, EVP, Sage, and more than 50 other financial industry leaders, visionaries, and operators, participated in the round.
Initially founded in Ukraine in 2019 by Aleksander Simeiko, Andrey Davydchuk, Dmitriy Syvolap and Dmitry Norenko, UpSWOT’s created the service to allow banks to access information about a business’s financial condition easily.
The funding will be used to expand its US and UK footprint, continue hiring staff to support a growing list of deployments with Tier 1 and Tier 2 financial institutions. Further, the investment will be used to accelerate the product development as well.
Meanwhile, the company already operates in the UK, serving one of the top-3 UK banks.
So, how does it work?
Similar to its San-Francisco rival Plaid, upSWOT also utilises an API-driven, modern approach to connect, collect, and normalise data from over 120 business software tools SMBs regularly use. With this platform, SMBs can easily and accurately track business operations through KPI dashboards, real-time insights, and automatic alerts.
A team of 45 handles diversified clientele from US, UK, and European banks like Raiffeisen Bank Aval, Société Générale RosBank, to Fintechs like Tribal Credit, and non-banking FIs like MasterCard.
Offers simple-to-use data aggregation
upSWOT partners with financial institutions and brings simple-to-use data aggregation, visualisation, and analytics to millions of businesses.
Using a mix of metrics-driven dashboards and timely recommendations, SMBs get tools for cash flow management, debt funding decisions, financial planning, and accurate cash reporting to ensure supply chains stay healthy, customers are happy, and workers get paid.
“Managing a portfolio of SMB clients is a challenge for every bank, lender, and servicer,” explains Dmitry Norenko, upSWOT CEO. “Amidst a global pandemic, the financial industry must find new and innovative ways to support this vital customer segment. Our white-label cloud solution helps leading national and community banks gain granular insights into their SMB customers launched within 6 weeks, and with minimal strain on internal IT or overlap with legacy systems.”
“The pandemic accelerated a shift to digital platforms as the primary interface with customers. Banks need to offer sophisticated tools to keep pace with demand,” adds Ulis. “When it comes to quick deployment of innovative financial products, first-mover advantage has worked in upSWOT’s favor. In under two years, they’ve integrated 120 mission-critical SaaS products and launched pilots with 30 financial institutions across Europe and North America and have already shown customer success. Their momentum is a clear indicator of market need, product fit, and the agility of upSWOT’s team.”
“Given the number of SMBs globally and the historic friction in collaborating with banks, upSWOT is addressing a critical problem at the right time and in a vast market,” said Panagiotis Spiliopoulos CFO, Temenos and upSWOT angel.
“upSWOT’s technology creates a unique win-win situation for financial institutions and their SMB customers,” said Alex Keltner, CEO of First Southern National Bank and upSWOT client. “Banks and FinTechs alike can now offer timely credit products and efficiently scale their portfolio servicing operations. At the same time, SMBs, who form the backbone of our economy, have much-needed access to working capital and financial tools to ensure their success”.
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