Fintech Funding: BMO offers $2.7B in public offering of common shares
Banking platform, finance automation firm raise millions
To fund its acquisition of Bank of the West and its subsidiaries, the Bank of Montreal is offering 18,125,000 common shares at a price of $149 per share. Gross proceeds will be $2.7 billion for the Canadian bank.
BMO has granted the underwriters an option to purchase up to an additional 2,718,750 common shares at a price of $149 per common share exercisable at any time up to 30 days after closing of the offering.
The $16.3 billion Bank of the West acquisition is expected to close March 29 pending customary conditions, including Toronto Stock Exchange approval, although the sale of the shares is not dependent on the acquisition’s close.
Finance automation vendor Ramp lands $750M
Finance automation platform Ramp on Monday announced $750 million in new financing, raising its valuation to $8.1 billion.
New York City-based Ramp offers a platform for automating expense reporting as well as an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven travel solution and corporate card.
“Our existing investors saw Ramp’s continued rapid growth, the impact we are generating for customers and the market opportunity ahead and, as a result, wanted to increase their stake in Ramp,” Eric Glyman, co-founder and CEO, told Bank Automation News. “That interest kickstarted a round that was led by one of our staunchest supporters — the team at Founders Fund, who have now led four rounds of investment in Ramp.”
Founders Fund provided $200 million in fresh equity this round, with participation from all major existing investors including D1 Capital Partners, Thrive Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Coatue Management, ICONIQ Capital, Altimeter, Stripe, Lux Capital, Vista Public Strategies, Spark Capital and Definition Capital. They were joined by new investors General Catalyst, Avenir Growth Capital, 137 Ventures and Declaration Partners, in addition to tech industry leaders.
Ramp also secured $550 million in debt financing to support the company’s rapid scaling, including $300 million from Citi and an additional $150 million from Goldman Sachs, which doubled its commitment to $300 million.
The company will use the funding to expand into new verticals, launch other features that fully automate expense management, and to build out Ramp’s team, Glyman said.
Ramp’s clients include Marqeta, Brigit, Avelo Airlines and WayUp.
Banking platform ClearBank raises $231.2M
Clearing and embedded banking platform ClearBank announced Monday that it raised $231.2 million to fuel its plans for growth in Europe, followed by North America and Asia Pacific.
The equity investment was led by Apax Digital, the growth equity arm of advisory firm Apax. Existing investors CFFI UK Ventures and PPF Financial Holdings BV also participated.
London-based ClearBank also plans to expand its range of products and services to include direct application programming interface (API)-based access to interbank payment schemes such as single euro payments area (SEPA), enhanced multicurrency accounts and additional foreign exchange services.
The cloud-native bank is the first new clearing bank in the U.K. in more than 250 years. Launched in 2017, the payments provider offers access to all U.K.-based banking payment schemes, such as Faster Payments, BACS Payment Schemes Limited and Clearing House Automated Payment System (CHAPS). The regulated bank manages transactions end-to-end, including order transmission to settlement, liquidity management and clearing.
ClearBank’s offering of financial services is accessed via an API to a cloud-native software platform. The platform has more than 200 financial institutions and fintech customers and 13 million accounts. Its $4 billion in deposits are held at the Bank of England.
Access the Emerging Fintech Directory, a comprehensive fintech database with more than 300 entries. The EFD accepts submissions.
