Pollinate, a merchant acquiring startup founded by former Monitise chief Alastair Lukies, has closed a $50 million Series C funding round led by Insight Partners and joined by NatWest, Mastercard and NAB.
Pollinate offers a cloud-based platform that allows banks to offer a one-stop shop for SMEs, from access to capital, the ability to take payment, digital loyalty schemes, marketing tools and insights.
The startup says its technology can help banks across the world keep pace with the raft of new entrants looking to take market share or to push them down the value chain.
Already in use by NatWest in the UK and NAB in Australia, the firm is planning to use its new war chest to take on North America, where is has now signed it first customer, which is understood to be one of Canada's big four banks.
Al Lukies, CEO, Pollinate, says: "SMEs are the lifeblood of economies globally. They are the job creators, the innovators, and the brave explorers that simply find a way to make things work.
"Access to capital, intuitive banking services and a broad ecosystem of value-added solutions and partners are critical to the journey of a small business owner."