Element Ventures, a B2B fintech-focused venture capital firm, has pulled together a $130 million fund with backing from a heavyweight line up of fintech founders and financial services executives.
Founded by financial services veterans Stephen Gibson and Michael McFadgen, and joined by Spencer Lake - HSBC’s former vice chairman of Global Banking and Markets - Element is supported by finance-oriented limited partherships and 30 founders and executives from the sector.
The roll call of investors includes: Lord Spencer, founder of ICAP/NEX Group; Laurent Useldinger, founder of ULlink; Cris Conde, former CEO of SunGard; Marc Murphy, founder of Fenergo; Hamilton Matthews, former CEO Acuris, Pierre Naude, co-founder of nCino; Neil Eckert, founder of Brit Insurance, Brendan Woods, founder of Autoentry; David Rutter, founder of R3; Christian Nentwich, founder of Duco and Anna Ewing, former Nasdaq CIO. European venture investor Isomer Capital is also participating in the fund.
Element intends to invest in around 15 portfolio companies in areas including banking-as-a-service, payments, insurtech, asset management and infrastructure. To date, it has backed B2B fintech firms across the UK and Europe including Hepster, the embedded insurance platform; Billhop, the B2B payment network; Coincover, cryptocurrency recovery service; and Minna, the Swedish subscription management platform.
Eelment partner McFadgen says: “B2B fintech is one of the most exciting opportunities in the tech industry, with incumbents facing huge challenges to digitise and talented entrepreneurs ready to compete. We’ve already backed some incredible businesses and we’re looking forward to discovering the next-generation entrepreneurs that are rising to this challenge.”