Europe fintech funding round-up: Claimer, Freetrade, InvestSuite, Ruleguard

This week’s handy Friday funding round-up includes four UK and European fintech start-ups – Claimer, Freetrade, InvestSuite, and Ruleguard.

Claimer raises $4.2m

London-based R&D tax claim platform Claimer has raised $4.2 million in a seed funding round led by Project A Ventures.

Moonfire Ventures, helloworld.vc and a group of angel investors, as well as follow-on investors Ben Holmes and TrueSight Ventures took part in the round.

Founded in 2019, Claimer aims to remove the “hassle and expense of claiming R&D relief by combining technology with human expertise”.

The start-up claims over 350 companies as clients who have received “millions of pounds of relief with a 100% success rate”.

Claimer says the funding will allow its growth in the UK market and expand abroad in the near future.

UK-based investment platform Freetrade has launched its eighth crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube as of 14 September this year.

Freetrade launches 8th crowdfunding campaign

Its latest campaign will allow its 17,000 existing investors to invest in a convertible loan note on the same terms as Freetrade’s institutional investors secured earlier this year.

Earlier this year, in May, Freetrade raised £30 million in its latest funding round from new and existing investors.

The funding will help Freetrade accelerate the release of its new, “highly requested” features, new account types, and its European expansion, including its launch in Sweden.

Some of the new features will include a full-stack self-clearing solution for European markets, FreetradeFX to directly access institutional FX markets, removing intermediaries, more stocks, and revamped subscription plans with new pricing.

In its last crowdfunding round in December 2021, the investment app raised £8.8 million from over 7,000 investors on Crowdcube.

European wealthtech start-up InvestSuite has raised €6 million in a Series A funding round.

InvestSuite raises €6m

Two new investors, the Cronos Group and OSOM Finance, participated in the round, along with other new and existing angel investors, and existing investor PMV.

The new investment brings the total capital raised by InvestSuite to €15 million since its inception.

Established in 2018, InvestSuite is a business-to-business (B2B) wealthtech platform that provides automated investment solutions to help financial institutions retain their clients.

“This round of financing enables us to execute our growth ambitions, expand our team and bring our unparalleled innovations to financial institutions around the globe,” says Laurent Sorber, CTO and co-founder of InvestSuite.

In the last two years, the start-up has grown to 70 employees with offices in Leuven, London, Warsaw, Amsterdam, and Sydney. It claims over 20 clients in 14 countries, primarily in Europe and the Middle East, and expanding to Asia and North America.

Ruleguard raises £3.5m

London-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology provider Ruleguard has raised £3.5 million in growth equity investment from Foresight Group.

Established in 2013, Ruleguard is a specialist platform for regulatory compliance enabling its customers to “navigate the ever-growing challenges of increasing regulatory compliance requirements with less effort and lower risk” and also help them save money on audit compliance costs.

The funding, which came from Foresight VCT and Foresight Enterprise VCT, will help the regtech develop additional platform capabilities and scale up sales and marketing.