US fintech funding round-up: Deposits, Highline & Kasisto

This week’s handy Friday funding round-up includes three US-based fintech start-ups – Deposits, Highline Technologies, and Kasisto.

Deposits raises $5m

Dallas, Texas-based Deposits has raised $5 million in seed funding in a round led by ATX Venture Partners with participation from Cabal Fund and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The start-up says it has developed “a cloud-based platform that offers banks and brands an easy to use, turnkey solution for engagement, modernisation, and best-in-class financial experiences such as payments, mobile apps, and lending – whether you can programme or not”.

CEO Joseph Akintolayo says the product – Deposit’s plug-and-play, no-code banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform – “tears down technical barriers, so that we can do the same with financial barriers”.

He adds: “We’ve broken down the value chain horizontally, leveraging existing distribution channels to provide access to financial services at lower costs, with greater personalisation, engagement, onboarding, and discovery.”

Highline raises $13m

Also in Texas, Highline Technologies, a paytech that specilaises in payroll-linked lending and bill pay, has raised $13 million in Series A funding.

The round was led by Jump Capital, Costanoa Ventures, Foundation Capital and other investors.

Founded in 2020 in Dallas Fort-Worth, Highline’s payments platform allows consumers to automate bill payments directly from their paycheque. It also extends payroll-linked lending to any asset class, “where historically it was limited to only personal loans”, the start-up says.

The company secured seed funding in 2021 and doubled its team in H1 2022. It also completed the build of its platform and launched early for clients in the personal loan, lease-to-own, retail, and credit card industries.

Highline says the Series A funding will go towards further team growth as well as forming new partnerships and expanding the market adoption of its products and services.

“It has been many years, decades arguably, since US consumer lending has seen an innovation of this magnitude,” comments Zach Noorani, partner at investor Foundation Capital.

Kasisto raises $15.5m

New-York based Kasisto, the creator of KAI, a digital experience platform for the financial services industry, has announced a $15.5 million Series C extension, bringing its total Series C funding to $31 million.

The round was led in the US by banking tech heavyweight FIS and internationally by Westpac, with participation from BankSouth, a US community bank in Georgia.

Both Westpac and BankSouth use KAI. Other users include JP Morgan, Standard Chartered, TD, Manulife Bank, Fairwinds Credit Union, and Excite Credit Union.

“Kasisto’s technology has enabled us to evolve from traditional chatbots to a sophisticated, human-like conversational experience, unified for the first time under a single artificial intelligence (AI) orchestration platform,” says Scott Collary, Westpac Group executive, customer services and technology.

In 2020, Kasisto raised $22 million in a Series B round.