Big name VCs back startup to solve multi-billion dollar banking problem

Fintech startup N5 has secured the backing of a number of high profile investors, on the strength of its potential to save financial institutions billions of dollars a year.

U.S. financial institutions lose an estimated $272 billion each year through inefficiency and missed opportunities resulting from fragmented and siloed technologies and processes, perpetuated and exacerbated by 'software entropy'. N5 was founded by experts from the banking sector specifically to solve that problem, and is already doing so with customers in other parts of the world. With this new investment, the company plans to enter the U.S. market.

The new investors are:

• Illuminate Financial, a venture capital firm whose LPs include JP Morgan, Citi, Barclays, BNY Mellon and S&P Global;
• Exor Ventures, the venture investment arm of Exor NV, a holding company controlled by the Italian Agnelli family, shareholders of Ferrari, Stellantis, CNHI and The Economist;
• Madrone Capital Partners, a private equity firm associated with the Walton family, majority partners of Walmart;
• LTS Investments, the investment holding of the Lehmann, Telles and Sicupira families;
• ArpexCapital, the investment office of Stone founders Andre Street and Eduardo Pontes.

The company's N5 Now platform integrates on the back end channels, processes and systems that are usually otherwise siloed, such as CRMs, BPMs, incentives, and Omnichannel. This helps financial institutions 'join the dots' and so improve productivity, the customer experience and cost-effectiveness. The platform is designed to free institutions from the complexity of their legacy systems, and tangible results are normally evident within 100 days of its deployment.

Global customers including Mastercard, Santander, Credicorp, Zurich Insurance, Atlas Bank, N26 and Sudameris already work with N5 in Latin America and Europe, and the new investment, of a confidential value, will be used to translate and tailor the N5 Now platform for the needs of the U.S. market. The company plans to make a high profile appointment to lead North American operations, as well as fill a further 800 roles globally.

Julian Colombo, CEO, N5: "The market is currently served by some of the largest names in enterprise tech, but in spite of their scale, none offer the full suite of services provided by N5, and none has a product that is specifically geared for the financial services industry. It is our ability to fill this niche, already proven in other parts of the world, that has enabled us to attract such high profile investors for this next phase of our growth."

www.n5now.com