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Hi Everyone,

1. Upcoming Event: NewFinance May FinTech Open Mic Night, Thursday, May 31^st @6pm, Browne Jacobson, London

Please join us for our monthly mixture of presentations, skype-ins, fireside chats and shout-outs plus plenty of networking. This monthly session is designed to provide an opportunity to catch up with your peers, to see what's going on in the London and International FinTech scenes and to tell us all about yourself and your own work.

Lightning Pitches:

1.      Pasquale Saviano (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ubnum/) Founder and CEO of Photocert (https://photocert.co.uk/), AI and Blockchain solutions to Enable insurance digital transformation

2.      If you would like to pitch please email me, thx

Thank you to our Partners:

Grow by Browne Jacobson, is a legal support programme exclusively for startups. It is carefully tailored for companies at any stage of the startup journey and provides you with a Grow adviser who is fully immersed in your sector. Our FinTech advisers provide expert legal advice on the unique challenges that FinTech businesses face, as well as facilitating introductions within our network of industry and investment contacts.

2. London FinTech Podcast: How to Make P2P Insurance Work w/Tobias Taupitz CEO Laka

The latest of Mike Baliman’s Fintech Podcasts. An Insuretch insider said to me “if there is one firm that is doing something truly radical in insurance its Laka”. Aha. So here we are – Laka on the LFP. Laka are re-slicing and dicing the paradigm that led to so much in lending/borrowing but has never really got out of the hanger in insurance – P2P.  This despite the fact that the historic roots of insurance – and its current core model – rely on pooling risks.

3. Upcoming Event: MiniBar - Meet the Makers x Future of Money, 9^th of May @WeWork Aldgate - Call for Speakers

 The line up so far .

- Founder and CEO of PayDays Peter Brifett - mission to 'destroy the Payday loans industry'

- Pillar - motto: to take back control of our own personal data

- Fireside chat Eddie George from NewFinance

If you are interested in speaking get in touch via hello[at]minibarlabs.com

4. UCL Blockchain Course

Is your organisation positioned to leverage the opportunities created by disruptive blockchain technologies?  UCL’s inaugural 10-week course begins on 22 May 2018 and equips you with a framework to evaluate new blockchain technologies and the network to implement them. Created by the UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies and hosted at IDEALondon, this programme is aimed at business strategists, innovators, futurists and public-sector planners to gain a rigorous understanding of the impact of blockchains on industry and society, both today and in the future. Guest lecturers include Mr Richard Brown (CTO R3), Dr Julio Faura (Head of R&D Santander), Mr Jon Matonis (Chairman of Globitex), Mr Peter Todd (Bitcoin Core Developer) and others.  Register now and use code NFBLOCKCHAIN10 for 10% off on registrations before the end of March.

5. Speakers Wanted: Data Summer Conference in Odessa, 21^st July, Ukraine, Odessa, Sady Pobedy Conference Hall

A one-day conference with technical talks in the fields of Big Data, High Load, Data Science and Machine Learning. The conference brings together developers, IT professionals and users to share their experience, discuss best practices, describe use cases and business applications related to their successes. Goal: Big Data and Data Science networking and knowledge sharing stage for techies. Audience: 400 attendees (Senior developers, architectures, C-level management, Media).

We’d like to get 6 speakers for each stream. 3 external experts from international companies and 3 local professionals with the deep knowledge of the subject. It will be a great knowledge transfer session for the attendees and same for speakers. The conference is English speaking and 1 day only. On the day of the event and on the 22^nd of July we plan an array of activities for our speakers, since Odessa is a touristic beach city and they will definitely enjoy it!

To submit a speaker: pls fill in the application form at: http://bit.ly/2FFIQBf Contact: Maryna Nikitchuk mnikitchuk[at]squadex.com

6. Companies Seeking Access to Capital

(Please email me for more information on access to capital)

If you’re crowdfunding Seed and need  a ready-made highly targeted FinTech network to market your campaign to, please ping me, we have 14K+ Members globally

If you’re raising Series A and want to reach our global network of highly targeted 650+ Investors then we have a concierge introductory service to our VIP Investor list

If you’re a FinTech Investor and want Free curated FinTech pipeline pls email me with your details and let’s discuss the type of companies you’re looking for and put you on our VIP list

6.1 EXIM.L, London, Trade Finance Marketplace Platform, B2B, SAAS, UK, Angel Seed1 £300K/£500K, SEIS/EIS, First Mover

·       A platform which brings compliance and credit data to a trade finance marketplace supported by Panels of credit insurers and financiers, a complete data and transactional solution for companies and financial institutions.

·       Creates a seamless business process for counterparties; from setting up trade terms to credit insurance on the debt and seller or third-party finance for the buyer.

·       First Mover: to bring compliance and credit data into a trade finance environment supported by a credit insurance and financing marketplace.

·       Soft launching early Q2/’18

·       Strong experienced Management Team who have funded the project personally to date

·       Contact: Manu Duggal, Managing Director (manu[at]eximl.com)

6.2 Proplend, London, Alternative finance platform (P2P), UK, £600k, Launched, now seeking rapid expansion (EIS approved)

·       Proplend is a technology platform helping investors lend money directly to commercial property investors, disrupting the traditional banking industry, without the requirement of a principal balance sheet.

·       FCA authorised and regulated to operate a Peer to Peer lending platform and approved by HMRC to operate an Innovative Finance ISA

·       Strong management team with over 80 years of property finance experience has helped commercial property investors raise over £31.5m in loans and helped lenders, both individual and institutional, earn over £2.3m in interest.

·       2017 saw growth of 620% in new loans, 300% increase in secondary market volumes and 290% increase in new lenders.

·       ISA launched, active secondary market and Proplend Wealth a dedicated portal for Wealth Managers and Pension Administrators facilitating intermediary distribution

·       Contact: Brian Bartaby, Founder bb[at]proplend.com

7. Member Services Offered (Ads)

(none this week)

8. NewFinance Benefits and Services Offered

Aka leveraging the NewFinance network for yourself and your organisation, please email me if you would like access to these services, but please bear in mind that we curate for quality and relevance so not all requests are accepted

In addition to our Free & NFP Benefits to Members which are:

·       Free Membership

·       Regular cover charge only networking and showcasing Events, Free for Start-ups to pitch at

·       Weekly News including:

·       Free reach-outs for Jobseekers and Seed-stage FinTech Start-ups

·       Free job ads for Seed-stage FinTech Start-ups

·       Free Visitor Introductions for all

·       Our extensive YouTube video library at: YouTube

·       Free Video production for Start-ups pitching at events, we might even do a special for free if we like your stuff

·       In-house and external Research

·       And pls hustle me if you have a good idea…

We also have a range of Commercial Services:

·       Promotional Campaigns for Accelerators, Incubators, programmes etc…

·       Funding Partner – helping Seed and Series A/B Companies raise capital

·       FinTech Engagement Strategy – we’ll help you create one

·       FinTech Economic Development – use our global network to promote your City

·       Sponsorship cf. brand building

·       Strategic Partnerships

·       Consultancy – anything you can think of FinTech, we have more Expert Associates than anyone

·       Sales Partner – finding clients for you

·       Recruitment Partner – finding talent for you

·       Bespoke Events – using our team and logistics, we’ve run 100’s literally

·       Media Production – any form of Video/Audio production at any level including Broadcast (ping me for our show reel)

9. Interesting news items that caught my eye this week…something to get you thinking
I often post articles @eddiegeorge during the week if you'd like a sneak peak, and pls feel free to suggest new areas to explore as we develop our news service further

·       Global fintech funding hits record $5.4bn in Q1 - boosted by a dozen mega-rounds of at least $100 million

·       Overcoming Legacy Tech For Better Bank-FinTech Collaboration - FinTech competitive forces are often considered the largest source of pressure on traditional financial institutions (FIs) to innovate

·       Fintech for the Financially Excluded? - As two billion people are still without bank accounts, savings, loans, and access to payment services

·       The Snapchat Generation Is Shaping The Future Of Fintech - teens can’t sign up for bank and credit cards on their own. But their parents can.

·       FINTECH SPOTLIGHT: The rapid rise of the robo-adviser - Will robots eventually replace humans?

10. Visitors

(none this week)

11 Reach-outs

·       Orca, an Edinburgh-based FinTech, recently launched their premier investment platform offering investors superior levels of diversification across the UK peer to peer lending market. The Orca diversified portfolio comprises multiple major P2P lending platforms, delivering cross-platform, cross-market and cross-borrower diversification, achieving a 5% indicative annual return. Orca is currently offering new investors a £100 bonus, invested into their portfolio 1 year after their first deposit is made. Find out more here: www.orcamoney.com

12. Talent

We offer free ads to individuals to help them find new roles and to Seed Stage FinTechs to help them find talent; and we have competitively priced options for everyone else, please email me for more information.

Companies looking for talent:

(none this week)

Individuals looking for a new role:

·       Sanjay Bowry -  With over thirty years of experience and a proven track record of growing businesses, Sanjay has grown businesses organically and through M&A,. He has a quantified track record in improving margins and revenue. A results-driven commercial leader with a proven track record in developing and executing business strategies. His experience in leading and developing high-achieving teams will help you achieve your goals. Companies seeking to drive growth will benefit from his diverse cross-industry background and experience in managing P&Ls. Please contact Sanjay on[masked] or sanjay.bowry[at]gmail.com

~

If you have any news to share with the group please send your requests to me by close on Fridays.
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Cheers
Eddie