Earnix, an Israel-based company that provides insurers and banks with real-time, dynamic pricing and rating solutions, introduced a new Chief Executive Officer this week. Robin Gilthorpe will take over the top spot at the firm effective February 1st, replacing outgoing CEO Udi Ziv, who served as Earnix’s CEO for six years.

“Today’s end-customer demands unparalleled experience, alongside highly personalized and customizable solutions,” Gilthorpe said in a statement. “Earnix solutions serve as the go-to platform for financial services companies to address the growing demands of the world’s leading financial and insurance companies.”

Gilthorpe is a finance and insurance industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience at firms such as TIBCO, Vertexone, and Watersmart Software. He was most recently Chief Operating Officer at insurtech company Salty where he helped generate a “nine-figure outcome” in the firm’s sale to CDK Global.

Founded in 2001, Earnix made its Finovate debut in 2016 at FinovateSpring in San Francisco. In the years since then, the company has forged partnerships with companies like AI cloud platform DataRobot, cloud insurance software company Majesco and, last fall, J.D. Power. Also last fall, Earnix unveiled its Underwrite-It solution which helps businesses build and manage rules and decision logic to enhance decision-making during the underwriting process.

Earnix has raised more than $100 million in funding. The company includes Insight Partners, Israel Growth Partners, and Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) among its investors.

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Israel-based cross-border trade financing company 40Seas secured $111 million in financing this week. The total includes $11 million in seed funding and a $100 million credit facility.

The seed funding round was led by Team8 and featured participation from ZIM Integrated Shipping Services. ZIM also was the entity behind the $100 million credit facility 40Seas received this week. The agreement comes with an option to extend the credit facility to $200 million.

40Seas leverages AI and data analytics to determine creditworthiness, and offers flexible payment arrangements to provide small importers and exporters, freight forwarders, and sourcing agencies with critical working capital. The company made its soft launch in October of last year and says that it already has financed transactions for “dozens of SMEs.”

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that small businesses represent more than 40% of all cross-border trade volume. Nevertheless, compared to large, multinational corporations, SMEs are “seven times more likely to be denied trade financing,” according to the World Trade Organization. Among the obstacles to these firms are siloed banking jurisdictions, working capital constraints, legacy processes, and more. To this end, 40Seas helps exporters get paid as quickly as possible and gives importers payment options that enable them to grow their businesses without incurring sizable additional debt.

“Given today’s harsh macroeconomic conditions, now more than ever, SMEs need easy access to financing to have the best chance of survival,” 40Seas co-founder and CEO Eyal Moldovan said.

40Seas is headquartered in Tel Aviv and has offices in New York City, Toronto, and Shenzhen.

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Last month CTech published a short list of what it called the “five most promising early-stage fintech startups” in Israel. The list was based on the opinions of “prominent investors in the Israeli market” and looked at both “business potential” and “managerial depth.”

The businesses represented included travel insurance (Faye), an automated accounting platform (Trullion), a compliance platform (Sedric), a loan exchange for SMEs (Lama AI), and a payments workflow automation company (Nilus). Combined, the five companies have raised more than $47 million in funding from investors including Viola Ventures, F2, Third Point Ventures, Greycroft, Homeward Ventures, StageOne, Foundational Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

We’ll keep an eye on these and other innovative fintechs that are helping build Israel’s unique fintech ecosystem.

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Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

• Indian payments app PhonePe secured $350 million in growth funding at a valuation of $12 billion.
• The State Bank of Pakistan named five new successful digital bank applicants this week.
• Market intelligence platform Tracxn reported that India-based fintech startups raised $5.65 billion in funding in 2022 a significant decline of 47%.

Latin America and the Caribbean

• Brazilian neobank Nubank secured a $150 million loan from the World Bank’s private lending division, the International Finance Corporation.
• Colombian fintech KLYM raised $27 million in funding in a round led by JPMorgan Chase and International Finance Corp.
• Mexico-based, collateral-free lender to nano-businesses, Aviva announced a pre-seed round investment of $2.2 million.

Asia-Pacific

• Philippines-based consumer finance app BillEase to bring Buy Now, Pay Later options to Filipino consumers thanks to a partnership with Alipay.
• Android NFC users will be able to make offline digital payments on the People’s Bank of China’s digital app, the PBOC announced this week.
• Yedpay, a digital payment platform based in Hong Kong, announced a partnership with Venture Cap, Easylink, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Sub-Saharan Africa

• South African proptech startup Flow locked in $4.5 million in pre-Series A funding in a round led by Futuregrowth Asset Management.
• In a seed round extension, Kenyan fintech Kwara raised $3 million in funding this week.
• Nigeria-based Kuda Bank moved closer to securing a digital banking license from the State Bank of Pakistan this week.

Central and Eastern Europe

• Budapest, Hungary-based fraud prevention innovator SEON announced a partnership with tbi bank.
• German automated tax refund app Zasta secured $64.8 million (60 million euros) in financing.
• Latvian consumer lender CreamCredit rebranded as AvaFin Holding.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• UAE-based Buy Now, Pay Later company Tabby raised $58 million in Series C funding.
• Cryptocurrency exchange Binance went live in Bahrain this week.
• Salt Edge brought its open banking solutions to Jordan as part of the Canadian company’s international expansion efforts..

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Photo by Haley Black