Chinese internet giant Tencent is leading a $40m funding round for a London-based FinTech start-up, The Times has reported.
TrueLayer provides a platform for third parties such as FinTech firms and retail companies to access bank APIs and consumer data. The technology allows for the secure sharing of data across banks, known as ‘open banking’.
The company was founded in 2016 by Francesco Simoneschi and Luca Martinetti.
Simoneschi has a long history of tech entrepreneurialism.
Prior to creating TrueLayer he formed angel fund Mission and Market in 2014 which has now invested in more than 50 startups, including AI drug discovery platform Atomwise.
In 2012 he founded analytics platform Staq.iq which was later acquired by mobile game developer Playhaven.
Coder and entrepreneur Martinetti co-founded TrueLayer after leaving a role as lead data engineer at San Franscisco based FinTech Plaid, which offers a similar platform for connecting bank accounts to financial services.
In May of this year Tencent Holdings posted a record quarterly profit, beating market expectations.
The company, best known for social media and gaming offering, put the revenue growth down to its investments in cloud and FinTech.
Its results included a ‘FinTech and Business Services’ category which generated approximately $4bn in the March quarter, up 44 per cent.
In May, it made a $24m investment in Cambridge-based AI decision-making platform PROWLER.io, one of BusinessCloud’s ‘101 tech start-up disrupters’.
In the same month it also invested $250m in Chinese travel website Mafengwo and £11.4m in IoT security management firm Zeepson Technology.