Modulr awarded £10m from Capability & Innovation Fund

Modulr, the Payments as a Service API platform for digital businesses, has secured £10m from Pool C of the Capability and Innovation Fund (CIF) under the RBS Alternative Remedies Package.

The new funding will deliver a wide range of innovative solutions to provide SMEs with greater access to new payment services. This includes the creation of a new product – the Accountant Payments Control Centre (APCC) – which will deliver greater control, automation and efficiency for Modulr’s accountant and SME clients. Modulr will also commit to investing a matched fund of £10m, to deliver on its commitments to expand the benefit of the CIF to as many customers as possible.

This will lead to the creation of a minimum of 64 new high-quality regional jobs within the UK, with more than 80% of the newly created roles being used to scale the FinTech’s existing footprint in Edinburgh.

Modulr is an Authorised Electronic Money Institution (AEMI), and already enables partners to embed payment processes in existing SME customer journeys seamlessly, allowing accounting software and payroll providers to compete with banks.

The FinTech, which at present reaches more than 35,000 SMEs through its client and partner network, provides a digital payments alternative to incumbent error prone, time consuming and opaque traditional payment services between disconnected banking and business platforms such as accounting and payroll software.

A total of 5.6m SMEs in the UK account for 60% of all private sector employment and half of all private sector turnover¹. As part of the public commitments detailed in the BCR bid, Modulr will make its payment services available to almost one million SMEs via a network of partners, driving cost effective innovation and boosting competition within the UK business payments market.

A new module to Modulr’s API platform and web-portal known as the APCC, will deliver control for accountants through accounting and payroll platform connections, multi-step approvals, granular access management and workflow management. The APCC will give accountants and SMEs unprecedented access to simple, secure and affordable payments to compete in the ever-demanding instant economy.

Wider investments will be made to further drive competition by providing a digitally native alternative for businesses to integrate payments into their products and business platforms quickly and easily using Modulr’s API platform. Modulr will also offer new partners the availability to utilise its API to launch innovative payment solutions including payment collection services, treasury management and fraud control services.

Myles Stephenson, Chief Executive Officer, Modulr, said: 

“We want to make tired old payment technology a thing of the past for neglected Accountants and SMEs. Modulr was founded with a purpose to make money flow more efficiently through businesses and the economy. This award from the CIF will help us deliver on our vision and passion to support SME businesses to thrive across the UK. 

 This is a great opportunity to bring an entirely new digital solution to market; the benefits of unlocking automation and straight-through payment processing will radically change the way SMEs and accountants do business.”

The fast growing FinTech, backed by Blenheim Chalcot and Frog Capital, was founded in January 2016, and has grown rapidly to process over £14bn of transactions since launch on behalf of clients and partners including Sage, Paxport, Liberis and Revolut.