Westpac finances Reinventure to support fintech revolution

The funding underlines the bank’s orientation to new technological solution and shows how Westpac wants to improve the experiences of its customers by developing relationships with start-ups, according to Financial Review.

Simon Cant and Danny Gilligan, the co-founders of Reinventure and managers of the first fund, will manage the fund. Fund 2 would look for investments in payments and lending along with start-ups seeking to outsource parts of the traditional financial services, including data, identity, risk, trust, artificial intelligence and application programming interfaces (APIs). It will also seek opportunities in technology platforms in industries adjacent to financial services such as real estate, health, retail and agriculture where financial services are embedded into products.

First fund took place in 2014 and supported 10 companies: SocietyOne, Coinbase, Nabo, Zetaris, PromisePay, Hey You, Auror, Data Republic, Flare and Valiant. More than 50 % of the fund have been invested in these companies with the remainder held back for follow-on investments. None of the investments have been sold so the funds returns cannot be measured. Many co-investors have invested alongside Reinventure in several of these start-ups, including Qantas, National Australia Bank, Fairfax, Seven, News Limited and Carsales.