Vancouver-based FinTech company Fispan has secured $30 million USD ($41 million CAD) in Series B financing, including a significant secondary component, as the startup eyes scaleup status.
The round was led by new investor Canapi Ventures, a Washington, DC-based growth equity firm, with participation from existing investors, including Rhino Ventures. More than $17 million USD ($23 million CAD) of the deal was issued as secondary capital, mostly to early-stage backers, Fispan confirmed to BetaKit. As part of the deal, Canapi general partner Tom Davis is joining Fispan’s board of directors.
Fispan’s raise is the latest in a string of secondary-heavy deals in Canadian tech, including Jane Software, Wealthsimple, and Plusgrade.
“This Series B funding is a pivotal moment for Fispan, empowering us to significantly scale our innovation and market reach,” Fispan CEO and founder Lisa Shields said in a statement.
Fispan provides a plugin that embeds banking services into enterprise resource planning (ERP) and accounting systems for small and medium-sized businesses. This makes it simpler for client businesses to integrate banking information into their accounting software, according to the company.
Shields founded Fispan in 2016. Her previous startup, a payout platform called Hyperwallet, sold to PayPal in 2018. Fispan’s clients include big banks such as Bank of Montreal, TD Bank, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan, and it serves more than 4,500 of those businesses’ enterprise clients.
Fispan is working to land “every major bank in Canada” as a partner and help them understand the value ERP banking offers to their clients, senior vice president of revenue, Zack Manning, told BetaKit.
The FinTech company last raised $16 million USD ($21.9 million CAD) in 2021, bringing its total financing to $35 million USD ($47.9 million CAD). It planned to double its staff, but reduced its team by 30 percent in 2022, Shields said. Today, she claims Fispan is generating $25 million USD ($34 million CAD) in annual revenue after becoming cash-flow positive last year, with an average growth rate of 80 percent over the last three years.
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Fispan’s raise is the latest in a string of secondary-heavy deals in Canadian tech, including Jane Software, Wealthsimple, and Plusgrade, as startups seek to generate liquidity while avoiding an unattractive exit market. A recent report from the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) shows a persistent IPO drought and a median exit value of $30 million in 2024, its lowest point since 2020.
Fispan said the funding will go towards developing its existing product through artificial intelligence (AI) integrations, scaling its go-to-market efforts, and expanding its team. The company currently has 150 employees and said it plans to hire across North America and the United Kingdom.
Fispan told BetaKit that AI features will help automate certain parts of its product—such as reconciliation between a business’s books and its bank statements—which it says will help boost efficiency for finance teams.
Feature image courtesy UX Indonesia via Unsplash.