UK startup fintech TrueLayer just won funding from China's Tencent and Singaporean wealth fund Temasek

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UK startup fintech TrueLayer just won funding from China's Tencent and Singaporean wealth fund Temasek

A Tencent sign is seen during the China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (ChinaJoy) in Shanghai, China August 3, 2018. REUTERS/Aly Song

Reuters

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  • UK fintech TrueLayer is receiving funding from Chinese financial giant Tencent and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek.
  • The $35 million funding round which closed Tuesday is set to help fuel the company's expansion further into Europe and Asia.
  • It's part of a burgeoning area of profitability for Tencent which has boosted its fintech portfolio to great effect in recent years.

UK fintech received another boost after open banking startup TrueLayer won support from two major Asian investors.

The $35 million in funding comes from Chinese financial giant Tencent and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek and means the company has secured $47 million in funding in just three years. The investment is expected to fund the company's expansion into Europe with plans to develop further into France, Germany, and Italy.

Tencent's investment in TrueLayer comes just days after it published its quarterly earnings which revealed that its fintech investments have helped generate a record $2.5 billion profit, up 44%, according to Reuters.

The company has also noted its plans to expand into the Asia Pacific region, making investment from sovereign wealth funds like Singapore's Temasek increasingly important.

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TrueLayer was founded in 2016 by Francesco Simoneschi and Luca Martinetti with their platform providing open-banking software allowing people to share or aggregate their financial information from different providers.

The company works with UK neo-bank Monzo and has previously received funding from VCs such as Northzone, Anthemis Group and Connect Ventures. Open banking and PSD2 have been major boons to companies like TrueLayer which leverage APIs (application programming interface) to integrate services with their customers.

It's part of a push by investors into UK fintech after SoftBank's recent funding of supply chain finance provider Greensill Capital and WorldRemit's recent $185 million funding round.

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