An award-winning fintech scaleup is targeting expansion into Asia after achieving its original long-term geographical growth targets within its first year.
Kani Payments is already working across Europe, the United States, Middle East and Australia after its SaaS platform for reporting and reconciling transactions and moving funds became an instant success.
The business, based in Newcastle, is seeing its technology adopted by increasing numbers of clients around the world – ranging from multi-billion dollar financial businesses to startups – and has a 100 per cent client retention rate following the initial trial of their product.
Asia has now been identified as the next territory for Kani to target, following the huge progress of the venture since its inception in October 2018.
Kani was recently named as one of the UK’s top 33 rising stars in tech, and earlier this month won the leading financial services or payments startup accolade at the Emerging Payments Awards.
The business was founded by chief executive Aaron Holmes, who, alongside chief commercial officer Anthony Jarman, identified the need for such a technology-driven back office function for the financial services sector. Both left senior roles in a London-based tech business to return to Aaron’s native North East to establish Kani, which has its headquarters on Collingwood Street.
Anthony said: “Our first year has exceeded all our expectations and to be in so many countries already is a huge achievement and way ahead of where we planned to be. Our initial goal was European expansion, but now winning work in Asia is the ambition. We are still a new business and we have to grow at a pace we can accommodate and add new people to the team to support that, but things are moving very quickly.
“We have a fantastic team and everyone within it is known in the industry and has a lot of previous experience. We all individually have a reputation for knowing what we’re doing and Kani is becoming a known name in its own right now. The award win at the Emerging Payments Awards was a huge endorsement of what we’re doing and we are very ambitious to get to the next level now.
“It’s no longer the case that you need to be in London to succeed in this industry and Newcastle is a great place for a fintech scaleup like ours to be based. This city’s tech community is growing strongly and it is really important for businesses like ours that there are specialist advisors to support us. Lucy Carlin at Sintons immediately understood us and our ambitions, and works to the tightest of timescales to deliver what we need.”
Lucy Carlin, senior associate at law firm Sintons and one of the region’s leading specialist tech lawyers, advises Kani on commercial legal matters.
“Kani Payments is a hugely exciting scaleup which has become a global name within its first year in business, and to have them based here in the North East is a fantastic endorsement of the region’s growing reputation for its work in tech. Kani have a superb product and highly experienced senior leadership team and their potential is vast. We look forward to continuing to support the business with its growth going forward,” she said.
