Go to search feature Go to content

You need to use a different browser. To be able to use our internet services, you can instead use one of these browsers: Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge or Mozilla Firefox.

Read more about recommended browsers

SEB makes follow-on investment as Thought Machine achieves unicorn status

SEB Venture Capital makes a follow-on investment in London-based fintech company Thought Machine, as it raises an additional USD 200 million at a valuation of more than USD 1 billion and thereby reaches unicorn status.

The additional financing was led by Nyca Partners, with investments also from the strategic investors ING Ventures, JPMorgan Chase Strategic Investments and Standard Chartered Ventures. It will be used for further product development as well as international expansion.

Thought Machine was founded in 2014 by former Google engineer Paul Taylor. The company has built Vault, a cloud native core banking platform developed to enable banks to deploy modern systems and move away from legacy IT platforms. Thought Machine's customers include SEB's innovation studio SEBx as well as Lloyds Banking Group, JPMorgan Chase, Standard Chartered, Atom Bank and Curve.

”When we met the founder Paul Taylor and his team almost three years ago the technology was untested, the team consisted of about 70 people, and SEBx became one of the very first customers to go live with Thought Machines cloud-based product Vault,” says Christoffer Malmer, head of SEBx. “Today, Thought Machine has customers all over the world and more than 500 employees, and it was recently named one of Europe's most promising fintech companies. This is a fantastically exciting journey where SEB has been, and continues to be, highly involved.”

SEBx has, as part of its technology exploration and work to build financial products and services in a completely new way, cooperated with Thought Machine for a number of years. In July 2020, SEB Venture Capital decided to invest in Thought Machine when the company then raised capital. 
 
“It's both very informative and important to be part of Thought Machine's journey – for SEBx of course, but also to get the opportunity to follow early development phases of a completely new banking system,” says SEB's Chief Information Officer Nicolas Moch, who also sits on Thought Machines Advisory Board. “It has provided us with unique insight into the banking technology of the future. This is a cooperation with a partner that can take SEB into the future.”

Press release from Thought Machine