Fintech startup Aura Cloud announced today that the esteemed finance executive Caroline Farberger is joining the company as chairwoman of the board of directors – an engagement that comes on the back of her upcoming work with Wellstreet, one of Aura Cloud’s main investors, along with Almi Invest.
Aura Cloud is on a business growth pathway and now seeks to further secure its market position by adding this impressive name to its board. With her broad network of contacts, Caroline Farberger will help to build awareness and trust in the market. In addition, as an Aura Cloud board member, she will leverage her experience by bringing valuable insights into the decision-making moments and supervising the company’s direction, increasing the confidence for prospects and customers.
The current market situation with a challenging macroeconomic outlook combined with increasing competition in the financial sector calls for extra focus on cost-efficiency and agility.
“Almost all incumbent small to midsize banks are still running with old legacy solutions having excess costs and limiting agility and flexibility to expand product offer or geographically. A SaaS-based cloud-native solution like Aura Cloud can greatly lower their costs compared to their own development or old legacy platforms”, asserts Armando Coppola, partner and fund manager at Wellstreet.
Aura Cloud brings two important benefits to customers: light speed to market and efficient cost/income of operations. The market lacks a fully functional solution with the ability to move fast to meet customer demands. Every business with a captive customer base can and will offer financial services and they need not be experts in setting up and running such platforms. Hence, they need a platform that is easy to use, flexible (since they come with different business offerings) and scalable – all without worrying much about IT, Infrastructure or other operations. That is what Aura Cloud offers financial institutions - to be available and present when their customers need it.
Aura Cloud will prove itself the major next-generation core banking solution in the Nordics for smaller financial institutions and even incumbent mid-size banks. They are moving in this direction by building active long-term C-level relationships, which is the foundation to create trust in cloud migration. Moreover, the growth also requires strategic partnerships to have a solid support structure.
“We are now into our next funding round, and we will use these funds for market growth. We plan to further consolidate in the Nordic market and expand into the UK market. This also means we will add to our management team to strategize and execute our expansion plans as we add more customers”, explains founder and CEO Prem Bhagwat. He also adds that they bring off a double benefit with Caroline Farberger, who joins us as an additional board member and a chairperson. “She offers wide experience in scaling up financial services business and managing senior teams, which will add to our strength to scale and deliver to our customers. Her experience and insights into navigating the scale-up process that we are currently going through will be invaluable and we look forward to her support and insights.”
Farberger has over 30 years of experience in banking and financial services, with experience at McKinsey & Company and several senior positions at prominent banking and insurance companies, such as CEO of ICA Insurance.
“The core banking platform decisions are very business-critical, strategic in nature. The timing is right for the first incumbent banks to move to a next-generation, cloud-native banking platform to make them more competitive. As a board member, my observations will support the company’s business growth and expansion strategy and direction”, says Farberger.
Wellstreet actively engaged in the portfolio
Earlier this year, Wellstreet announced that Caroline Farberger is joining as partner and working chair to its own board, a position that she will take up later this spring in connection with the Annual General Meeting. Her active engagement with Aura Cloud is the exact example of how Farberger will also support the portfolio, rather than just the Wellstreet general management. Together with the fund managers, she will select a few particular companies in which her expertise would be beneficial in order to evaluate how she can provide hands-on support and engage actively.
“I look very much forward to joining the skilled team at Wellstreet as working chair and, together, enhancing our unique position in the venture capital arena. Working closely with entrepreneurs to grow their businesses is really at the core of what we do, therefore I expect to be very active with our portfolio companies on a selective basis. In addition, scaling a fintech business together with Prem and his team will also be very valuable for me in further shaping our model in how we at Wellstreet best engage with our partner companies towards business success,” Farberger adds.
About Aura Cloud
Aura Cloud built a cloud-based open banking ecosystem that helps financial institutions and fintech players launch digital products and services quickly and cost-effectively to keep pace with changing market needs. With its 6,500 API connections, the platform covers a wide range of products - everything from corporate credit, consumer credit, to personal loans and card issuance, to name a few. The microservice-based architecture makes it easy to digitalize and automate end-to-end customer journeys providing excellent customer experience and efficiency. The multi-currency and multi-tenancy support allows international expansion as well.
For more information, please contact:
Prem Bhagwat, Founder & CEO Aura, +46 760 15 55 68, press@auracloud.com
Armando Coppola, Partner Wellstreet, +46 736 37 57 08, press@wellstreet.se
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