Level39’s 2015: A year in review
23rd December 2015
It’s been a busy year for us at Level39 – we’ve seen the team grow, a greater focus on our smart-cities initiatives, global institutions embarking on industry-changing missions and our members raising enormous sums of money and going on incredible journeys.
Here’s our review of the year, month-by-month:
January – PeerTransfer raises $22m
The student money-transfer service raised a sizeable $22m in a round led by Bain Capital, giving them the cash injection needed to go on and conquer the remittance market.
February – Boris Johnson lauds Digital Shadows
Boris Johnson publicly congratulated Level39 member Digital Shadows following their $8m funding round during his FinTech tour of the US.
March – #TwoYearsOn: Read Our Magazine Online
In March we celebrated our second birthday, and to commemorate the anniversary we launched a beautiful, printed report. Chock-full of stats, wisdom and pictures, if you didn’t manage to physically grab a copy, it’s available online here.
April – UBS creates innovation lab at Level39
Global wealth manager UBS brought their innovation lab to Level39, setting up an office in High Growth Space: 42 to research and develop technologies based around the blockchain. The UBS team are currently working hard, as covered by WSJ this October.
May – doPay raises $2 million in funding
Level39 member dopay secured $2million in seed funding from ACE & Company, Techstars Ventures and a syndicate of angel investors working for leading banks, private equity funds and hedge funds.
June – A Journey of High Growth: Digital Shadows and Growth Intelligence
This summer we took the opportunity to celebrate the successes of two of our longest-standing members, Digital Shadows and Growth Intelligence, and explored the shared journey the teams took together, from humble beginnings to High Growth success.
July – Dassault’s 3D FinTech Challenge returns to Level39
July marked the start of Dassault Systèmes kicking off their 3D FinTech Challenge. The seven-week programme brought together some of the world’s most exciting and disruptive technologies in the financial and regulation fields, and with the help of Deutsche Borse helped to accelerate their growth.
August – Innovate Finance partners Open University on FinTech Course
In a world-first, Level39 member and fintech membership organisation Innovate Finance, partnered with globally respected distance-learning institution, The Open University, to launch the FinTech 101 course.
September – FinTech Week roundup
The annual FinTech week celebrates everything that we love. It was a week of networking, conferences, product launches and more, all around London, with a number of events happening here at Level39, including the closing party.
October – Level39 seeks new head
After three years, head Eric Van der Kleij will be stepping down from Level39 – we will be seeking a new head to take us into our next phase of high-growth.
November – Making Banking Better: Hack/Make the Bank returns to Level39
For the third year running, Level39 partnered up with TESOBE to bring the 48-hour open-banking hackathon to Level39. We gathered a group of talented developers and tasked them to make banking better using a number of Open Banking APIs.
December – Make Smart Cities a Reality: Join the Cognicity Hub
In early December we announced the start of a smarter future. Following on from the huge success of the Cognicity Programme (delivered by ENTIQ) – Level39 is taking over the reins and housing smart-cities businesses from around the world, giving them the space and support to grow.