City fintech Yapily scores $5.4m from Transferwise founders and Localglobe

London fintech startup Yapily has closed $5.4m (£4.3m) in seed funding from King’s Cross-based venture capital firm Localglobe and HZ Holtzbrinck Ventures.

Other investors included Transferwise co-founders Taavet Hinrikus and Ott Kaukver, and C-suite executives from Twilio and Unicredit.

Read more: Transferwise is Europe's most valuable fintech at $3.5bn

Yapily will use the funding to develop its technology, which helps businesses connect with retail banks through Open Banking APIs. It will also expand its technology and sales team, based in Shoreditch.

Localglobe investor Remus Brett and HV Holtzbrinck Ventures partner Barbod Namini said: “We are on the brink of open banking and this is creating a huge opportunity to innovate finance, around the world.

“We are incredibly excited about the scale of what Yapily offers and think that its focus on API technology can deliver a game-changing solution for enterprises and ultimately for the end consumer.”

Read more: UK named world's top fintech hub as startups rake in £4.5bn

Yapily is currently connected to 35 of the biggest banks in Europe, and hopes to reach more than 500 banks by the end of this year.

The startup is also capitalising on the sweeping spread of Open Banking regulations across Europe and on other continents. By mid-September, around 5,000 banks in Europe will need to have an API in place to comply with legislation, while governments in Australia, Japan, Canada and several other countries are also getting up to speed.

Yapily founder and chief executive Stefano Vaccino said he believes there is “a great opportunity here to help people overcome financial exclusion by giving consumers full visibility of their incomings and outgoings, and even warning them if they are embarking on financially risk behaviour.”