Law firm advises on £8m fintech deal as UK VC tech investment remains resilient

Manchester law firm Fieldfisher has advised London-based fintech start-up Codat on an £8m funding round from Index Ventures, the global tech-focused venture capital (VC) fund.

Codat is building an application programming interface (API) that connects internal systems of small businesses to banks, fintechs and other financial institutions, allowing business data to flow back and forth in real time.

Codat currently works with 50 financial providers, such as iZettle, Experian and two of the top four banks in the UK.

The funding, announced on June 11, will be used to enable Codat to expand into the US and grow its workforce to 100 people by the end of 2020.

Fieldfisher Manchester advised Codat on the equity funding round.

The team was led by corporate partner Tom Ward with Rachel Leigh assisting and Mark Gearing providing specialist equity incentives advice. Index Ventures was advised by Goodwin Procter.

The Codat deal was the latest in more than 20 VC transactions Fieldfisher’s Manchester team has completed this year.

Notwithstanding the UK’s COVID-19 lockdown, Fieldfisher Manchester has continued to close transactions and activity has remained promising, with Tech Nation recently confirming investment in the UK’s digital tech companies continues to outperform its European counterparts.

Highlights of other VC deals completed by the Fieldfisher Manchester team so far this year include:

• Advising Poplar, an augmented reality software platform, on a $2.6m VC funding round led by Fuel Ventures in late May;
• Advising Founders Factory, Europe’s pre-eminent tech accelerator, in its capacity as lead investor in a €1.6m equity investment in OxWash in early May; and
• Advising proptech start-up Goodlord on a £10m series B equity raising from investors Latitude Ventures, Finch Capital and Oxx in early March, bringing total funding to around £23m that Fieldfisher has supported Goodlord in raising to date.

Manchester corporate partner, Tom Ward, one of Legal Week’s 40 under 40 rising stars of private equity 2019, said: “We are delighted to have assisted Codat in securing funding for its next phase of growth and wish the team every success.

“Despite wider concerns about the future of the UK economy as it deals with the effects of COVID-19 and faces further uncertainty over Brexit, we are confident that the UK tech sector will continue to attract investment and play a key role in the economic recovery.”

Alex Cardona chief operating officer and co-founder of Codat, said: “The team at Fieldfisher have been excellent partners in guiding us at Codat through the fundraising process – always focused on real-world problems and solutions.”

Fieldfisher’s Manchester office serves a variety of clients across both the North West and the rest of the UK and internationally, and has recently been assisting clients in relation to post-COVID-19 opportunities for Northern businesses as part of the Northern Powerhouse initiative.