Thought Machine raises $160m in a Series D funding

By Joy Dumasia

Thought Machine, the cloud-native banking technology company, announces it has closed its Series D funding round, led by Temasek, the global investment company headquartered in Singapore, with participation from Intesa Sanpaolo and Morgan Stanley. Existing investors following on in this round include Eurazeo, ING, JPMorgan Chase, Lloyds Banking Group, and SEB.

Thought Machine is now valued at $2.7 billion, a 100% increase from its valuation at the close of its series C round. This funding round closely follows Thought Machine’s series C round, which was completed at the end of 2021, demonstrating the company’s accelerated growth trajectory and continued interest from global investors. 

Funds from this investment round will continue the company’s global expansion plans, building on the success of Thought Machine’s strong performance in New York, Singapore and Australia. Thought Machine has set out plans for further expansion in the Asia Pacific, growing in markets such as Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Thought Machine has recently opened a new office in Sydney to expand its operations in Australia and is opening a new office in Miami to service Latin America. The company will also use proceeds from the funding to continue investing in its technology, expanding the capabilities of its core banking platform and innovating in new product lines. 

Lloyds Banking Group, an early investor in Thought Machine and a participant in this round, has extended its licence agreement with the business until 2029. This extension is part of Lloyds Banking Group’s continuing technology modernisation programme.

Thought Machine continues to strengthen its executive team with the appointments of former Bank of America and Finastra finance leader Arnaud Attamian as Chief Financial Officer and former SAP and Box sales leader Dana Barisano as Chief Revenue Officer. 

Thought Machine’s core banking platform Vault Core is developed natively for the cloud and uniquely positioned to support large-scale banks undertaking core transformation and smaller banks and FinTechs launching new propositions to the market. No other core banking vendor has signed as many Tier 1 banks as clients, such as Intesa Sanpaolo, Lloyds Banking Group, ING, SEB, and Standard Chartered, among others worldwide.

Carlo Messina, Managing Director and CEO, Intesa Sanpaolo, said: “We are investing c.£40m into Thought Machine, a FinTech innovator and partner we consider strategic to the industrial upgrade of Intesa Sanpaolo. Their cloud-based technology is fundamental to our transformation from incumbent to digital challenger, improving our core banking technology and providing the foundation for our new digital bank, Isybank.”

‍Paul Taylor, Founder and CEO of Thought Machine, said: “This new round of funding bringing Temasek, Morgan Stanley, and Intesa Sanpaolo into the business is our statement of intent: we intend to become the leader in core banking technology and are being deployed by the biggest, most successful banks around the world. We will use this new capital to accelerate our expansion plans, serve more clients around the world, and continuously refine the capabilities of our core banking platform and other products.”