Alviere, a US fintech company, is to establish its European base in Ireland as it expands into the market.
t develops embedded finance tools for companies to integrate financial services like payments into their own products.
Colin Canny, director of business development, joined the company in July to head up the Irish base as it seeks regulatory clearance and to build out a local team, which currently numbers five.
“The plan is to grow that to 15 in the next 12 months and up to 30 people in year two as we progress post-authorisation,” Canny said.
It plans to grow its business development and compliance functions with a chief financial officer for the EU to be based in Dublin.
“It’s a case of building out those functions to help support our expansion into the other markets we’re looking to achieve across the EU.”
Alviere targets companies with large consumer-facing operations.
“That would cover various verticals such as retail. There are grocery retailers in that space that have loyal customer bases locally and strong brands that we’re looking to [integrate with],” Canny said. “Airlines would be a market for us to try and embed our offering.”
The company is seeking an electronic money licence from the Central Bank of Ireland for its entry into Europe. Canny said this was a factor in Alviere’s decision to base in Ireland.
“We felt that putting our platform through a robust assessment phase would allow us to stand up and be well regarded across the EU,” Canny said. “Many firms look at Eastern European [regulators] as a much easier way to the EU market but we felt that going through that robust assessment would stand to us.”
Alviere expects to have its licence by early next year and plans to enter Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain initially.
It raised $70m in funding in 2021 and earlier this year closed an additional funding deal with Silicon Valley Bank but did not disclose the amount.
