London-based Codat, whose universal API for SMB data is used by SaaS, lending, and payments companies, raises a $100M Series C at an ~$825M valuation
Context & Ripple Effects
Codat's raise is the third step of a steep funding ladder: a $10M Index Ventures round in 2020 to connect small-business systems with banks, then a $40M round led by Tiger Global in 2021, and now a $100M Series C at an ~$825M valuation — roughly doubling the pace of capital intake each year while the product stays the same: one API for SMB financial data.
The timing matters because it lands two months after fellow London firm Fidel API's $65M Series B led by Bain Capital, part of a cluster of UK data-infrastructure raises that also includes Harbr's secure data-exchange round and Solidatus' work for HSBC and Citi. Investors are funding the plumbing layer between businesses' data and the institutions that want it, and Codat just became the best-capitalized player in it.
First-order effects
- Codat gains the balance sheet to push its universal SMB-data API deeper into lending, payments, and SaaS customer bases, where integration speed is the sales lever.
- Its existing backers' positions are marked up sharply — from a $10M round two years ago to an ~$825M valuation — validating the single-API approach over point solutions.
Second-order effects
- Fidel API, fresh off its own $65M raise, now competes against a rival with more than twice its total funding, pushing both toward broader data coverage rather than niche identity or payments endpoints.
- Banks and lenders evaluating SMB underwriting integrations can increasingly buy one standardized connection instead of funding bespoke builds, shifting spend from internal engineering to API subscriptions.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, SMB financial-data access consolidates into a few universal API platforms — the same structure card networks occupy in payments — with London's data-infrastructure cluster (Codat, Fidel, Harbr, Solidatus) positioned as Europe's counterweight to US aggregators.
- Lenders' underwriting models come to depend on third-party data pipes they don't control, raising the eventual question of regulation or reliability standards for critical SMB-data infrastructure.
The trend: SMB financial-data plumbing is consolidating into well-capitalized universal API platforms, with London emerging as the hub for the infrastructure layer between small businesses and financial institutions.