Founded By Bankers For Bankers, North Carolina-based Fintech Startup nCino Raises $80M

North Carolina-based nCino, which has developed a cloud-based operating system for financial institutions, has raised $80 million in a round of funding led by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc.

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Existing investor Salesforce Ventures 1 also participated in the financing, which brings the Wilmington company’s total raised since its inception in 2012 to more than $213 million, according to Crunchbase data. Previous backers include Insight Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners.

In a press release issued on Wednesday morning, nCino said only it had closed on a round of funding, but did not reveal the amount. A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, however, indicates the company raised $80 million.

A team of bankers and entrepreneurs who found the commercial lending process to be “inefficient and time-consuming” formed the company seven years ago. nCino has developed a self-described “end-to-end” SaaS solution, dubbed the nCino Bank Operating System, in an effort to help banks “ increase transparency, efficiency and profitability while ensuring regulatory compliance,” according to nCino’s website. nCino says it integrates with a bank’s transactional systems, “while replacing point solutions and manual-based processes.”

One of the co-founders, James (Chip) Mahan III, is also chairman and CEO of Live Oak Bank. The system was first implemented there and then began attracting interest from other banks. Today, over 1,100 financial institutions in multiple countries are using nCino, the company said.

According to its release, nCino plans to use the new capital “to further scale its global workforce and accelerate investment in research and development to bring innovations such as analytics, artificial intelligence and pricing” to its customers. I reached out to the company for more details and will update this story when I get them.

Earlier this year, spokeswoman Natalia Moose told WlimingtoBiz that nCino continues to build upon its product, with the addition of retail banking and enterprise onboarding solutions.

“We’re well beyond our days of being just a commercial loan origination platform,” she was quoted as saying at the time.

nCino currently employs more than 750 people across its offices in London, Sydney, Toronto and Salt Lake City and out of its headquarters in Wilmington.

In July, it acquired its first company, Salt Lake City, Utah-based Visible Equity, a financial analytics and compliance software company.

In October 2018, I took a look at North Carolina’s growing startup scene. At that time, we found that venture funding in NC startups was up 154 percent to $2.57 billion for the year compared to $1.01 billion in all of 2017,  according to Crunchbase data.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias