Dr Sai Lakshmi/Caura.
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Lloyds Bank invests £4m in car management app Caura
Lloyds’ newly formed fintech investment team has just made its third investment for the bank.
Lloyds Bank is backing all-in-one motoring app Caura with its latest fintech investment.
The £3m from Lloyds marks the third fintech investment from the bank as part of the Group’s latest strategy led by its new fintech investment team.
Caura, designed to “take the hassle out of car ownership”, simplifies car admin by managing insurance, tax, tolls, charges and MOT all in one place.
The investment will support the app’s development of new and existing products and services for both consumers and businesses.
“This significant investment represents another important step forward in our plans to work closely with fintechs and technology partners to bring together data-driven insight and technologies to help our customers,” Lloyds fintech investment director Kirsty Rutter said.
“Caura’s experienced management team have a relentless focus on customers, and we are excited to work with them to support the development and growth of this groundbreaking simple-to-use app.”
The investment from Lloyds is part of the bank’s public commitment to the Fintech Diversity Pledge, an industry-wide initiative intended to strengthen the global position of UK financial services through smooth and productive partnerships between fintechs and larger institutions.
It is also Lloyds’ first investment of the year, headed up by its recently formed fintech investment team focused on seed to Series B companies.
“As part of our mission to take the pain out of driving, we have already simplified payments for tolls, city charges and vehicle excise duty,” Caura founder and CEO Dr Sai Lakshmi said.
“Our next step is to apply our technology to overhauling the car insurance and maintenance processes which have remained antiquated and resistant to change.”
Lakshmi said that future plans for Caura include developing embedded financial services such as motor loans and insurance or white-labelled payment solutions,
“Lloyds Banking Group and their proactive approach to innovation is incredibly exciting, and the cross-pollination of ideas between our respective teams will allow us to deliver an innovative suite of products and services that the market has not seen before to customers ranging from drivers through to vehicle manufacturers,” he added.
Caura hopes to save the UK’s 30 million motorists billions of pounds that is paid in unnecessary fines and forgotten charges and payments.
