# Illuminate Financial

> Illuminate Financial is a VC fund in London backing FinTech and Software. See 96 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: London, United Kingdom
- Total investments: 96
- Last investment: Jun 2026
- Lead investor: 46%
- Fund size: $235M
- Last fund: Jun 2023
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/illuminate-financial-management/
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/illuminatefm
- Website: http://illuminatefinancial.com/

Illuminate Financial is a specialist venture capital firm investing in early-stage Enterprise AI & Fintech companies. With teams across London, New York, and Singapore, we combine capital with unmatched connectivity to global financial institutions, helping visionary founders build and scale. Illuminate operates at the centre of the globalfinancial services ecosystem. We connect founders with investors, financial institutions, and strategic partners, giving our portfolio companies direct access to insight, demand, and decision-makers. From this unique vantage point, we identify critical market needs and back the solutions best placed to solve them, creating a virtuous cycle that drives transformation across the industry.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Illuminate Financial. Shizune tracks 7 team members at Illuminate Financial. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/illuminate-financial?utm_source=investor_profile

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $3.8M–$8M |
| Series A | $3.5M–$29M |
| Series B | $15M–$51M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FinTech | 28 | 29% |
| Software | 26 | 27% |
| Financial Services | 25 | 26% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 14 | 15% |
| Finance | 10 | 10% |

66 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series A | 36 | 38% |
| Seed | 21 | 22% |
| Series B | 18 | 19% |
| Funding Round | 5 | 5% |
| Venture - Series Unknown | 3 | 3% |

7 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 24 | 25% |
| United Kingdom | 14 | 15% |
| Singapore | 5 | 5% |
| Canada | 3 | 3% |
| France | 3 | 3% |

11 countries tracked in total.

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Mark Rodrigues | Advisor | 1 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/mark-rodrigues-d633 |
| Alexander Ross | General Partner \| Head of NYC | 7 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alexander-ross |
| Alex Gheorghe | Investor | 1 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alex-gheorghe |
| Katherine Wilson | Investment Director | 1 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/katherine-wilson |
| Luca Zorzino | General Partner & Head of Asia | 5 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/luca-zorzino |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Straiker | Straiker builds AI-native security solutions tp protect customers from a spectrum of security & safety risks. | $64M | Series A | Jun 29, 2026 |  |
| Karta | Karta offers contactless metal US-issued credit cards to Latin American residents that have assets in a US financial institution. | $15M | Series A | Jun 17, 2026 |  |
| bunch | Bunch is a financial technology company that provides software and operational infrastructure for private market fund management. Its platform supports the full fund lifecycle, including investor onboarding, fund administration, accounting, compliance, reporting, and transaction management for venture capital, private equity, and other alternativeinvestment structures. The company combines proprietary software with integrated operational services to help asset managers and investors manage funds and special purpose vehicles through a centralized system. Bunch also offers tools designed to improve data management and automate workflows across fund operations and regulatory processes. The platform is used by asset managers and investors across multiple European jurisdictions to manage investment structures and administrative activities. | $35M | Series B | May 19, 2026 |  |
| Notch | AI Customer Support Platform, Built for Operational Leaders Who Care About Outcomes | $30M | Series A | Mar 25, 2026 |  |
| Crossover Markets Group | Crossover Markets Group develops trading technology for digital asset markets and operates CROSSx, an execution-only electronic communication network used for cryptocurrency transactions. The platform connects institutional participants such as liquidity providers, brokers, and trading firms to execute spot digital asset trades through a matchingengine that processes orders and generates market pricing. It separates trade execution from custody and brokerage functions, allowing participants to choose their own counterparties and service providers for settlement and credit relationships. The system supports configurable liquidity pools, order matching rules, and connectivity through APIs and graphical interfaces for trading and market data access. Crossover Markets Group also maintains infrastructure and tools that facilitate order routing, liquidity interaction, and continuous trading in cryptocurrency markets. | $31M | Series B | Mar 04, 2026 |  |
| Turnstile | Turnstile is an all-in-one revenue automation platform that streamlines quoting, subscription management, billing and revenue recognition. | $29M | Series A | Feb 05, 2026 |  |
| Waffo | Waffo is a global payments platform provider supporting over 70 currencies and more than 300 payment methods, offering secure, flexible, and scalable payment solutions that enable businesses to seamlessly process cross-border transactions, expand into international markets, and deliver smooth, localized payment experiences to customers around theworld. | $15M | Series A | Feb 04, 2026 |  |
| Zocks | Zocks is a real-time insight and privacy for enhanced video calls. It was founded in 2022 and was headquartered in San Francisco, California. | $45M | Series B | Jan 26, 2026 |  |
| Endowus | Endowus is a supplier of financial advice and customized investing services designed to help clients develop their money. The company's services enable investors to access institutional share-class funds at institutional-level fees, charging a single access fee that includes advice, investment, rebalancing, transfers, and brokerage. | $70M |  | Oct 22, 2025 |  |
| Flox | Flox is taking nix to work on building software and managing development environments. The company was founded by Michael Brantley and Ron Efroni in 2018 and is headquartered in New York, United States. | $24.9M | Series B | Sep 25, 2025 |  |

10 of 96 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Citi](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/citigroup) — VC Fund, 11 deals together
- [AlbionVC](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/albion-vc) — VC Fund, 9 deals together
- [SixThirty](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sixthirty) — VC Fund, 8 deals together
- [Tribeca Early Stage Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/tribeca-angels) — VC Fund, 8 deals together
- [Expon Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/expon-capital) — VC Fund, 7 deals together
- [Castle Island Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/castle-island-ventures) — VC Fund, 5 deals together

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## FAQ

### What does Illuminate Financial invest in?

Illuminate Financial invests primarily in FinTech, Software and Financial Services startups, most often at Series A and Seed stage. Most of the 96 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is Illuminate Financial's check size?

Illuminate Financial typically joins rounds of $3.8M–$8M at Seed, $3.5M–$29M at Series A and $15M–$51M at Series B. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Illuminate Financial participates in.

### How do I contact Illuminate Financial?

Public channels for Illuminate Financial include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.

### Who are the partners at Illuminate Financial?

The team at Illuminate Financial includes Mark Rodrigues (Advisor), Alexander Ross (General Partner | Head of NYC) and Alex Gheorghe (Investor), among 7 team members tracked by Shizune. The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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