Appway has been something of a trailblazer in harnessing technology to handle the onboarding chores of wealth managers as well as client lifecycle issues across the industry.

US investment business Summit Partners has taken a $37 million minority stake in Switzerland-based Appway, which provides software focused on customer onboarding and lifecycle management.

This is the first external capital raising move by Appway, helping to boost its range of services, the firm said in a statement yesterday. 

Appway provides solutions to help private banks, wealth managers and other financial institutions to comply with intensifying regulatory requirements. Appway is arguably the most prominent player in the client onboarding field; it offers private banks, for example, the ability to accelerate onboarding which can otherwise take months because of compliance burdens.

Founded in 2003, Appway will use this new money to expand in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America, and continue its investment in software.

Bank clients of Appway include Credit Suisse, HSBC, JP Morgan, LGT, LPL Financial and Deutsche Bank.

“Over the past decade, financial institutions have had to adapt core business processes to comply with increasingly rigorous regulations and oversight related to customer identity verification (e.g. KYC), onboarding, risk and compliance,” Steffan Peyer, a principal at Summit Partners, who will join the Appway board of directors, said. 

The involvement of Summit gives Appway the backing of an investment house – founded in 1984 – that oversees more than $20 billion. Business and financial technology companies backed by Summit Partners include 360T Group, Acturis, Calypso Technology, Clearwater Analytics, FleetCor Technologies, Flow Traders, Invoice Cloud, Multifonds, Signavio and Vestmark.

Summit maintains offices in North America and Europe and invests in companies around the world.