KeyBank Invests in Qolo After Launching Virtual Account Management Solution

Cleveland-headquartered KeyBank made an equity investment in Qolo, expanding the companies’ existing partnership focused on banking innovation.

The companies announced the move in a Tuesday (June 3) press release without disclosing the terms of the investment.

Qolo, a provider of payment cycle management solutions, powers KeyVAM, a virtual account management solution for treasury management clients that was launched by KeyBank in May 2024.

“After two years of a very successful working relationship, we were happy to participate in a minority funding round that fully aligns KeyBank’s interest with Qolo while respecting Qolo’s commitment to serve all its banking clients transparently,” Diana Welch Howell, head of Key Commercial Bank alternative and FinTech strategies, said in the release.

KeyBank has been investing in and partnering with emerging FinTech providers for decades, according to the release.

“Our ongoing partnership with KeyBank is focused on empowering businesses and financial institutions with technology that drives better client experiences,” Qolo CEO Patricia Montesi said in the release. “We are excited to have KeyBank become a minority investor and to see our relationship be reinforced after working closely the last two years in delivering KeyVAM.”

KeyVAM has processed nearly $9 billion in transactions since October, according to the release.

The platform was recently enhanced to include same-day ACH reconciliation, enhanced dashboard reporting for cash flow visualizations and improved statement reporting, the release said.

These enhancements joined KeyVAM’s core benefits, which include ACH reconciliation within flexible virtual account structures, streamlined cash management, customized reporting and integration capabilities through flexible application programming interfaces (APIs), per the release.

KeyBank and Qolo announced in April 2023 that they had teamed up to offer clients embedded banking solutions. The companies said at the time that Qolo’s digital-first financial solutions would complement the scale and security offered by KeyBank.

In another, separate move, KeyCorp, the parent company of KeyBank, announced in September that it formed a strategic relationship and made a minority investment with Zentist, a provider of cloud-based insurance revenue cycle management (RCM) software for dental support organizations (DSOs) across the U.S.

In May 2022, KeyBank acquired GradFin, a company that provides public service loan forgiveness counseling.