Still looking for evidence that cryptocurrencies have arrived? The $170 million raised this week by Austrian digital asset neobroker Bitpanda is a testament to both the surging interest in cryptocurrencies as well as the vitality of fintech innovation in the CEE countries.
Bitpanda’s Series B round earned the company a valuation of $1.2 billion, giving Austria its first fintech unicorn. The Vienna-based company, founded in 2014 by co-CEOs Eric Demuth and Paul Klanschek, along with CTO Christian Trummer, plans to use the capital to add to the types of investments available on its platform, as well as expand to more markets in Europe.
This latest funding round was led by Valar Ventures and featured participation from partners of DST Global. The round is more than triple the amount raised by Bitpanda in its Series A financing back in September, which was also led by Valar Ventures (SpeedInvest of Vienna was an investor in the round, as well). The capital arrives the same week that Bitpanda announced that it had reached a new milestone of more than two million registered users on its Bitpanda and Bitpanda Pro platforms.
Bitpanda enables cryptocurrency investors and traders to buy, sell, save, and send more than 50 digital assets including Bitcoin and Ethereum. The neobroker also offers the world’s first real crypto index and a Bitpanda Card that enables Bitpanda accountholders to spend their digital assets as easily as they spend their cash.
With FinovateEurope right around the corner, we’ve got more than a little continental fintech on the mind these days. This week we take a quick look at fintech news from France, a country whose fintech industry is often overlooked in the broader conversation on European fintech.
Earlier this week, we learned that Finovate alum Ledger was launching a new business division dedicated to taking advantage of growing institutional interest in cryptocurrencies. Headquartered in Paris and founded in 2013, the company announced that its Ledger Enterprise Solutions unit will support enterprise adoption of the company’s core custody technology, Ledger Vault, as well as advise institutional clients with regards to technology implementation, security, and governance of digital asset portfolios.
On the French fintech funding beat, PayFit, a payroll and HR platform launched in France in 2016, announced that it has secured $107 million (EUR 90 million) in Series D funding. The investment was led by Eurzeo Growth, Large Venture, and BPI France, and featured participation from the company’s existing investors Accel, Frst, and individual investor Xavier Niel.
The company said that the capital will help support its comprehensive HR solution for SMEs and enable the company – which also operates in Spain, Germany, the U.K., and Italy – to “increase headcount from 550 to 800” by the end of 2021.
PayFit serves more than 5,000 small businesses, and includes Revolut, Starling Bank, and Treatwell among its customers. The company experienced growth of 40% in 2020 – a pace PayFit anticipates doubling this year – and credited much of this “hypergrowth” to the digital imperative brought on by the COVID-19 crisis.
“As a result of the pandemic, HR professionals have faced a much higher workload and unfamiliar challenges,” PayFit co-founder and CEO Firmin Zocchetto said. “They have had to deal with various issues, including supporting the company’s management with the implementation of remote work policies and ensuring employee wellbeing through new initiatives.”
Zocchetto said that there are “tens of millions of SMEs” that are ready for digital transformation. “The market is huge, and our ambition remains the same: to become the point of reference for payroll and HR management for all SMEs,” he said.
Striking another note in the funding beat, French fintech Silvr announced a EUR 3 million seed investment this week. The company, launched last year by Nima Karimi and Gregory Tappero, provides financing for digital businesses that cannot access traditional bank financing and want to raise equity capital.
Silvr offers a revenue-based financing model based on the performance of the financed company, an approach that contrasts with both traditional asset-based lending and fundraising models. Karimi has said that Silvr’s strategy offers a new option for SMEs in France, calling it simpler and more transparent.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Asia-Pacific
- Philippines-based neobank Tonik launched this week as the first financial institution of its kind in the country.
- Ant Group CEO Simon Hu announced his resignation this week as fallout from the fintech’s abandoned IPO effort continues.
- Fintech News Singapore looked at the progress of open banking in Vietnam.
Sub-Saharan Africa
- The impact investing arm of TPG, The Rise Fund, announced an investment of $200 million in Airtel Africa’s mobile money business.
- Nigerian digital bank Kuda raised $25 million in Series A funding.
- South African fintech Nomanini secured $1.5 million in funding to help merchants and micro-entrepreneurs sell airtime and prepaid electricity.
Central and Eastern Europe
- SEON, a Hungarian startup helps companies weed out false accounts and prevent fraudulent transactions, secured $12 million (EUR 10 million) in funding. The round is Hungary’s largest Series A funding to date.
- Lithuanian fintech FINCI has gone live with Temenos’ Payments and Transact core banking solutions.
- Estonian financial services company LVH invested GBP 4.45 million in U.K.-based B-North, which is building a SME lending bank.
Middle East and Northern Africa
- Liv, the digital bank run by Emirates NBD, unveiled its prime subscription account.
- First Digital Bank went live in Israel this week. The institution is the first new bank in the country in more than 40 years.
- First Iraqi Bank, a new, all-digital institution, launched this week with a digital banking platform from ICS BANKS.
Central and Southern Asia
- Indian fintech Yap secured $10 million in funding this week for its API platform that connects fintechs, offline businesses, and other platforms.
- Digital lending platform Indialends raised $5.1 million in a round led by ACP Partners and DSG Consumer Partners.
- Dubai Islamic Bank launched its Rohan Digital Account app in Pakistan courtesy of a partnership with Codebase Technologies.
Latin America and the Caribbean
- Banco ProCredit Ecuador teamed up with processor Quipu to offer Garmin Pay and Fitbit Pay in Ecuador.
- MagicCube introduced its SoftPOS system in Brazil.
- Fondeadora, a challenger bank based in Mexico, raised another $14 million in funding, extending its Series A round.