Banking service provider figo has picked up an investment from strategic partner DB1 Ventures, the VC wing of Deutsche Börse Group. The “seven digit” investment gives Deutsche Börse a sizable minority stake in figo, and is designed to help fuel the company’s international expansion. Also participating in the round were “reputable business angels from Germany.” With the completed series B, figo raised more than $7 million (€ 6.8 million), and now has total capital of more than $12 million.
“In a changing financial landscape, figo has established itself as a reliable partner and has built up a fantastic fintech ecosystem around itself,” Deutsche Börse Managing Director Ankur Kamalia said. “We look forward to supporting their growth and also learning from the innovation they are driving.” Calling Deutsche Börse a “perfect partner” for his company, figo CEO André M. Bajorat (pictured) said the investment and strategic partnership will enable figo to “gain new enhanced visibility in the industry.”
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Germany, figo demonstrated its cloud banking API at FinovateEurope 2013. Europe’s first banking service provider, figo provides a banking API that enables third parties to connect apps and services to more than 3,000 FIs and financial service organizations. Operating in Germany and Austria, figo specializes in solutions to help companies with their Payments Services Directive strategies (PSD2). This, according to some, has been key to renewed investment interest in the company and was highlighted by Deutsche Börse’s Kamalia. “The figo team led by André Bajorat has made clear the opportunities that exist for virtually every player in the financial sector and the enormous potential that PSD2 implementation offers to European industry,” Kamalia said.
Last month, figo organized Hamburg FinTech Week, bringing together 85 programmers and product developers to focus on the latest innovations and trends in the German fintech scene. The event also featured a hackathon called Bankathon 2016 designed to promote development and create solutions based on PSD2 and XS2A (“access to account”). Access to account is a key component of PSD2, which encourages third parties to participate more directly in financial services, specifically in the areas of enabling financial data to be read and deployed in third-party services and solutions, as well as bank transfers using third-party apps. Writing about figo—the company’s recent funding and PSD2—Finance Magnates noted that figo’s embrace of PSD2 has “strategically placed itself at a key point in the payments realm, helping build a new banking infrastructure in a world hamstrung by open APIs.”