Early stage European FinTech deals this week include Octopus Ventures (Integrated Finance), SIX FinTech Ventures (RegTech), Mosaic Ventures (Lightyear) etc. We feature Q&As with Viktor Stensson, CEO of Bokio and May Wang of Fin VC (who is among the investors on stage at the FinTech Forum 2021 on 18th Nov. in Frankfurt).
If you are an early stage startup in Europe building the next big thing in FinTech, reach out to Frank Schwab or Samarth Shekhar.
Launching the 2nd edition of Scaling Enterprise FinTech | The Handbook (available from 8th Oct.)
We are excited to launch the 2nd edition of Scaling Enterprise FinTech | The Handbook in partnership with Money20/20 and SixThirty
Scaling Enterprise FinTech: with Viktor Stensson, CEO of Bokio
1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your company.
In 2015 me, Mikael Eliasson, Emma Rozada and Joel Rozada founded Bokio. Since then, our AI-powered bookkeeping and accounting software has grown rapidly. We’ve expanded to the UK and our user base is growing at an incredible pace. We have 100 employees and serve over 60,,000 monthly active users in the UK and our native country Sweden.
http://www.fintechforum.de/
7 Questions with May Wang of Fin VC
1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, both at work and leisure.
I’m an investor at Fin VC, a B2B Fintech/Insurtech focused global venture capital, based out of San Francisco. Fin VC is a team of FinTech nerds with capital, based in SF/NYC and focus on FinTech SaaS in the US and EU/UK. We deploy out of 3 strategies: Regatta (pre-seed, checks of $100K-$1M), Flagship (Early Stage – Seed->B, checks of $1-10M) and Horizons (Growth – C+, checks of $25-50M+, primary/secondary) and have an operating value playbook focused on global BD, corp dev, capital formation, product/GTM, key talent sourcing, and board leadership.
Personally, I’m an avid traveler and a global citizen who has lived in 4 countries across 3 continents. When not at work, you’ll find me hiking/surfing in the summer and skiing in the winter. I’m also mentoring students from underrepresented communities, and an advisor at a Uganda-based NGO.
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May is among the investors who will be sharing his insights on “what’s next in European FinTech” at the FinTech Forum 2021 – 18th Nov. 2021 at the Airport Club, Frankfurt Airport /hybrid. Check out the agenda and register here: http://ftf2021.
Series-B-Finanzierung für XVA Blockchain GmbH aus Mainz
Das Start-up ermöglicht Beratungsdienstleistungen für Banken, Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaft
Der Plattformanbieter XVA Blockchain aus Mainz erhält frisches Kapital: An Bord sind der Kryptoinvestor coinIX und die Investitions- und Strukturbank Rheinland-Pfalz über ihre Tochtergesellschaft, die Wagnisfinanzierungsgesellschaf
CoinIX manages a portfolio of cryptocurrencies and assets whose recent investments include XVA Blockchain and FINEXITY AG.
https://www.vc-magazin.de/
Octopus Ventures among others invest £2M in Integrated Finance
Co-founded by Daniel Cronin, Koray Argun, and Alistair Cotton, Integrated Finance provides a platform that gives fintech companies and financial institutions of all sizes access infrastructure APIs to build embedded financial services at speed, to drive value from their existing technology, and their customer base.
The round was led by Octopus Ventures with participation from 500 Start-Ups, SuperSeed Ventures, and prominent Angels Chris Adelsbach, Srin Madipalli, and Jon Edirmanasinghe.
Octopus is a multi stage European venture capital investor specializing in health, money, deep tech, and consumer whose recent investments include Integrated Finance and OLIO.
https://www.finsmes.com/2021/
Profitable Fintech Wiserfunding Raises £3 Million
BGF’s funding was led by James Austin and Rowan Bird and as part of the deal, Austin will join Wiserfunding as director.
Currently, Wiserfunding serves around 60 customers across three continents, including a mix of bank and non-bank lenders, insurance firms, payment providers and asset managers.
Wiserfunding says its clients have lent almost £3 billion to SMEs in the last year.
https://www.crowdfundinsider.
SIX FinTech Ventures invests $8M in London based Crypto Regtech
London-headquartered crypto Regtech firm Coinfirm reveals that it has finalized an $8 million Series A round. The company has also announced the appointment of Dr. Mircea Mihaescu as their new CEO.
Coinfirm’s investment round has been co-led by SIX Fintech Ventures, which is the corporate venture division of SIX, as well as FiveT Fintech, along with contributions from MiddleGame Ventures. Mission Gate and CoinShares.
SIX FinTech Ventures looks to invest in global early stage startups in the Fintech space whose recent investments include Tradeplus24 and Toqio.
Mosaic Ventures with participation from other existing investors invest $8.5M in Lightyear
Founded by ex-Wise duo Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, Lightyear combines multi-currency accounts with access to global markets so customers can invest without hidden fees. The company has also launched the minimum viable product of its app which will give access to more than 1,000 global stocks. Lightyear will be onboarding customers from its waiting list. With its expansion plans already in play, the company is targeting H1 2022 for a pan-European launch.
The round was led by Mosaic Ventures with participation from existing investors Taavet+Sten and Metaplanet, as well as new angel investors including early Monzo backer Eileen Burbidge, Harsh Sinha, the CTO at Wise and Taavi Tamkivi, the CEO at Salv.
We back founders who are reimagining the world. We invest $1-10m early, in those building daring adventures across Europe whose recent investments include Zerion and AREX Markets.
https://www.finsmes.com/2021/
Airbridge Equity Partners and other investors invests €13 million in Dutch investment app BOTS
Founded in 2018, BOTS offers its users the opportunity to invest in various bots, a program that buys and sells based on trading algorithms with a specific strategy. There are now more than 250 bots on the platform. For now, these bots, which use their own strategies, only trade in cryptocurrencies – an interesting but highly volatile sector. The BOTS team expects to offer other types of assets before the end of the year. The Haarlem-based startup BOTS just closed its Series A funding round with €13 million from Amsterdam-based venture capital firm Airbridge Equity Partners and a group of informal investors.
Airbridge Equity Partners is a Venture Capital that focuses on scalable, technology-driven companies in the digital landscape whose recent investments include Roam.ai and ChannelEngine.
Sustainable fintech Tomorrow raises EUR14m
Founded in 2018, Tomorrow provides customers with conventional mobile banking services. However, the firm promises to use its customers money exclusively to invest in sustainable projects, rather than the dirty industries that it says normal banks target.
German sustainable fintech startup Tomorrow has raised €14 million in financing and outlined plans to secure another €5 million in a crowdfunding campaign.
The family office of the Hamburg Büll family, Abacon Capital, and Signavio founder and climate tech investor Torben Schreiter joined the round.
We embrace disruptive innovation and invest in exponential technologies & exponential organizations whose recent investments include Tomorrow and Wirelane.
https://www.finextra.com/
Amsterdam-based fintech Ohpen raises €30M from Deutsche Bank to grow in the financial infrastructure space
Amsterdam-based Ohpen, a cloud-based SaaS core-banking platform, announced today that it has raised €30M in its growth capital. The fund was raised from Deutsche Bank in the Netherlands.
Deutsche Bank invested in the company because of Ohpen’s growing client base, strong business model, and market positioning around growth in the digitalisation of financial services.
The company was founded in 2009 by Chris Zadeh, Bas Wouwenaar, Erik Drijkoningen, and Ilco van Bolhuis. Built by former retail bankers, Ohpen aims to free banks from their legacy systems and processes.
Deutsche Bank, a Frankfurt-based global investment bank, offers financial products and services to corporate and institutional clients whose recent investments include eStruxture and Berlin Brands Group.
https://siliconcanals.com/
London FinTech MarketFinance raises £280m
Profitable firm accredited by British Business Bank as lender under Recovery Loan Scheme, having lent £250m to UK companies under CBILS.
Launched by the British Business Bank in April 2021, the Recovery Loan Scheme supports access to finance for UK businesses as they recover and grow following the pandemic.
Funding from the scheme can be used for any legitimate business purpose including managing cashflow, investment in new equipment and preparing for future growth.
The British Business Bank aims to make finance markets for smaller businesses work better whose recent investments include HalalBooking and MySense.
https://businesscloud.co.uk/
THE PATRONS PROGRAM IS THE HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING FOR FINTECH AND INSURTECH STARTUPS. FREE. INVESTOR READY IN TWO DAYS.
The Patrons Program is the condensed Fintech Accelerator of the Sparkassen Finanzgruppe in cooperation with Silicon Pauli and the support of KfW.
In just two days we get you investor-ready – with the help of the best experts from UX, Business, Product, Brand. Afterwards you can pitch your startup in front of professional investors and decision makers of Sparkassen Finanzgruppe. The winning team will work out the possibility of a cooperation project in a co-op discovery with the Sparkassen Innovation Hub.
Early-stage startups from the fintech and insurtech sectors can participate.
The application period runs until the 26th of September 2021.
More information and the link to the application form at: https://innovationdays.
Money2020 Europe: 21-23 Sep. in Amsterdam
Radical change requires a radical catalyst. Fintech has a big journey to go on, and Money20/20 Europe is here to help you take the first big leap into the unknown. This is the only place where the whole community, from payments to banking to retail to regulation and beyond, comes together to make the decisions that shape the future.
This September, get ready for a reimagined Money20/20 Europe experience that puts you in the driving seat. The conversations that take place here will decide our collective trajectory.
Buy your pass: https://bit.ly/2TjdoEQ
Meet us at:
Money2020 Europe, 21-23 Sep. 2021, Amsterdam
South Summit, 5-7 Oct. 2021, Madrid
Web Summit, 1-4 Nov. 2021, Lisbon
FinTech Forum, 18 Nov. 2021, Frankfurt
Slush, 1-2 Dec. 2021, Helsinki
Meet Our Partners:
Heussen https://www.heussen-
Opportunity Network https://www.
Money2020 Europe https://europe.
InsurTech Insights https://
Finovate Europe https://informaconnect.
FN FinTech 40 https://www.fnlondon.com