Behind the scenes: Elinvar
On your way to the Elinvar office in beautiful Winzkiez in Prenzlauer Berg, you pass by many quaint cafés, winebars, little shops and restaurants – surely a daily temptation for the Elinvar employees on their way to work. In this popular, lively neighbourhood, you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find a fintech start-up. When Elinvar was launched in summer 2016, the office was located at Alexanderplatz, in the middle of Berlin, but Elinvar soon outgrew its first offices and moved to Prenzlauer Berg in spring 2017.
Elinvar, to be precise: it’s a digital asset management platform, providing a B2B2C platform for asset & wealth managers to digitize their business – comprehensive and customized. The licensed fintech company is able to offer what is, in this form, a unique product: the functional expertise of a licensed portfolio manager combined with state-of-the-art technology. Its micro-services architecture guarantees flexible API management and sustainable adaptability and makes the platform ready for plug & play. All that needs to be done is the customization for each partner, as the platform is based on their partners’ strategy, corporate design and specific investment expertise. Elinvar provides all the required components as an integrated solution: from simple and fully digital new client onboarding through to the integrated execution of asset management strategies and the automatic creation of orders, to the administration of and communication with customers. Elinvar aims to provide the most comprehensive and capable digital platform for asset managers and private banks in Germany, making legacy IT obsolete.
In a typical Berlin backyard, you can find the Elinvar office on the first floor of an old factory building. The spacious brick wall loft is flooded with light through its 5m ceilings and huge windows creating a bright atmosphere. The open kitchen with its community area invites the staff to have a coffee together in the morning, to use the playstation or for the regular team breakfasts, always specialized on the local food of one of the team member’s nationality – there are 17 different ones, with a wide variety from Australia and Ukraine to Brazil, Italy and the USA. Attached to the wide loft flat is a terrace, which is understandably a popular hangout with employees – at least in summer, when you can often see people shifting their meetings from inside to outside or working from here.
2017 was a very exciting year for Elinvar: both in summer they received the BaFin-license and had their first anniversary followed by a remarkable event in autumn, when they went live with their lead partner M.M.Warburg & CO, one of Germany’s oldest and biggest private banks. Obviously, all of this could not have been achieved without Elinvar’s great team. From the beginning on, the three founders strongly focused on hiring talents and experts in finance and tech, growing the team to almost 40 people today. More than 70% of the team is from the tech field and they know more than 50 languages – including code 😉
And there is no sign of slowing down for Elinvar in 2018: After establishing the regulatory business base and the platform in 2017, 2018 is all about bringing new partners live. The platform provides easy, fast integration through plug & play, yet is also able to offer carefully customized solutions for every partner, which are adapted to their specific needs. It’s continually optimized and updated with new features, which allows lots of space for innovation and growth for the team.
Elinvar has ambitious goals this year, to achieve these and continue growing the company is on the lookout for talents and experts in finance and tech who want to join them on their journey and grow together. Make sure to check out their open positions and get in touch.