finleap Insights July 2020
Dear finleap friends,
The fintech sphere has been quite dynamic in recent weeks. The developments in the Wirecard case continue to dominate international news as the story gradually unfolds. However, there is also positive fintech news to share.
Despite the summer break, many companies are working on their comebacks following the corona crisis. The finleap ecosystem made its return to full business mode with an investment hat trick. In one week, three finleap portfolio companies have announced the successful closing of funding rounds. This achievement shows once more that fintech and the finleap ecosystem is on the rise, as investors confirm their trust in our portfolio
Congratulations to…
The solarisBank team raised a series C round over €60 million to further accelerate growth and market expansion in Europe. The round was led by HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and included considerable commitment from founding investor yabeo and new investors Vulcan Capital, Samsung Catalyst Fund and Storm Ventures.
Next to that, PAIR Finance announced earlier this week that current investors confirmed their commitment by increasing their shares in the company to €2 Million with a valuation of €60 million. The digital AI-operated debt collection service has had a whopping annual growth of 200 percent, which continues this year. The positive development of PAIR Finance led to an exclusive round by Zalando, Yabeo and us.
Last but not least, Penta extended the Series B round raised in March 2020 by €4 Million, resulting in an investment of €23 Million this year. S7V and Presight Capital, as well as two family companies, joined Penta’s investor base in this extension.
The continued commitment of investors confirms this development and shows that strong business models and products convince and survive even in challenging times.
Read on to find out more about the investment hat trick and other exciting achievements of our portfolio companies.
Best,
Ramin
finleap connect Italy goes live with first Lendbox customer Prestitalia Gruppo UBI Banca
Salary backed loans platform Prestifatto.it
finleap connect’s solution for salary backed loans went live with Prestitalia Gruppo UBI Banca: The platform Prestifatto.it allows Italian families to easily and digitally obtain salary backed loans.
Find the whole media coverage here (f.e. la Repubblica, Finextra).
For more information about the Lendbox product, reach out to Giorgio Fiorentino.
solarisBank raises €60 million in Series C funding and cooperates with global powerhouse American Express
solarisBank has announced that they have raised €60 million in Series C funding, with both previous shareholders and exciting, new investors contributing to the Banking-as-a-Service platform. Additionally, solarisBank has also announced its cooperation with American Express to enable Amex’s first credit product in Germany. With solarisBank’s new payment installment product, Splitpay, German Amex cardholders will be able to buy now and pay later with a fully digital and extremely convenient platform.
Interested in offering financial services to your customers or want to find out more? Be sure to reach out to our colleagues at solarisBank.
Record growth continues as investors raise stakes in PAIR Finance
PAIR Finance, the AI-based fintech for debt collection and receivables management, has seen record growth since its founding in 2016. The fintech has continuously kept its annual growth at 200% and has been profitable since 2019.
Following this achievement, PAIR Finance announced earlier this week that shareholders raised their investment in the company to €2 million, leading to an evaluation of €60M.
Find out more about the success story of PAIR Finance in a recent article at Finance FWD here.
Penta extends Series B funding round by an additional €4 million
The digital platform for business banking, Penta, announced the additional investment of over €4 million from international investors S7V and Presight Capital. This round finalizes the series B funding raised in March 2020 and adds to the first closing of €18.5 million. Marko Wenthin, CEO Penta, comments, “We are very pleased to finalize the second closing and to add such great new partners on our investor side. Especially, in the current corona crisis, it is a strong signal that there are still investors looking out for outstanding companies. With the new capital, we plan to accelerate our growth path in Germany and continue developing our product offering for SMEs.”
Read the full story here.
Pylot hits the ground running with Arne Henne joining as CRO
After the recent start of CEO Michael Hartwig, Pylot, the digital platform for SMEs, gains another expert for it’s management: Arne Henne is now CRO. Both Michael and Arne have extensive experience in marketing and sales, and prior to joining Pylot were both managers at software pioneer YEXT.
Pylot bundles market-leading software solutions in one place and enables companies to increase their online visibility and simplify their day-to-day business. The aim is to use a single cockpit to digitally control processes in the areas of marketing, finance or organization. Pylot was founded in 2019 as a joint start-up by the SIGNAL IDUNA Group and finleap.
Find out more here.
Happy Birthday, Elinvar!
At the beginning of the month, Elinvar celebrated their 4th anniversary. Since Elinvar, the Wealthtech Platform-as-a-Service, was founded as a member of the finleap ecosystem in 2016, the team has achieved several important milestones.
In 2017, they received their BaFin license as a financial portfolio manager and went live with their first partner. In 2018, Elinvar started migrating a complete existing book of business for German private Bank Donner & Reuschel. In 2019, the existing shareholders finleap and Ampega were joined by Goldman Sachs.
Meanwhile the number of business partners has significantly increased, including DKB and Fondsdepot Bank. Latter is the largest fund platform in Germany for independent wealth managers and an important extension of Elinvar’s activities in the B2B2B2C market – with an immense growth potential. Additionally, Elinvar is currently onboarding 2-3 new bClients per week within the scope of Donner & Reuschel’s activity as a custodian bank for discretionary portfolio managers.
Until now, Elinvar’s team has grown to almost 100 members and, next to Berlin, they have opened a second office in Magdeburg. For the future, Elinvar plans to further leverage the potential of the two-sided market, scaling the platform by adding further business partners and third-party providers, and therefore maximizing the value for all user groups. Happy Birthday, Elinvar!
Find out more about Elinvar here.
ELEMENT introduces their newsletter – be sure to sign up now!
ELEMENT is the product factory for insurance solutions, shaping the future of insurance with their partners. They just introduced their regular newsletter to update on relevant industry topics, their innovations and more hot tech topics. Sign up now!
Sign-up Link: http://eepurl.com/g2DBMD
Link Tips
Want to find out more about finleap and its ecosystem, we recommend the following links:
Finance Forward Article on the fintech scene’s reaction to the Wirecard case (German)
herCAREER Interview with Kathrin Pawelke (German)
Handelsblatt Article on cooperations between banks and fintechs (German)
Our Founder and CEO also recently published an article on LinkedIn about female leadership and finleap’s commitment to diversity. You can read the full article here.
If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, you can do so here.
