The early stage players raising funding this week include Oper, Payout, KlickOwn AG, Willa etc. We also feature Q&As with Florian Heinemann of Project A and Til Klein of Vantik.
Meet the first set of startups and investors who will be on stage at the 12th FinTech Forum, on 19th Nov. 2020 in Frankfurt- click on their names to read our Q&A with them.
KlickOwn: blockchain-enabled platform offering a superior real estate investing experience for everyone
CommneX: a digital brokering platform for credit- and deposits from municipalities and municipal enterprises
Finteum: a platform for interbank intraday lending, enabling treasurers to borrow and lend for hours at a time
We are pleased to have leading investors on stage, sharing investment trends and opportunities in their space, including Astrid Freier, Partner, DACH, Vidici Ventures, Paula Blazquez Solano, Head of Investments at InnoCells/ Banco Sabadell, Manuel Silva Martinez, Partner, Head of Investments, Santander InnoVentures and Daniel Andemeskel, Head of Innovation at Universal Investment.
If you are a startup- or know one- that is building the next big thing in FinTech, apply to present at the 12th FinTech Forum, 19th Nov. 2020 in Frankfurt: email contact (at) fintechforum.de or reach out to us via LinkedIn: Frank Schwab or Samarth Shekhar. Investors & corporates: register here directly http://ftf12.eventbrite.com
7 Minute Pitch Template Essentials
In the past 7 years we at FinTech Forum have evaluated over 3,500 pitches and given a lot of feedback. More than 350 FinTech startups have presented their business models in 7 minutes each.
From this we developed a template. We recommend that all founders cover at least the following eight themes in their presentation.
http://www.fintechforum.de/7-minute-pitch-template-essentials/
7 Questions with Til Klein of Vantik
1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, both at work and leisure.
I am Til Klein, founder of Berlin-based retirement saving start-up Vantik (www.vantik.com). Before I became an entrepreneur I was a partner at BCG and a banker with UBS. After 15 years working for traditional banks, I was frustrated by their inability to create really customer centric experiences. I felt like real innovation could not come from within the traditional banking industry. This was the birth of Vantik.
When I’m not working from my home office due to a pandemic, I commute between Berlin and Zurich. I love to spend my free time with my partner, my friends and my dog. Since we have just built a new house, there is always a lot to do in the house and garden.
7 Questions with Florian Heinemann of Project A
1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, both at work and leisure.
I’ve been involved in digital startups for 19 years, for a long time as an entrepreneur, later at Rocket Internet for 4.5 years as managing director. In 2012, I founded Project A. We are an operational VC. This means that we invest in early-stage startups across Europe and support them operationally with our 100 experts in areas such as Business Intelligence, Marketing, Sales & Customer Success, Software Engineering, and many more. At times short-term and on a project basis, at times over several months, with the aim of supporting our ventures with our expertise and transferring it, both operationally and strategically. Our main goal is to help our portfolio companies grow and generate sustainable value.
My free time I devote to my family.
http://www.fintechforum.de/7-questions-with-florian-heinemann-project-a/
Zurich-based Oper secures €500K pre-seed funding to expand its digital credit launch pad across Europe
Zurich-based fintech Oper has raised €500K in a pre-seed funding round. The round was participated in by Barclays and Pitchdrive, as well as three angel investors, and will be used to scale up the startup’s solution across Europe.
Digitalisation is a huge trend currently across all sectors, with the current COVID-19 crisis has reinforced further the need for digital banking processes.
Consumers expect quick turnarounds and transparency in decision-making processes, all from the comfort of their own homes. Traditional banks are competing with online ones, and all are looking for ways to accelerate adoption of cloud-based SaaS solutions to meet changing consumer needs.
Payaut Raises €1M in Funding
Payaut, an Amsterdam, The Netherlands-based automated payment solution for online marketplaces, raised €1m in funding.
Backers included LocalGlobe and Finch Capital, as well as several seasoned professionals from the finance and payments industry.
Led by Ernst van Niekerk, Gillis Haasnoot, and Pieter de Haas, Payaut provides a PSD2-compliance and automation of the payment process. The solution helps online businesses that are part of the payment flow to easily comply with the new PSD2 regulations, while still able to use multiple Payment Service Providers (PSP’s).
http://www.finsmes.com/2020/07/payaut-raises-1m-in-funding.html
KlickOwn AG: Successful cooperation with Bankhaus von der Heydt and Bitbond – KlickOwn completes first issuance
Hamburg-based crowd investing platform KlickOwn successfully completed the initial bond offering for the property “Historisches Lüneburg”.
Issuances on KlickOwn are conducted exclusively via so-called tokenized securities, also known as security tokens.
The entire issuing process is fully digitalised and traditional paper certificates are completely removed from the process. KlickOwn uses the Crypto Custody Service of Bankhaus von der Heydt for the safekeeping of the digital investments (tokens) of investors.
Willa Raises $3M in Seed Funding
Willa, a Venice, California, and Stockholm, Sweden-based fintech startup for freelancers to get paid on time, raised $3m in seed funding.
The round was led by EQT Ventures with participation from Nordic Makers (collective of U.S. unicorn founders), Mattias Ljungman (Atomico co-founder, now running Moonfire Ventures), Johan Lorenzen (angel investor and co-founder of freelancer bank Holvi) and Michael Hansen (angel investor and fintech entrepreneur).
The company intends to use the funds to launch Willa Pay to provide its community of creative freelancers with an easy tool to get paid with no paperwork or risk.
Founded in 2019 and led by Kristofer Sommestad, CEO, and Aron Levin, CMO, Willa is a distributed company which is advancing Willa Pay, a tool that makes collaboration between freelancers and corporations easy. As soon as a freelancer has completed a job, they use the Willa Pay app to quickly let Willa know the details of the job they have done, how much they are supposed to get paid, and who they did the job for.
http://www.finsmes.com/2020/06/willa-raises-3m-in-seed-funding.html
Paris-based finfrog nabs €5 million to disrupt the personal loans market
After landing a first round of €3 million in 2019, finfrog, the French fintech that is disrupting the personal loan market, intensifies its development and announces raising €5 million from RAISE Ventures.
The costs linked to bank overdrafts are particularly costly in France, with more households going into the red due to the struggles associated with the COVID-9 pandemic. This is where finfrog comes in. By offering short-term micro-loans, which the startup states are 10 times cheaper than existing bank overdrafts, finfrog is a real responsible alternative. Since launching in 2016, finfrog has supported more than 60,000 customers.
CloudSphere Raises $15M in Funding
CloudSphere, a Los Altos, CA and Dublin, Ireland-based provider of a Cloud Governance Platform, raised $15m in funding.
The round was led by Atlantic Bridge Capital. Kevin Dillion, managing partner of Atlantic Bridge, is the Executive Board Chair at CloudSphere.
Created by the merger of HyperGrid, a provider of cloud management and governance solutions, and iQuate, a leader in agentless discovery and application mapping, CloudSphere provides enterprise and cloud service provider customers with governance for migration planning, security posture, identity, compliance and cost management across multiple public clouds.
http://www.finsmes.com/2020/07/cloudsphere-raises-15m-in-funding.html
Estonian identity verification platform Veriff raises $15.5 million to expand internationally
Estonian startup Veriff, provider of an identity protection platform, has raised $15.5 million to fuel global growth and sell to more enterprise customers, as the company prepares for an even larger Series B round in the future. Investors include previous backers Y Combinator and Mosaic Ventures as well as new ones, such NordicNinja VC and Change Ventures.
With a combination of machine learning and human analysis, the platform verifies user identities and detects fraud. According to the website, Veriff can confirm IDs from over 190 countries in 35 languages.
https://tech.eu/brief/veriff-funding/
London’s Wagestream raises £20 million, bringing total to £65 million, to give employees control over payday
London-based Wagestream, a fintech startup that allows workers to access earned income in real time, has secured £20 million in a round led by Northzone, with participation from QED Investors, Latitude Venture Partners and Balderton Capital.
This latest investment, which brings the total raised to £65 million, will be used to consolidate the company’s market share in the UK and to fund its international expansion.
The app allows employees to stream their earned wages into their accounts, giving them control over when they’re paid.
Wagestream also offers an automatic savings product called Safestream, which enables users to put aside a small amount of their pay before it’s actually paid to them.
The startup believes these services boost the financial resilience of staff and also protect them from predatory consumer lenders, according to CEO and co-founder Peter Briffett.
https://tech.eu/brief/wagestream-funding/
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Tell FOMO where to GO 👉 With over 2,500 of FinTech’s power players already attending #M2020EU, can you afford to not be one of them? Join us using discount code MP20FOR https://bit.ly/2Ag9QKv
Meet us at:
Swiss FinTech Fair, Zürich, 8 Sep. 2020 https://www.swissfintechfair.com
EY Startup Academy, Frankfurt, 15 Sep. 2020
https://start-up-initiative.ey.com/en/academy/program
Money2020 Europe, Amsterdam, 22-24 Sep. 2020 https://europe.money2020.com
South Summit, Madrid, 6-8 Oct. 2020
https://www.southsummit.co/en/home
FinTech Junction, Tel Aviv, 21-22 Oct. 2020
https://www.fintechjunction.com/annual/
Digital Insurance Agenda, Amsterdam, 28-29 Oct. 2020 https://next.digitalinsuranceagenda.com/dia-amsterdam-2020/want-to-attend/
MoneyConf / WebSummit, Lisbon, 2-5 Nov. 2020 https://websummit.com/moneyconf
12th FinTech Forum, Frankfurt, 19th Nov. 2020 http://www.fintechforum.de/events/
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