kevin. raises $65m to bring A2A payments to existing POS payment terminals

By Joy Dumasia

kevin., the Lithuanian FinTech startup providing an advanced A2A (account-to-account) payment infrastructure to replace costly card transactions, announces that it has secured $65 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Accel, with participation from Eurazeo and all existing investors, including OTB Ventures, Speedinvest, OpenOcean, and Global Paytech Ventures. Additional investors in the round include Harry Stebbings, Founder of 20VC, Ilkka Paananen, CEO & Co-founder of Supercell, Amitabh Jhawar, Ex-CEO of Venmo, and other angels. 

The Series A funding comes just six months after the company secured its $10 million seed round and brings kevin.’s total funding to $77 million. Since the seed round, the team has grown to more than 170 employees working from 30 countries, and the number of employees is set to almost double by 2023. 

Pavel Sokolovas, kevin.’s co-founder and COO, said: “When building a game-changing product and ramping up a start-up, time is precious. The Accel team appreciated this, and their deep FinTech expertise ensured they understood our business and what we’re trying to achieve from the offset. Our partnership progressed quickly as a result, and we’re excited about the future!”

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Vilnius, kevin. has a clear mission to offer innovative and convenient payment solutions that remove unnecessary intermediaries in the payment process. The company has leveraged the huge opportunity provided by open banking and proven itself to be the leader in web and in-app A2A payments in the European Economic Area, where it has the broadest PSD2 bank API coverage on the market. Recently, the startup also stepped into POS terminal payments in physical stores by introducing the first-ever NFC A2A payments solution with a seamless user experience comparable to a card payment experience. 

The uniqueness of kevin.’s A2A in-store payments offering lies in the fact that it does not require any changes on the merchant’s technical side: it uses existing POS terminal infrastructure and widely used and most intuitive NFC payment technology. 

Tadas Tamosiunas, kevin.’s co-founder and CEO, said: “We’re thrilled to receive such overwhelming support from everyone around us and having Accel and the team’s sector knowledge on board will help us achieve great results and grow even more. With this investment, we’ll continue expanding our international team of experts and developing products that are transforming the payment industry. We have big plans for the future, and I’m confident that our full suite of next-generation infrastructure for web, mobile and in-store payments will help businesses gain a competitive edge. Given the fact that the implementation of the A2A in-store payments solution is quick and cost-effective, we forecast rapid roll-out and scale. By the end of this year, we aim to secure 35% coverage of POS payment terminals across Europe and look to achieve more than 85% by the end of 2023. This is equivalent to the current coverage of major card schemes.” 

Luca Bocchio, Partner at Accel, said: Tadas, Pavel and the kevin. team are powering the future of payments with their next-generation payments infrastructure. Offering a fast, seamless payment experience with reduced costs and increased authentication rates, the time for A2A payments is now and kevin. has already had impressive momentum with its offering. With the launch of its unique POS payments product, the opportunity ahead is huge, and we’re looking forward to partnering with the team on their journey!” 

Chloé Giard, Eurazeo Investment Director, said: “We have been following all the innovations in the account-to-account payment market for a while, and we have been truly impressed by kevin.’s uniqueness and global ambition. Since 2018, they have laid the technological foundation for a European-wide payment infrastructure scheme, changing the game in terms of speed, transparency, and fees. Over the past few months, kevin.’s commercial hypergrowth has proved the strength of its value proposition.”