Top 5 FinTech funding rounds – April 2021 (UK & Europe)

By Megha Bhattacharya

Studies have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the FinTech ecosystem. The number of FinTech deals has taken a hit as investors are choosing mature companies over early-stage deals to put their money in. Although some FinTechs received hefty investments, Emerging Payments Association’s analysts revealed a significant contraction for the market, with fintech funding in Q1 2020 already down $2 billion from Q4 2019.

Check out these five noteworthy European FinTech funding deals that took place in April 2021 –

• Auxmoney ($304 million)

auxmoney, a European digital lending platform for consumer credit, has secured €250 million in investment from Citigroup and Chenavari Investment Managers. The company, founded in 2007, offers an online peer-to-peer loan marketplace. Its lending platform enables private consumers to borrow from private investors for personal loans. The FinTech has raised more than $3 billion across 11 rounds, four of which are debt financing. It received a $1.5 billion financing injection from major investor Aegon in 2017.

Through auxmoney’s investment arm, the company aims to benefit investors with efficient processes including fully automated onboarding, risk assessment and investor reporting. With the latest iteration of its scorecard, leveraging advances in Machine Learning, auxmoney facilitates investors access to a truly digital asset class.

• BUX ($80 million)

BUX announced that it has raised $80 million in a funding round led by Prosus Ventures and Tencent, with participation from additional new investors ABN Amro Ventures, Citius, Optiver, and Endeit Capital. Existing investors HV Capital and Velocity Capital FinTech Ventures also participated in the round. Royal Park Partners acted as exclusive financial advisor to BUX and its shareholders throughout the transaction.

The investment is expected to enable BUX to accelerate the expansion of its commission-free investment app BUX Zero. Recently, BUX extended its partnership with enterprise connectivity platform Yapily to France and Austria. The new collaboration allows French and Austrian BUX Zero users, along with German users to fund their accounts and build an investment portfolio.

• Starling ($70.2 million)

UK-based digital bank Starling announced a £50 million investment by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity. Starling stated that the investment is an extension of its £272 million Series D funding round announced in March 2021, which valued it in excess of £1.1 billion pre-money, taking the total raised in the Series D round to £322 million.

Recently, Starling announced the launch of a recycled plastic debit card. The Bank’s new card is the first UK Mastercard debit card to be made from recycled plastic (rPVC), sourced from EU industrial waste from printing and packaging industries and making up 75% of the card. According to Starling, existing customers will receive the recycled card when their current one expires and new customers will be issued the card upon joining the bank.

• TrueLayer ($70 million)

Open Banking platform TrueLayer has secured $70 million in an investment round led by new investor Addition alongside previous investors, bringing the total raised to $142 million. Alongside Addition, the Series D included backing from Anthemis Group, Connect Ventures, Moro Capital, Northzone and Temasek – as well as additional investors Visionaries Club, Surojit Chatterjee (CPO Coinbase), Zack Kanter (CEO Stedi), Daniel Graf (ex-Uber, Google, Twitter) and David Avgi (ex-CEO SafeCharge, CEO UniPaaS).

The new funding will be used to fuel global expansion and accelerate the development of premium Open Banking-based services that will continue to drive innovation and revenue growth for clients. It will also be used to expand TrueLayer’s engineering, product and commercial teams to meet the increasing global demand for its open banking platform.

• FinTechOS ($60 million)

FinTechOS announced that it has secured $60 million in Series B funding led by Draper Esprit, a venture capital firm whose investments include Form3, ICEYE, Revolut, Thought Machine, UiPath. Existing investors Earlybird Digital East, Gapminder Ventures, LAUNCHub Ventures, and OTB Ventures also participated in the round. Further investors are set to be announced at a later date.

According to the FinTech, the funds will be used to strengthen the company’s position in Europe and the UK and fuel international expansion to target financial institutions in Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and North America. The company also plans to use the funds to expand its core systems capabilities in banking and insurance, strengthening the low-code self-service proposition and personalization through AI and machine learning in customer journeys and product and services offerings.

ALSO, READ : Cool FinTech Report by IBS Intelligence