Investments in fintech sector are gaining momentum in Europe: two companies have raised total USD 740 million investments since the beginning of the year.

In particular, British OakNorth, specialized in SME loans, has announced that it has secured a USD 440 million investment. At the same time, German N26 announced USD 300 million funding round.

The investors of OakNorth are SoftBank Vision Fund and Clermont Group. This round takes OakNorth Holdings’ total primary and secondary funding to over USD 1 billion, more than any other fintech in Europe, ranking it as one of the most well-funded fintechs in the world.


This financing will be used to launch its lending operations in the U.S., providing North American lenders with the capability to greatly expand business lending opportunities and accelerate their business lending, while creating efficiencies and improving credit quality.

OakNorth’s services not only help its bank lending partners originate and do the credit analysis on loans, but it also assists with the monitoring of their loan portfolios – strengths that have enabled OakNorth to profitably lend over USD 3.7 billion to British businesses without a single default or late payment since its launch in September 2015. The company’s operation has created 11,000 new jobs in the UK.

Within the fames of this funding, OakNorth will continue driving the growth of the OakNorth Analytical Intelligence (ON AI) platform, already being used by banks across the U.S., Europe and Asia with combined assets of over USD 800 billion.


Touching upon German N26 mobile bank, the USD 300m Series D funding round is led by New York-based venture capital and private equity firm Insight Venture Partners. The round also includes participation from GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, and several existing investors. To date, N26 has raised more than USD 500m and is valued at USD 2.7bn.

 N26 is building the first global mobile bank and provides a mobile bank account without hidden fees. Currently operating in 24 markets across Europe, it has more than tripled its customer base in the last 12 months to more than 2.3 million customers.

N26 will use the proceeds to drive global expansion, starting with the U.S. launch of its mobile banking product in the first half of 2019, where it will operate through its subsidiary N26 Inc. in New York.


Since launching its first product in January 2015, N26 has processed more than EUR 20 billion in transaction volume to date. Customers currently hold over EUR 1 billion in N26 accounts.

The company employs more than 700 employees across 3 office locations: Berlin, New York and Barcelona. With a full European banking license, state-of-the-art technology and no branch network, N26 has redesigned banking for the 21st century and is available on Android, iOS, and desktop.

In the near future the company aims at having more than 100m customers around the world.

 Banks.am reminds that according to CB Insights, Venture capital-backed financial technology companies raised a record USD 39.57bn from investors globally in 2018, up 120 percent from the previous year. It was noted that the number of deals dropped in Europe, but funding reached a record USD 3.53bn.

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