Global investors show stable interest in financing fintech startups since the beginning of 2020. Based on the publications of Bloomchain.ru, Banks.am presents the most noteworthy innovation deals.

Australia’s largest financial conglomerate, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) invested USD 200m in Swedish fintech startup Klarna.

The basis of Klarna’s business model is provision of installment plans and loans to online store customers. The payment takes place within 14 or even 30 days from the shipment (the term depends on the store). Essentially, it is an interest-free installment plan.

CBA is a leader in Australia’s digital payment market, with over 7 million regular users.

In August 2019 CBA invested USD 100m in Klarna in the funding round led by Dragoneer. The Swedish startup raised USD 460m in that round and raised its value to USD 5.5bn. Under the terms of the deal, Klarna and CBA will jointly fund the startup’s business in Australia and New Zealand, as they hold equal amount of shares now. CBA also reserves the right to cooperate with Klarna in Indonesia.

The bank invested in the startup “for additional rights and the opportunity to influence the global development of Klarna”.

Klarna has over 85 million users and more than 250,000 sellers in the partner network, including Adidas, H&M, ASOS, IKEA and Samsung among others.

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European open banking platform Tink held a financing round, during which it raised EUR 90 million. The investors valued the platform at EUR 415 million.

Tink was launched in Sweden in 2013. Initially, it was a service for managing several banking accounts via a mobile app. Since then the company has grown into a full-fledged banking platform and partnered with PayPal, fintech company Klarna, Finnish financial group Nordea, and German bank ABN ARMO among others.

Tink’s cloud platform combines payment and banking solutions with the tools for analysis and management of personal finances. A specially designed API enables Tink clients to use aggregated financial data, accept payments, process transactions, and create tools for managing finances.

The raised funds will be allocated to developing the platform and increasing the number of partners. Tink intends to enter into new European markets. Currently, the company operates in 14 countries and serves over 2,500 banks and financial organizations.

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French startup Qonto raised USD 115 million during the investment round. The company plans to use the raised funds to expand and to grow the team. Additionally, Qonto will improve customer experience in the countries where the startup has representative offices.

Qonto is a neobank specializing in B2B transactions. Over the last two and a half years the company gained 65,000 corporate clients. French, Italian, Spanish and German citizens are eligible for subscribing to Qonto services. The total volume of transactions processed in Qonto made EUR 10 billion in 2019.

Contrary to neobanks N26 and Monzo, Qonto serves small and middle-size businesses as well as freelancers in Europe.

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A group of investors led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank invested USD 125m in Mexican lending startup AlphaCredit.

AlphaCredit provides consumer loans in Mexico and Colombia. The startup lends money to both employed citizens and retirees. If the borrower is a civil servant or recipient of state pension, the installments are taken directly from their salary or pension account. This collection system was possible to establish due to cooperation with local regulators.

The startup also provides factoring and leasing services to small and medium-size businesses.

AlphaCredit has over 210 offices, 25 out of which are located in Colombia, where the company started oprating in 2017. Since its foundation in 2010, the startup has lent to clients USD 1bn in total.
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Russian billionaire Leonid Boguslavsky invested in Indian fintech startup MoneyTap. The company managed to raise around USD 70M during the fundraising round.

MoneyTap enables clients to open personal lines of credit without a pledge and guarantors via a mobile application. The amount of loan varies from INR 3000 to INR 500,000. The loans are provided with annual interest rate of 15-19%.

In order to assess the solvency of the borrower, MoneyTap looks up the information about their banking account, history of bill payments, data on their smartphones (like text information and contacts), as well as geolocation. The company believes this approach allows for a more accurate scoring.

The raised funds will be allocated to business expansion and to big data research. MoneyTap plans to create its own non-banking financial company and launch business in 140 more cities.

MoneyTap was founded in 2015. The company operates in over 40 cities in India. Over the last year years, it recorded INR 25bn (around USD 350.5m) annual loan repayment.

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British startup Currencycloud, which develops API solutions, raised USD 80m during a funding round. The raised money will be allocated to expansion of the project. In particular, the startup team shared plans to expand in Asia.

Currencycloud offers technical solutions in the form of API interfaces to financial organizations. These solutions enable the companies to simplify cross-border transactions.

As of late January 2020, the total volume of transactions between 180 countries, implemented via the startup’s solutions, reached USD 50 billion. 85 API interfaces by Currencycloud were used for transactions.

As of the end of 2019, around 350 organizations worldwide use Currencycloud solutions.

The startup was founded in 2012. Since its conception, the founders focused on API solutions that simplify implementation of financial transactions in the market.

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British neobank Monese might raise £100 million. If the deal goes through, the company will join the “unicorn club”. The company plans to close the deal within the first six months of 2020.

Monese creates settlement accounts and provides services usually offered by other neobanks such as Monzo, N26 and Starling Bank. Monese’s target audience is people who have no access to traditional banking services for different reasons. It could migrants without credit records, for instance.

Monese neobank was founded in 2013. Its client base almost doubled over the last year, reaching 2 million people. The neobank plans to take the number up to 5 million by the end of 2020.

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