6 Later Stage Fintech Startups To Pay Attention To in CEE
Similarly to the European ecosystem, there is plethora of startups which can be loosely defined as 'fintech' popping up in the region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Especially the bigger markets such as Poland, Czech republic or even Bulgaria (in case of the fintech vertical at least) have the capacity to generate a lot of volume of startups in the idea early stage via various idea-stage accelerators, corporate initiatives and governmental support schemes.
However, the funnel significantly decreases when one moves to a later stage of the startup lifecycle. Admittedly, there are many ways to define what a 'later stage' means. Companies that are are just about ready for a Seed to Series A investment, generate an significant amount of recurring monthly or annual revenues, have moved beyond their home market or have simply proven their ability to scale on (at least) European level.
Whatever the specific criterion - for the purposes of this article, I wanted to highlight 6 later stage companies hailing from the broader CEE which have broken through that pre-seed stage. This means they are on that growth trajectory to achieve more significant scale and bear the potential to become a relevant player in the European marketplace.
Clearly, there are many more exciting fintech startups out there, so this shortlist is a subjective selection of what I took notice and stock of in the last couple of months. Here they are, in no specific order:
🇨🇿 Date.io
Origin: Czechia
This Prague-based startup is all about banking transaction data and enabling innovative loyalty use-cases for banking consumers. Their platform connects big merchants with customer of more than 12 banks in CEE from Czechia to Romania. Their 'card-linked offers' concept lets banking customers see personalised offers directly through their banking applications and redeem them with a swipe of their card at various merchants.
Dateio has recently launched a large scale partnership with Erste Group, one of the largest banking group in CEE, which will enable them to reach a customer base of 1.5 million in Czechia and 5 million in total (2).
The combination of technology and platform ecosystem of significant banking and merchant players could be the unfair advantage which will enable Dateio to own this space in wider Europe.
🇧🇬 Payhawk
Origin: Bulgaria
Money Raised: €3.6M
Payhawk is a Sofia-based startup which has recently (March 2020) raised €3M - in one of the largest seed rounds in Eastern Europe. On top of that, it was led by a Tier 1 European VC Earlybird. What is the secret sauce behind this success?
Besides a solid team; this company is betting big on the SME segment which is notoriously underserved - from financial services to back-office automation. Payhawk zeroes in on the back office processes piece. Specifically, it is looking to disrupt and improve management of spending and payables for mid-sized companies all over Europe. This is achieved not only by creating a corporate 'spending' card but also by a highly customisable product which maps on to the pre-existing processes of its customers.
As the company describes their technology, Payhawk "issues next generation company cards with automated expense management and discovery of subscription overspend on auto-renewals. We collect and analyze receipts, invoices and card transactions to help you stay in control of your budget with no paperwork for your employees."
🇵🇱 Symmetrical.ai
Origin: Poland
Money Raised: €7.3M
Symmetrical.ai is building a startup in the salary financing space which is currently seeing a spur of activity all over Europe right now. Simply described, the company partners with your employers to provide real-time access to employee salaries with a push of a button.
As the Warsaw-based startup describes it "Get paid what you already earned, whenever you want. You don't have to wait until the end of the month". This simple-sounding innovation has massive implications on employee financial welfare and on lending industry as such. For more detail on this area have a look at Tomas' article which deep-dives into the European salary finance space.
Symmetrical has so far raised €7.3 million from high-profile investors such as Finch Capital, Market One and Partech and is definitely one of the fintech startups hailing from Poland to keep an eye on right now.
🇱🇹 Ondato
Origin: Lithuania
Money Raised: €0.54M
Regulatory compliance is a massive industry and a big pain-point for financial institutions world-wide.
Ondato, a Baltics-based startup, provides complete compliance management suite in regards to KYC procedure. Starting from both photo and live video identity verification, data monitoring, screening, due-diligence, risk scoring and case management; all in one place.
Founded in 2016, the company has participated in Startup Wise Guys accelerator programme and as a result, it has just recently (June 2020) closed a pre-seed round and attracted €450K from the Startup Wise Guys accelerator fund (1).
There is a lot of potential for Ondato to horizontally build out their KYC solution into a robust compliance management platform on a European scale.
🇨🇿 Trisbee
Origin: Czechia
Money Raised: €0.67M
Another emerging challenger hailing from Czechia; Trisbee is taking on the challenge of disrupting the traditional merchant payment rails.
Trisbee is laying the groundwork by focusing on the micro and small merchants by offering a truly attractive proposition - 0% transaction fees for their QR-code-based payments and simple payment acceptance method where a mobile phone is the only device necessary to transact.
Outside of the payments realm, Trisbee offers virtual point-of-sale systems and payment links for its merchants and even experiments with "interest-free deferred payments" and wallet-like propositions for the retail side of their business. The company is also one of a very few CEE-based startups which has successfully managed to fundraise via Seedrs, a leading UK crowdfunding platform.
Do keep an eye on the companies and let us know what is your take on later stage fintech startups across CEE. What are the later stage fintech players that would constitute your Top 5 in CEE? Don't be a stranger and get in touch - I would love to compare notes!
🇱🇻 Nordigen
Origin: Latvia
Money Raised: €0.67M
This Riga-based startup is a mission to enable open banking data globaly. Specifically, it is building technology to leverage open banking data which is becoming more standardized and accessible for various value-added use-cases. As Rolands Meisters, CEO at Nordigen recently explained “Nordigen provides a new kind of credit data. Nordigen allows companies to connect to 2000+ banks across Europe via APIs and access customer account information that is helpful in evaluating credit risk. Our clients today use our platform to verify their customer income, perform affordability checks, augment credit bureau scores, or reduce credit risk.” (3)
Nordigen has just recently announced it has been granted the first Account Information Service Provider (AISP) license under PSD-2 by the Latvian regulator, the first such license issued in the country.
Resources
Company websites
Public crunchbase profiles used for the ‘Money Raised’
1 https://www.eu-startups.com/2020/06/lithuania-based-ondato-attracts-e450k-for-its-kyc-solutions/