While funding may be rare for some, Europe’s fastest growing companies still have their choice.
The last beneficiary of that investment appetite is FinaleA five -year Amsterdam -based Challenger Bank, which aims at small and medium -sized businesses throughout Europe. The company, which claims to have doubled its revenue in 2024, closed only one round of the CEquity 115m -euro shares (about $ 133 million), TechCrunch learned exclusively. This comes only a few weeks after attracting $ 105 million to growth funding by General Catalyst, its supporter By 2021.
Finom’s business model focuses on providing European MMBs with an economical platform that combines banking, pricing and increasing range of features, including AI accounting. “Because theoretically, entrepreneurs do not need to have an accountant at all,” said CEO Andrey Petrov (at the left left in the picture).
The ambitious goals of starting development reflect this vision. While Petrov says Finom’s goal to have a million business customers by the end of 2026 is motivated and not to put on stone, its new funding makes this goal slightly more feasible.
This belief that Finom could serve a fair share of Europe’s 26 million MBMs is also reflected in C. Avp (formerly Axa Venture Partners), with the participation of the new head of investors (formerly E.Ventures) through the development of the head. Existing investors Cogito CapitalGeneral Catalyst and Northzone also joined the round.
Despite this momentum, starting can be easier to win customers from Legacy Banks – its current design – rather than other fintechs.
Even after the C series it brought its total funding to about $ 346 million, Finom has much less external capital than Monzo, N26, Revolut or Wise, which all brought more than $ 1 billion. Its funding to date is more comparable to the approximately $ 700 million raised by the closest peer, Finom’s French Unicorn Qonto – although the comparison is not perfect.
What makes the Finom funding structure especially interesting is its non -traditional component. Unlike the typical VCs, General Catalyst did not receive shares in Finom with his non -traditional round. Customer Fund (CVF) can only be used for growth, which is how it plans to get its money back.
Combined with Series B, this non -traditional funding tour would be enough for the Dutch company to reach profitability, according to President and co -founder Kos Stiskin (at the right right in the picture). But Finom also hopes to increase equality by the end of the year and get a “good” new valuation in the process. What did not expect to close both deals so close to each other.
“Someone got more than expected, and one was much faster than expected,” Stiskin told TechCrunch. He refused to reveal the updated valuation, only stating that it is twice as high as the valuation (also not announced) associated with the $ 2024 million dollars series b.
The timetable may have been in favor of Finom. Since the company does not disclose the unit’s finances – except for its 125,000 users – the fact that the general catalyst saw the hood likely helped to boost interest and accelerate funding. This vote of confidence – and her immediate interest in recovering her money – maybe it was the message she got investors to hurry and write checks.
In addition to the signaling results, the acquisition of the customer value fund to finance Finom’s marketing efforts without giving up equality may seem like a good agreement for the C -series supporters – who include the general catalyst itself.
However, the C series will also fund more dangerous efforts than acquiring customers through marketing.
According to Petrov, one of his uses could be strategic, opportunistic acquisitions that would allow him to expand either his customer base or his product portfolio. This represents a shift of the strategy as Finom has only acquired one company so far – in 2022, when he bought LugsA British Diabetic Payment Service when Finom is thinking of expanding to UK
Since then, Finom has shifted its focus to some of Europe’s largest markets, where it sees a greater opportunity than in the United Kingdom the company believes that these markets have fewer banks of challengers competing for SMEs and that traditional banks are doing bad business.
Like many neobanks, however, it only operates with Electronic Foundation (EMI) in most of its main markets: the Netherlands, France, Italy and Spain (though not Germany, where it has worked with Solaris, which has a full banking license).
In spite of the restrictions of these licenses, they were able to Add lending to the Netherlandswhich he sees as a test ground for his credit offer-something that Petrov sees as a must-have for every Fintech and business customers.
This borrowing initiative is also in line with Finom’s efforts to extend its product line so horizontally – with deposits and loans – and vertically, “starting with a bank account and ending the payment of taxes, reports and all”. AI is also involved, not just on the side of the product.
The company also utilizes AI internally. With a 500 group, it expects to make some business -related hires, though not so much to escalate its activities. “We add some people, but mostly we add new types of AI agents to work internally,” Petrov said. “So we hire less than. [our] usual tasks. ”
The Finom leadership structure has also evolved. The breakdown of duties between the four co-founders of Finom has gone through some changes over the years, with Petrov now the only CEO-one role he once shared with Yakov Novikov, who is now a consultant with Oleg Laguta.
The three of them previously created the Russian digital bank Modulbank. But this time, the focus of the Finom is in Europe and its entrepreneurs, who are, in Stiskin’s words, “the backbone of the European Union economy”.
