Swan, the emerging leader in embedded finance and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) technology provider, today announced it has secured a €37 million Series B investment round led by Lakestar, alongside reinvestment from Swan’s existing investors. This new funding round follows Swan’s €16 million Series A round led by Accel in 2021.
„The funding will support the next stage of Swan’s continued internationalisation, which will include launches in the Netherlands in the coming months and Italy in early 2024. ” according to the press release.
„The company has already experienced fast growth across Europe, having opened offices in France, Spain and Germany in line with its hyper-localisation strategy. It now has over 100 customers with product coverage across 30 European countries and has processed over €7 billion worth of transactions. Swan’s headcount is expected to increase in the next two years to support this continued level of growth.” the company says.
The investment will also see Swan double-down on its strategy of addressing the enterprise market. Swan already works with large, multi-national organisations such as Carrefour, who completed a successful cashback project in the past year, and will deepen its enterprise capabilities by launching new product lines tailored for larger organisations.
„These include more payment collection methods like direct debit and card payments, as well as additional lending capabilities. The new product lines will also allow Swan to service new industries, like travel, insurance and B2B marketplaces, complementing the existing product suite that is already being leveraged by customers in 16 different sectors.” the company explains.
In the years to come, companies of all sizes and sectors will benefit from embedded financial solutions, with 40% of financial services, in particular payments, expected to be delivered in this way. Overall, the embedded finance market is expected to reach $384.8 billion by 2029.
“Swan is on a mission to build the leading tech-driven bank in Europe. The simplicity and scalability of our BaaS technology is what drives our success,” said Nico Benady – CEO and Co-Founder at Swan. “The benefits we bring to our customers speak for themselves, with customers seeing up to 200% ROI on projects just three months post-launch, and others able to get up and running with a financial product in a matter of days. With Lakestar’s support, we can bring our technology and its benefits to businesses of all sizes, and in all sectors, as we continue to shape the future of financial services.”
Lakestar prides itself on investing in visionary founders and championing the European tech ecosystem, in particular, by backing teams that have multinational, pan-European ambitions.
“I am delighted to be joining the board of a business that has so quickly established itself as a front-runner within the embedded finance space,” said Georgia Watson at Lakestar. “Businesses today are under increasing pressure to not only diversify their revenue streams, but also deliver financial products right at the point of user need. Swan makes this possible and shows immense potential to scale this offering across different markets and verticals.”
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Swan is a European fintech and innovation leader in embedded finance. Swan’s Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform is the easiest way for companies to embed banking features. Via its simple APIs, European companies can integrate banking services (accounts, cards and payments) quickly and easily into their own product.
Founded in 2019, Swan processes around 300 million euros of transactions per month, for 100+ companies across ten European countries. Swan has over 150 employees and is led by fintech experts and experienced entrepreneurs Nicolas Benady, Nicolas Saison and Mathieu Breton. The company was founded with the startup studio, eFounders, and has received growth capital from leading VC investors such as Lakestar, Accel, Creandum, and Bpifrance.
Lakestar is one of the leading pan-European venture capital firms. Lakestar’s mission is to find, fund
and grow disruptive businesses that are enabled by technology and founded by exceptional entrepreneurs in Europe and beyond. Lakestar’s sector expertise includes over a decade of investing into fintech where the team had the privilege of partnering with Revolut, Blockchain.com, Alan, Opendoor, Cedar, Oscar, Public.com, SoFi, Uncapped, Rhino, Yapily and ZEBEDEE. Since raising its first fund in 2012, Lakestar manages an aggregated volume of over €2.8bn across three early stage funds and a growth fund.
The team actively advises and supports portfolio companies in marketing, recruitment, technology, product development and regulatory insight, accompanying founders from seed to early stage, growth stage or exit. A long-standing champion for Europe’s digital sovereignty, Lakestar has a presence in London, Berlin and Zurich with a team of 60 talented individuals from 18 countries.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
