Founders of N26, IDNow, Consorbank back this German startup’s €12M Series A+ round: here’s what it does

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have become quite a rage these days as enterprise developers depend heavily on them to support the delivery of new services/products. 

However, with the rapid rise in APIs, comes the potential for more security breaches, which means developers need to understand the risk to keep corporate and customers’ data safe. 

This is where Berlin-based Upvest strives to bring about a change. It intends to transform the traditional, outdated, and regulatory complex securities infrastructure.

Founded in 2017 by CEO Martin Kassing, Upvest provides a scalable and modular API service that enables fintechs all over Europe to launch investment products easily, while still adhering to European regulations.

Raised €5M funding

Recently, the German company secured an additional €5M funding from Earlybird, enabling the close of its €12M Series A+ round. It follows an initial €7M investment from Notion Capital, HV Capital, and Partech. Upvest claims to also be supported by powerful fintech angel investors such as Maximilian Tayenthal, founder of N26, Felix Haas, founder of IDNow, and Reiner Mauch, founder of Consorsbank.

Tim Rehder, Partner at Earlybird VC, comments: “An increasing demand from millennials for investment products, combined with negative interest rates, led fintechs of all kinds to prioritise their expansion into an investment platform. Upvest lets them focus on their core business while providing a simple plug-and-play solution for integrating securities into their products. What seems simple is, in fact, a complex infrastructure, disrupting established national players across Europe.”

Through this fresh funding, the German company is planning to incorporate a brokerage bank license (Wertpapierhandelsbank in German) into its offering, allowing an extension of its product into investment brokerage and traditional securities custody. Upvest also plans to expand its team to 40 people by the end of 2020.

Offer digital securities

The German company offers an API-first solution to let fintechs offer digital securities to their customers. And this way, fintech companies can extend their product offering, generate new revenue streams, and improve the customer experience. 

Besides commonly traded assets, Upvest helps transform non-liquid assets, such as real estate, into liquid assets, while facilitating an 85% reduction in cost over traditional solutions through its proprietary blockchain custody service.

“After a decade of fintech UX innovation, the era of embedded finance and composable backend systems began. Upvest is at the forefront of opening up securities trading and custody further. By building a scalable and modular Securities API, we will enable fintechs all over Europe to launch investment products easily,” says Martin Kassing, CEO, and Founder of Upvest.

In addition to having Bitwala and Exporo, Upvest also has leaders from fintech giants Transferwise, Flatex, Raisin, and Onfido among its team. Upvest claims to also be supported by powerful fintech angel investors such as Maximilian Tayenthal, founder of N26, Felix Haas founder of IDNow and Reiner Mauch, founder of Consorsbank.