Germany’s lemon.markets secures €12M to expand its Brokerage-as-a-Service platform

Berlin-based lemon.markets, a Brokerage-as-a-service platform, has secured €12M in additional funding from CommerzVentures, Heliad, and existing investors like Creandum, Lakestar, Lightspeed, and System.one.

Jonas Wenke of CommerzVentures, says, “At CommerzVentures, we love partnering with the most talented teams that are solving financial services’ most complex problems. lemon.markets certainly tick both boxes.”

“Max (founder of lemon.markets) is an impressive young leader who has built a first-class team around him, and we are beyond excited to lead this round and join them on the journey to make lemon.markets the largest and most modern brokerage and custody platform in Europe.”

With this round, the Germany-based fintech company has now raised a total funding of €28M, to date. The company aims to open 100 million brokerage accounts by providing digital brokerage and custody infrastructure to enable any company to offer investment products.

Capital utilisation

This funding will support lemon.markets in expanding its platform and launching new partnerships.

Max Linden, founder and CEO of lemon.markets, says, “With CommerzVentures, we have found a strong partner who has impressed us with its deep understanding of our market. We share a common vision and philosophy for developing lemon.markets into one of the most influential players in the industry.”

“With the fresh funding, we will double down on the momentum in the market, bringing more partners and products live over the coming months.”

lemon.markets also plans to expand its team over the coming year to service scaling customer volumes, develop new products, and launch more partners.

Providing the infrastructure powering investment products

founded in 2020 by Max Linden, lemon.markets operates as a brokerage-as-a-service platform. The company provides infrastructure for fintechs, banks, and wealth managers, facilitating the creation of investment products.

In the first half of 2024, lemon.markets secured BaFin licenses enabling it to operate as an investment firm. This allows the company to offer a range of financial services including contract broking, investment advice, portfolio management, commission business, proprietary trading, and custody services.

The company has also begun onboarding partners and expanding its platform.

In March 2024, lemon.markets launched its product with the financial education app beatvest, in cooperation with Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, and Tradegate. This partnership allows beatvest to offer ETF investments to its B2C customers, marking lemon.markets’ first use case in the wealth management vertical.

Another recent partnership was with sustainable banking provider Tomorrow, marking lemon.markets’ entry into the banking segment as its second vertical. This partnership includes lemon.markets’ first migration project, transferring Tomorrow’s securities offering from Solaris SE to lemon.markets. 

Additionally, lemon.markets is expanding its services by introducing mutual funds as a financial instrument in cooperation with Allfunds, one of the world’s leading fund marketplaces.

Brief about the investors

Founded in 2014, CommerzVentures is a specialised fintech investor managing €550M in assets. It invests in early and growth-stage companies in fintech, insurtech, and climate fintech, with a focus on Europe, Israel, the US, and Africa. 

CoV Management GmbH independently manages the CommerzVentures funds, with Commerzbank AG as the anchor investor in all three funds.

Founded in 2003, Creandum is a pan-European early-stage VC firm. Its portfolio includes over 150 companies such as Spotify, Klarna, and Depop, with every sixth company valued at over a billion dollars. 

Creandum’s advisory teams in Stockholm, London, Berlin, and San Francisco provide operational expertise to support portfolio companies from seed to exit.