The Dutch startup Cobase came into the limelight back in late 2018 when it bagged an investment of €7.5 million from ING Ventures. The company has again raised a notable sum of €10M in Series A round from Nordic and French banks, who will now join the main shareholder ING as its shareholders. The fintech startup started out with offering a muti-banking solution for corporates and is now keen on expanding its services.
Two new shareholders join the team
The Nordic bank Nordea and the French Crédit Agricole CIB invested in Cobase for the latest funding round. With this, the Nordic and French banks are now shareholders of the company, along with the primary shareholder ING. The two new shareholders share the objective of becoming Cobase’s commercial partners. This fresh investment will be utilised by the company for further development of its offerings and expansion of its network and connected banks.
Jorge Schafraad, founder and CEO of Cobase, says, “Currently, our clients are large corporates, mainly from Western Europe. Our strategy is to make Cobase a leading pan-European player in the coming years and then continue to roll out globally. We are already connected with more than a hundred banks from all over the world. We simply follow the needs of our corporate clients. Our platform helps them to manage their bank accounts efficiently, and we will continue to enhance its capabilities. Besides that, banks can choose to embed our technology in their systems and offer our solution under their brand to their clients. Cobase will be able to roll out faster to new markets and client segments, and the banks gain access to our technology.”
multi-banking platform for corporates
Cobase offers a one stop, end-to-end solution for corporate customers who manage multiple bank accounts at various banks. The company’s offering provides access to all the various bank accounts via a unified single platform, making it extremely easy to manage them. Cobase’s users also have an option to directly integrate their ERP system into the Cobase platform, which eliminates the need for a separate integration with each bank. Alongside the main accounts integration feature, the company’s platform also includes a central Payment Hub, and various Cash and Treasury Management modules.
Cobase completed ING Wholesale Bank’s accelerator programme back in 2016 and the concept was tested via prototyping, customer interviews and market research. The company’s smart offering doesn’t compete with banks, instead it supports them. Benoît Legrand, Chief Innovation Officer and CEO of ING Ventures at ING says, “Cobase has all the makings of a fintech success story. They are a great example of how we innovate at ING and help companies we invest in to become successful. Their multi-bank platform is a great concept. Cobase is now entering its scale-up phase. We very much welcome our new banking partners to accelerate together the promising growth of Cobase.”
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