This year, funding rounds were quite affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. As we have previously reported, the funding for various sectors has changed in Europe. As expected, while travel startups are lagging in terms of funding, startups in other sectors such as SaaS, fintech and medtech gained significant momentum. One notable fintech startup, the Stockholm-based open banking platform Tink, has now announced securing €85M investment in its latest funding round.
Funding to fuel Tinks’ expansion
The latest €85M investment round extension in Tink was co-led by a new investor, European growth equity player Eurazeo Growth. Current and existing investors such as London-based B2B software venture capital firm Dawn Capital, PayPal Ventures, HMI Capital, Heartcore, ABN AMRO Ventures, Poste Italiane and BNP Paribas’ venture arm, Opera Tech Ventures, also participated in the funding with increased investments.
With the freshly acquired funds, Tink plans to proceed with its continued expansion plans. It will also further develop its payment initiation technology, which is expected to enable more companies across Europe to integrate its payment solutions. It aims to make its payment initiation services live in 10 markets in 2021.
Founded in 2012 in Stockholm, the fintech startup connects to more than 2,500 banks that reach over 250 million bank customers across Europe. It has increased its employee count from 270 to over 350 and it covers 14 European markets out of its 13 offices.
Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO of Tink, says, “Despite the difficulties of 2020, it was a year of great growth for Tink. 2020 has seen payments powered by open banking take-off, and in 2021 we expect to see this scale – most prominently in the UK, followed by Europe. This funding extension will further facilitate the development of our payment initiation services across Europe while continuing to deliver new data-products built on open banking technology to our customers.”
One API to boost them all
Tink offers a single API that enables its numerous customers to access aggregated financial data, initiate payments, view transactions and build personal finance management tools. The company’s digital technology enables services for over 300 banks and fintechs, some notable ones include PayPal, NatWest, ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas, Nordea and SEB. It is also used by more than 8,000 developers and it has an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of €30M.
Tink also made three notable acquisitions in 2020 as a part of its strategy to invest in intelligent data-services based on open banking. The company acquired Swedish credit decisioning firm Instantor, which enabled the company’s capabilities in offering credit risk products built on top of its open banking connectivity. It also acquired Spanish account aggregation provider Eurobits, which is said to have increased its bank connectivity in Europe, and finally the UK-based aggregation platform OpenWrks brought UK business account data to its customers.
The current funding round by Tink follows its €90M in funding, which happened back in January this year. Soon after, the company also extended its open banking support, after receiving investments from PayPal.
