From left: Raisin founders Michael Stephan, Dr Tamaz Georgadze and Dr Frank Freund. Image: Raisin
A rise in customers, a peak of €2bn in investments across its platform and now €30m in a Series C round – things are looking up at Raisin.
Doubling its total money raised to €60m, the latest funding round for fintech marketplace Raisin marks a mammoth few months for the company.
The Berlin-based company lets customers across Europe invest in savings accounts around the EU that offer the best interest rates.
In September, with 50,000 users, it had seen €1.7bn invested across its platform. By January, its users had risen to 60,000, the total invested across its platform had rocketed to €2bn and the company was seeking funding.
Now, with €30m secured, Raisin will put the funds into its existing service, with plans to access new customers, expand into more localised markets and broaden its product offering towards additional simple investment products.
The company is already far removed from where it was only one year ago. In 12 months, it has more than doubled the number of partner banks to 27 and broadened its reach from Germany and Austria into 31 countries across. Italy is next on the list for expansion.
“Our goal is to continuously strengthen Raisin’s innovative proposition and to become the go-to-marketplace for all Europeans for their savings and investment needs,” said Tamaz Georgadze, co-founder and CEO of Raisin.
The current round was led by US-based Thrive Capital – which has investments in start-ups such as Spotify, Slack, and Oscar – with participation from Raisin’s existing investors, Palo Alto-based Ribbit Capital and Index Ventures.
“We are proud to support the incredible team at Raisin as they continue to build on their success, providing the leading marketplace for savings across Europe,” said Jared Weinstein, partner at Thrive Capital.
Accenture reports that $5.3bn was invested into fintech in the first quarter of 2016, driving development with the likes of robo-advisers, blockchain process and payments options. However, evolution in savings has yet to really catch fire. Raisin, it seems, is changing that in Europe.
“Europe is a continent of savers who tend to put 70-80pc of their liquid assets into accounts earning almost zero interest and despite this, they hardly ever switch banks,” said Neil Rimer, partner at Index Ventures, Raisin’s early investor.
“The €2bn that European savers have deposited with Raisin proves that offering higher interest rates and making it easy and painless for people to move their deposits between banks is an attractive proposition.”
