London, UK, 6th April 2020: Leading enterprise connectivity platform Yapily has today announced that it has raised $13m in a Series A funding round. The fintech will use the investment to drive open banking adoption by organisations across Europe; providing a strong, secure and powerful connectivity layer that enriches customer experiences and creates financial opportunity.
The investment was led by Lakestar, an early investor in Skype, Spotify, Airbnb and Facebook as well as one of Europe’s biggest fintechs - Revolut. Existing investors HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and LocalGlobe also participated in the round.
Angel investors also include Taavet Hinrikus (TransferWise chairman and co-founder), Ott Kaukver (Twilio’s CTO), Roberto Nicastro (UniCredit’s former deputy CEO) and Frank Strauss (Former CEO of Deutsche Postbank).
The new funding comes during a highly successful period for the London-based fintech, in the last six months its monthly recurring revenue has grown by over 500%; quadrupled its headcount in London to 45; and expanded into Italy, Ireland and France, as it works towards total market coverage in Europe, with new territories added regularly.
The UK is at the epicentre of the world’s open finance movement
With the UK at the centre of open banking innovation and development, today’s investment announcement shows significant market confidence in Yapily. With more than 6,000 banks affected by the PSD2 deadline, most European countries are set to release quality APIs publicly in 2020. Open banking technology is also being adapted to other aspects of financial services as part of open finance. The new funding will be used by Yapily to consolidate its position in Europe as the backbone of open banking, and the infrastructure that partners need in order to take advantage of open finance.
Yapily offers a proprietary open API that enables companies to access the financial information needed to meet rising customer expectations in banking, lending, payments, accounting and money management. It boasts Fortune 500 companies and fast growth fintechs as clients, including Intuit QuickBooks, where Yapily’s API is used by the accounting software provider to help thousands of its SME customers access insights and financial information from bank accounts in UK, France & Ireland. Other customers and partners of Yapily include IBM and GoCardless.
Yapily also collaborates with technical design authorities and regulators, such as Open Banking Implementation Entity in the UK and Berlin Group.
Stefano Vaccino, Founder and CEO of Yapily, said: “We believe open banking is a force for good. Using our API and infrastructure, we’re not only providing our partners with strong and powerful connectivity to boost their user experiences. But we’re also giving their customers, whether they be consumers or businesses, greater control of their finances, through the creation of products and services which can fuel greater financial management and accessibility. Something that’s more essential than ever during this period of uncertainty.
The UK is at the epicentre of the world’s open finance movement, with the industry setting the rules as the world begins to embrace their own open banking positions. We’re pleased to be at the centre of this growth - we’re backed by experienced investors, and we’re the only technical provider trusted and chosen by regulators and technical committees. With this funding we intend to drive open banking adoption and its benefits, ensuring benefits are far reaching within the likes of payments, accounting, lending and beyond.”
Stephen Nundy, Partner at Lakestar, said: “With pressure placed on the world’s economy due to the Covid-19 outbreak, we believe investors have an important role to play in continuing to support innovation to fuel business growth. Now has never been a more important time to drive financial wellbeing and goodwill, and Yapily’s infrastructure is best placed to enable and encourage this across the financial ecosystem.”
“With Yapily, we’re investing in market leading technology that is ahead of the competition, both in terms of seamlessness to the end user, and in security and control. Their “Open API first” approach, with no screen scraping or reverse engineering of functionality, ensures all parties are getting the performance, scale, and security expected of such a critical piece of API infrastructure."
"Stefano and his growing team have deep technical and regulatory expertise, they’re very ambitious, and we look forward to accelerating Yapily’s business growth.”
Ola Malomo, Head of Bank Partnerships at Intuit QuickBooks, said: “By plugging Yapily’s API directly into our platform, we’re able to offer our SME customers a smooth and simple way to access their financial information, unlocking real-time insights into their cashflow. We look forward to working with Yapily as the company continues to thrive.”
About Yapily
Yapily is an enterprise connectivity platform, enabling companies to seamlessly access users’ financial data. Powering a new era of financial services, Yapily empowers people around the world to receive faster, affordable and personalised products. The company has raised $18m funding to date, and over the last six months monthly recurring revenue has grown over 500%.
About Lakestar
Lakestar is one of Europe’s leading venture capital firms investing in technology companies led by exceptional entrepreneurs. The team’s early investments included Skype, Spotify, Facebook and airbnb. Since raising a first fund in 2013, Lakestar manages an aggregated volume of over EUR 1bn across three early stage funds, and more recently a growth fund. The company has expanded and broadened its portfolio and holds investments in the likes of Opendoor, Oscar, GYG, Glovo, Sennder, Eigen, FiveAI, Revolut and Hometogo to name a few. Lakestar has presence in Berlin, Zurich and London.
Lakestar helps companies to identify new markets and expand into them rapidly, with a focus on the US and Europe. The team advises and supports portfolio companies in business development, recruitment, technology and marketing. The investments range from early stage companies to those in their growth stage. Visit us on LinkedIn and our website www.lakestar.com
