N26 becomes Europe's most valuable fintech startup

Noam Galai | Getty Images for TechCrunch N26 CEO Valentin Stalf speaks on stage during TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2018 on November 30, 2018. Theres a new European unicorn in town. German fintech firm N26 said Thursday it has raised $300 million from investors in a round of funding valuing the online lender at $2.7 billion. That not only puts the company among the ranks of Europes unicorns or private start-ups valued at more than $1 billion. It also makes it one of the most valuable unicorns in the continent. According to data compiled by CB Insights , just six other privately held European firms can claim to top N26s market value: Global Switch, Roivant Sciences, Auto1 Group, Ottobock, The Hut Group and BGL Group. N26s latest funding exercise was led by U.S. private equity firm Insight Venture Partners with additional backing from Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC. Its other backers include Chinese tech giant Tencent , German insurer Allianz and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiels venture arm Valar Ventures. Global expansion The companys mobile bank app is currently available in 24 European countries. It recently added the U.K. to the list, and sees itself broadening its international footprint again, with a U.S. expansion due early this year. Insight Venture Partners has been one of the biggest venture firms globally, N26 Chief Executive Valentin Stalf told CNBC in a phone interview. I think its a great addition to our investors, and launching in the U.S. in the first half of 2019, its a great reconfirmation of doing that. The Berlin-based fintech firm offers users a mobile app and a debit card, but doesnt have a single physical bank branch. It counts itself among a breed of digital banking challengers Revolut, Monzo, Starling and Atom, just to name a few that are aiming to eat away at larger lenders customer base. With over 2 million users signed up to the app, N26 hopes to reach 10 million customers globally within the next couple of years, Stalf said. The investment announced Thursday will be used to fund the start-ups international expansion plans. The next goal is taking N26 global and transforming it from being a European company into a global company, Stalf said. We would like the business to grow to four to six more markets other than the U.S. and Europe. N26s boss said its focus beyond the U.S. and Europe would be on Latin America, and added that he would not rule out a launch in Asia further down the line. show chapters What is fintech? 11:59 AM ET Thu, 7 June 2018 | 03:34 IPO dream The firm has now racked up a total of more than $500 million in funding since it was founded in 2013. Insight Venture Partners is known to invest in companies that eventually go public, with its investment portfolio including the likes of Delivery Hero and DocuSign . Stalf said that, while launching an initial public offering is a dream for him and his fellow co-founders, the company has no immediate plans. Going public will be an option I think going forward but its also not the only option for us, he said. This round is great for us as entrepreneurs because we are very flexible. We dont need to raise funds, Stalf added. We can if the business develops well, and we will evaluate the options all the time. Going public has always been the dream for us as founders, but lets see.

Anyone can build a bank’ was the attitude with which Revolut approached the challenge of disrupting finance, but unsurprisingly there are quite a few stumbling blocks that stop (most) newbies. In this talk Vlad Yatsenko, co-founder and CTO of Revolut, will discuss the range of problems Revolut has encountered building a whole new banking backend, what mistakes they made along the way, and how they have scaled their solution to serve over 4 million users.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE: https://linktr.ee/startup_notes

We had the pleasure to have Valentin Stalf, Co-Founder & CEO of N26, as the guest for our fourth live edition of Startup Notes.

Together with moderator Christian Miele (Partner at e.ventures), Valentin Stalf (N6) discussed how to balance gut feeling vs. data analysis when building an MVP, the importance of creating an “MLP” (minimum lovable product), how to establish a product-driven company culture, and why N26 itself was the outcome of a big pivot.

Nikolay Storonsky, CEO and Founder of Revolut, shares the story of how he was able to launch Revolut in July 2015 and then scale it to nearly 1 million customers in just over two years. He will provide a glimpse into how they are able to maintain the astonishing pace of innovation that makes them the most talked about fintech company in Europe today.

LendIt Fintech hosts the world’s leading conferences in financial services innovation and fintech. To see more videos from our Europe 2017 event, visit http://www.lendit.com/europe/2017/videos. To learn about upcoming conferences, visit http://www.lendit.com.