Regardless of being strategically located between East and West, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania typically fly beneath the radar of executives. Nevertheless, they’re steadily establishing themselves as fintech powerhouses.
The Balkan states skilled main financial challenges upon regaining their independence in 1991. But, these challenges additionally offered new alternatives. The post-Soviet nations transitioned to market economies and rapidly remodeled their enterprise atmosphere.
One benefit the Baltic states had was their lack of legacy banking infrastructure. In contrast to many Western nations that needed to transition from conventional banking programs to digital platforms, the Baltics “leapfrogged” immediately into digital monetary providers.
At the moment, the Baltic fintech ecosystem consists of over 500 firms addressing digital funds, cryptocurrency, insurtech, and lots of extra. Estonia’s Smart (previously TransferWise), Lithuania’s Vinted and Revolut have all achieved “unicorn” valuations of over $1B (€0.92M).
Every of the states has its achievements. Estonia, for instance, has the very best variety of unicorns per capita worldwide. Latvia simply received an anti-money laundering (AML) crackdown, making it a sensible alternative for compliance experience. In the meantime, Lithuania has elevated its variety of fintech corporations from a handful to over 270.
Every of the states has a singular strategy to fintech. Let’s get to know some disruptors on this business.
Montonio
Founder(s): Henrik Rank, Karel Nappus, Karl Kristjan Kalluste, Kristofer Turmen, Markus Lember, Rasmus Õisma
Based: 2018
Funding: €14.5M
Hiring: Sure, try job alternatives right here
Based by a workforce of entrepreneurs, Montonio is an all-in-one cost platform for European on-line retailers. It presents quite a lot of native cost strategies, together with card funds, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, all at low prices.
Montonio simplifies refund processes and delivery administration for its shopper base. It offers a “purchase now, pay later” choice, permitting prospects to separate purchases into instalments with zero charges or curiosity. Retailers, nonetheless, will obtain full cost upfront.
Its dashboard permits retailers to entry real-time information on funds, delivery, and refunds.
By means of its platform, Montonio guarantees to place an finish to overcharging. It additionally desires to remove cost complexities by means of its self-serve API integration.
Xolo
Founder(s): Avo Alender, Erik Mell, Erko Hansar, Urmo Pärg
Based: 2015
Funding: €11M
Hiring: Sure, try job alternatives right here
Fintech firm Xolo lowered enterprise administration time to close zero by merging invoicing, compliance, and banking right into a single app. Catering to entrepreneurs, it targets 40 million professionals worldwide who run their companies independently.
Xolo’s platform accommodates firm formation, banking, accounting, and different providers. This makes it the quickest and best approach to launch and run a one-person freelancing enterprise in Europe.
Though based mostly in Tallinn, Xolo’s largest consumer base lies in Germany, Spain, France, the UK, Ukraine, and Turkey.
Its typical prospects are professionals who want a powerful, simple platform for enterprise operations. This contains software program builders, administration consultants, designers, and others.
Led by CEO Mikko Teerenhovi, Xolo now has 140,000 signups and €7.2M in annualised income (ARR).
Tuum
Founder(s): Jan Lakspere, Ove Kreison, Rivo Uibo, Vilve Vene
Based: 2019
Funding: €45M
Hiring: Sure, try job alternatives right here
Previously referred to as Modularbank, Tuum is a cloud-based banking platform. Based by a workforce of banking and expertise consultants, the corporate presents a set of banking providers for companies.
Tuum is designed to simply combine with current monetary infrastructures. With it, each conventional banks and fintech firms can enhance and add their digital choices. Tuum’s platform is cloud-native, which implies it might probably run on all main cloud suppliers and personal clouds.
Tuum, which raised €4M in a spherical of late seed funding in December 2020, is headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia. Its CEO Vilve Vene employs over 60 folks throughout a number of workplaces in Berlin and Malaga as effectively.
4finance
Founder(s): Aigars Kesenfelds
Based: 2008
Funding: $734.2M (€679M)
Hiring: Sure, try job alternatives right here
4finance is a fintech firm specialising in on-line and cell shopper lending. Established in 2008, the corporate turned the most important shopper lending group throughout 11 nations in Europe.
Its lending merchandise embrace single-payment loans, instalment loans, and features of credit score. The corporate assesses credit score danger utilizing superior analytics to offer particular lending options.
The distinctive strategy led to the corporate issuing over €8B in loans to a broad buyer base. Main manufacturers like Vivus, SMSCredit, and Zaplo are included in its buyer portfolio.
The corporate’s group workplaces are positioned in Riga and London. Nevertheless, it oversees operations in nations similar to Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Spain, and Sweden.
4finance additionally providers its prospects by means of TBI Financial institution, an EU-licensed banking operation that gives shopper and SME lending in Bulgaria and Romania.
kevin.
Founder(s): Pavel Sokolovas, Tadas Tamosiunas
Based: 2018
Funding: $79.4M (€73.4M)
Hiring: Sure, try job alternatives right here
Headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, kevin. is a fintech firm that gives superior account-to-account cost infrastructure. Led by entrepreneur Tadas Tamošiūnas, it has turn into a giant participant within the funds business.
kevin.’s expertise eliminates the necessity for bank cards by connecting on to customers’ financial institution accounts. The platform helps conventional playing cards, pay-by-link, point-of-sale (POS) programs, direct debit, and on-line funds.
kevin. advantages each retailers and shoppers with its environment friendly and cost-effective transactions. Companies of all sizes can even use kevin.’s customisable and scalable funds answer.
The corporate has raised $65M (€60.11M) in Collection A funding from traders like Accel and Eurazeo. This monetary backing has enabled kevin. to rent over 300 workers throughout Europe. It’s optimistic in positioning itself on a trajectory in the direction of reaching unicorn standing.
Mintos
Founder(s): Martins Sulte, Martins Valters
Based: 2015
Funding: €14.2M
Hiring: Sure, try job alternatives right here
Mintos is a worldwide market for investing in loans based mostly in Riga, Latvia. The corporate was based by entrepreneurs Martins Sulte and Martins Valters in 2015.
Mintos has created a platform that connects retail traders with mortgage alternatives. The corporate serves over 500,000 traders inside the European Union. It additionally manages property price over €600M.
Regulated beneath the Markets in Monetary Devices Directive (MiFID) within the European Union, Mintos is a singular approach to construct wealth. It implements environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards in its practices. The corporate additionally maintains excessive requirements of anti-corruption and anti-bribery measures.
Mintos encourages current prospects and the broader public to turn into shareholders. Finally, it goals to turn into the main alternative for each particular person searching for long-term wealth constructing.
Profitus
Founder(s): Viktorija Vanagė
Based: 2017
Funding: Undisclosed
Hiring: Sure, try job alternatives right here
Profitus is an actual property funding platform based mostly in Vilnius, Lithuania, with a brand new strategy to actual property financing. Launched in mid-2018, it goals to democratise actual property investments by permitting customers to begin investing with as little as €50.
The platform bridges traders with actual property builders searching for financing. Buyers can flick through actual property tasks on the platform and select those that align with their targets. The funding is secured by the pledged property of the challenge proprietor, which additional secures the transaction.
In 2019, Profitus participated in a trial inside the Vilnius-based Realbox Proptech sandbox. The challenge allowed it to broaden its community of traders and prospects. Profitus has additionally raised €300,000 in seed funding to additional develop its platform.
Evarvest
Founder(s): Stephanie Brennan
Based: 2018
Funding: €239.5K
Hiring: Sure, try job alternatives right here
Based mostly in Vilnius, Lithuania, Evarvest is a fintech startup that seeks to alter how people put money into the inventory market. Based in early 2018, Evarvest makes international inventory exchanges accessible by offering a easy, commission-free funding platform.
The corporate helps customers put money into the manufacturers they know, love, and belief with out the complexities related to inventory buying and selling. Even earlier than its official launch, Evarvest already has over 28,000 customers on its waitlist.
Now, it integrates greater than 30 of the world’s inventory exchanges and presents customers entry to over 9,000 shares. At the moment, Evarvest is concentrated on securing its monetary brokerage license and finalising its funding platform.
Regardless of being a comparatively younger firm, Evarvest obtained accolades inside the fintech sector. The startup has been acknowledged within the Barclays Rise Vilnius 2018 Fintech Week Pitch Competitors and the FintechInn Convention 2018 Pitch Battle.
