Today London-based startup Yapily, a leading enterprise connectivity platform, has announced snapping up €12 million in a Series A funding round, led by Lakestar, and with participation from existing investors HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and LocalGlobe and angel investors. The fintech will use the investment to drive open banking adoption by organisations across Europe.
Yapily, founded in 2017, is how people connect to banks, easily. As an award-winning, ‘API Only’ technology provider, its mission is to enable innovative products to connect to banks, empowering a new generation of financial services. In other words, Yapily works ‘behind the scenes’ helping companies meet rising customer expectations in banking, lending, payments, accounting and money management.
The startup already boasts Fortune 500 companies and fast growth fintechs as clients, including Intuit QuickBooks, where Yapily’s API is used to help thousands of its SME customers access insights and financial information from bank accounts in UK, France and Ireland.
In May 2019, the startup raised €4.8 million in seed funding from repeat investors HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and LocalGlobe, to develop its API platform. This funding was put to good use, as during the last six months, the startup’s monthly recurring revenue has grown by over 500%, it’s quadrupled its headcount in London to 45, and has also expanded into Italy, Ireland and France.
Lakestar was the lead investor in this round, and is well known as being 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, alongside a consortium of angel investors, including 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).
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.”
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.”
