HomeFundingPortuguese startup LOQR raises €8 million to transform the banking and financial...

Portuguese startup LOQR raises €8 million to transform the banking and financial sector

LOQR, a Portuguese startup that provides digital solutions for financial institutions, has just announced a Series A investment round worth €8 million. This investment included the participation of Iberis Capital and Semapa Next, and was backed by current investors, such as EDP Ventures, BiG Start Ventures and HCapital – the last two through funds in partnership with Banco Português de Fomento.

Founded in 2015, LOQR is a leading digital onboarding platform for financial institutions. It provides a fully compliant end-to-end platform that allows banks and other highly regulated verticals to take the next step to a digital business, such as offering services as remote account opening, customer data update and remote access recovery, and other services, as an integrated digital channel.

The new amount raised will allow the fintech company – led by Ricardo Costa (Founder & CEO), Jorge Silva (Founder & CCO), Pedro Borges (Founder & COO) and João Cerdeira (CTO) – to continue to invest in the digital transformation of the financial sector, strengthening its international expansion, to invest in technology and innovation, and focusing on the evolution of the platform.

According to João Henriques, Partner at Iberis Capital: “LOQR is an operator with a unique and innovative technological approach to the digital transformation and dematerialization of the banking sector, based on the development of intellectual property and R&D. In a short period of time, it was able to gain a unique position in the Iberian market and to position itself for its next expansion process. We, as new strategic and financial partners of LOQR, are very excited to be part of its journey of growth and internationalization”.

Hugo Augusto, Executive Board Member of Semapa Next, said: “We invested in LOQR because its founders demonstrated exceptional qualities to create a differentiating company in Europe. The company’s team created a simple product for a complex problem, already validated by the main banks in Iberia. Additionally, the quality of the talent that has come together is a sign of the founders’ leadership capacity and a strong indicator of LOQR’s potential to be the leader in digital identification and authentication for traditional banking in Europe ”.

LOQR is operating solidly in Portugal, working with five of the six most renowned and leading national banks. Some of its clients are: Santander (a major global player), Caixa Geral de Depósitos (a major player in the Portuguese financial market operating span over 22 countries in Europe, Africa, America and Asia), Millennium BCP (present in Portugal, Poland, Switzerland, Mozambique, Angola and China), ActivoBank, a Retail Banking by Millenium BCP, Banco Montepio, Banco Português de Gestão, BiG, Montepio Crédito and Novo Banco. The company’s expansion to Europe was the next step and its focus is now on the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

Keeping up with the prospects for growth, the technology company will open more than 40 job vacancies in the coming weeks, with the team – currently 50 employees – expected to double by the end of the year. Backend Software Engineer, Business Developer, Business Analyst & Quality Assurance, Content Marketer, DevOps Engineer, Frontend Software Engineer, Product Manager and SOC Analyst are some of the open positions.

In just five years, we went from being a new and unknown company in the financial sector to being a market leader, with reference clients in Portugal, Spain and Norway”, Ricardo Costa, CEO of LOQR, highlighted. “We have proven that it is possible to provide secure financial services remotely and we are obviously proud of our path so far, especially in streamlining processes, to the detriment of waiting, traveling and hassles. But we want to go even further. This investment will allow us to focus our dedication in a wider geographic area, towards sustained internationalization. And, to achieve this goal, we will grow at the most diverse levels – people, development, technology and innovation – but always with the same ambition: to be the market leader in which we operate”, he concluded.

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Charlotte Tucker
Charlotte Tucker
Charlotte is the previous Editor at EU-Startups.com. She spends her time scouting the next big story, managing our contributor team, and getting excited about social impact ventures. She has previously worked as a Communications Consultant for number of European Commission funded startup projects.
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